Sufficiency Economics

Its the Quality Not the Quantity Stupid!

John Lerner — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:46:21 +0000

Much, if not all, of modern economics is focused on the perspective of quantity in our world. We are said to be better off if we have more money or less poverty. We are said to said to be wealthy if we have lots of possessions as opposed to a few. A business is thought to be successful if it produces lots of widgets and makes high profits. Rarely does economics, however, talk about well-being and happiness and never does it talk about sufficiency. Yet if economics is really supposed to aid in promoting the well-being of humankind (which I think it is) then it needs to shift its focus from being a purely quantitative science to a qualitative science. This qualitative perspective would focus on managing resources to foster human sufficiency….to foster freedom of choice and freedom of expression. This doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have businesses and workers and a functioning market system but it does mean that the economy would be geared towards empowering people to choose freely who they want to BE, instead of simply focusing on what they need to consume.

Sufficiency and the Financial World

John Lerner — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:17:43 +0000

Are the banks and the stock markets relevant to sufficiency? My sense is that they are and that they tend foster insufficiency more than they foster sufficiency today. The banks’ and the stock markets’ primary motivation is to accumulate money and they tend to do this at our expense. First they tell us we can’t be safe, secure or have what we want until we have an abundance of money. Then they tell us we can’t have an abundance of money unless we give it to them. So we give it to them for a small pittance of interest or return, which they charge us for on one hand and lend it out to us for even more . If we are lucky we may profit somewhat from this investment but generally it tends to be the executives of the financial institutions and the traders who really profit our investments. We are left feeling dazed and insufficient, wondering why this is so. These institutions are the true accumulators and beneficiaries of our hard work.

If sufficiency was the goal of the economy, the goal of financial institutions would not be to accumulate money so much as to facilitate its use. It might be argued that the banks and the stock markets already do facilitate the use of money and this would be correct to some extent but the facilitation tends to be costly to the client and/or the primary goal tends to be to create more accumulation for the financial institutions. In a sufficiency economy, banks would narrow the spread between loans and interest accounts or eliminate interest altogether and simply charge fees for safekeeping and managing loans, which would reduce the incentive to hoard money and the risk of using money and therefore ease its use.

With regard to the stock market, in a sufficiency economy stock speculation, hedging and short selling, which adds no value to the market and is strictly accumulative, would be prohibited. Instead, the stock market would be structured to encourage long term investing, which would allow companies the opportunity to use the stock market to create stable and innovative ventures, instead of worrying about short-term quarterly profits and it would also allow investors to count on more stable long-term returns.

Sufficiency and Wealth

John Lerner — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:24:15 +0000

What do sufficiency and wealth have to do with each other? Does our sufficiency depend on our wealth or does our wealth depend on our sense of sufficiency? Yes and yes but lets start with defining wealth. What is wealth? Is wealth defined by money or things or the mass accumulated of either? Many would say yes or those who would say no may still act as if this were true. I would argue that wealth is something more than a bunch of money or things. Wealth is whatever we give value to….food, loving relations, a healthy planet, fun experiences, time…even lint etc. Wealth is also more than just an accumulation of these valued things or experiences. It is first and foremost the flow of these experiences or things. Indeed, it is the allowance of all that life has to offer. Once we start trying to accumulate experiences or things, we limit that flow. Flow, by definition, goes up and down, in and out…it moves. Accumulation tries to force the flow only in one direction, usually up, which is contrary to life.

If we feel truly sufficient, we have no drive to accumulate. We feel secure and OK within and are not worried about the future. We simply appreciate life in the moment and its experiences and move on to the next moment. We let things come to us, we appreciate them and then we let things go from us and we trust that Universe will provide what we need or want. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have an abundance of money or things. These may come to us at various points in our lives but they may also go. We need not become fixated on accumulating them. True wealth is allowing the flow and abundance of experiences in our lives. Sufficiency provides a foundation for this allowance.

Next post I would like to talk about banking and the stock market.

Sufficiency and Healthcare

John Lerner — Sun, 15 May 2011 21:07:03 +0000

Good health care is central to good health. We in Canada pride ourselves our public healthcare. Its publicly funded, accessible to all citizens and of high quality in most regions. But is it sustainable? No, probably not. It consumes 18% of our GDP at the moment and as the Canadian population continues to age that proportion is bound to grow. Could the healthcare system be better. Yes, but what would “better” be? More MRI’s, quicker service, free pharmaceuticals, house calls, more gadgets? How about a healthcare system that supported healing and disease prevention and not disease management. How about a system that encouraged empowerment not dependency. How about a system that encouraged sufficiency rather than fear.

What would your ideal healthcare system look like? How would we encourage people to take better care of themselves? How would we encourage greater choice in healthcare services?

I AM SUFFICIENT

John Lerner — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:02:59 +0000

Check out my latest posts on sufficiency at www.iamsufficient.ca

Sufficiency Democracy

John Lerner — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:04:48 +0000

These are interesting times.

The countries of the Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are throwing out their dictators in hopes of establishing democracies and gaining more freedom. Many other countries of north Africa and the Middle East are threatening to do the same. China is getting nervous and so is Iran.

Meanwhile, citizens of the West look on with intense interest and admiration. We are becoming more and more disenchanted with our own form of government, as our own elected officials increasingly pay more heed to their corporate sponsors than to us, their electors. Many of us crave a reform of our own system so that it might represent our interests and our values more closely.

But what would a new system of democracy look like if we could redesign it. For me, it would have to be redesigned to allow for greater freedom of individual choice and greater personal sufficiency.

What would a new form of democracy look like for you?

Community Sufficiency Planning

John Lerner — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:45:50 +0000

What might a community sufficiency planning approach look like? Here are my thoughts on a methodology:

1. Begin by communicating the goal of sufficiency to the community. Explain what it means and why it is important as well as the importance of the developing individual talents and abilities as a means to enhancing individual sufficiency.

2. Identify community members interested in exploring their talents and abilities as well as their needs and wants. Determine priorities and barriers to these objectives.

3. Empower community members to identify their own talents and abilities, needs and wants through a self-assessment tool.

4. Once the assessments are complete, survey members to collect data on a community-wide basis.

5. Collate information and determine the distribution of various talents and abilities, needs, wants and possible barriers to realizing these objectives. Where significant patterns are presented, note them.

6. Identify community resources (financial, educational resources, natural resources, infrastructure, policies, etc.) relevant to supporting the development and expression of talents and abilities.

7. Report out findings on talents, abilities, needs and wants as well as on priorities and barriers. Confirm findings and brainstorm ideas for empowering community members to enhance their sense of sufficiency.

8. Develop a community strategy for empowering community members based on findings. Significant patterns can form the basis for focusing investment of community resources.

9. Report out draft strategies to community and obtain final feedback.

10. A key strategy in all communities would be to strengthen education or training resources and ensure that information about these resources is communicated and accessible.

11. Another key strategy in all communities would be to communicate and facilitate options for members to apply their talents and abilities: self-employment, employment, or volunteering.

Further strategies for empowering individual and community sufficiency are briefly discussed in our last post.

PS. Check www.iamsufficient.ca for other interesting discussions on sufficiency.

A Sufficiency Approach to Development II

John Lerner — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:23:43 +0000

We have indicated in the past that education would play a key role in building sufficiency and that education would include technical and philosophical education.

In addition to education, a sufficiency approach to development would provide support for:

awareness raising about the importance of sufficiency to human well-being and the importance of capacity development to sufficiency
assessment tools to help citizens explore their talents and abilities
education and training infrastructure and services
technology transfer
bursaries and loans for education
financing for small business development
business coaching and mentoring
grants and/or tax breaks for research & innovation
a guarenteed annual income for all citizens so that they can pursue their talents and abilities without risk of losing access to basic necessities
planning services at the community level to create community level sufficiency plans

What do you think? Does this make sense? Is it too much or not enough? Is it a different approach or just more of the same? What would you do differently?

Happy New Year.

John Lerner — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:46:54 +0000

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year. May your upcoming year be filled with joy and prosperity and of course a growing sense of sufficiency.

I don’t have much to write at the moment except two announcement:

1) Check out my new blog www.iamsufficient.ca, which deals more generally and esoterically with the concept of sufficiency and

2) Check out a new trailer for the documentary The Economics of Happiness (http://www.good.is/post/watch-the-trailer-for-the-economics-of-happiness/). It looks interesting and appears to discuss many of the issues discussed on this site. Thanks for passing this on Karen.

A New Development Paradigm

John Lerner — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:04:35 +0000

The essence of the sufficiency development paradigm is as follows:

Invest in people’s talents and abilities → this builds the capacity of people to meet their own needs → this builds the capacity of people to see the myriad of choices in front of them and to choose their own destiny→ this builds confidence of people in their own sufficiency→this builds a society of fulfilled, happy, independent, innovative and generous people→this builds a society more likely to be in harmony with all life (human and other species).