Economics; a Taoist viewpoint?

An interesting hallucination

Summary
Against the frame of reference of the history of the planet, the study of economics has scarcely
begun. There is an abundance of evidence that economics is not holistically understood. If it was,
economic crashes would not happen, and they have happened regularly, and will probably
continue to happen. Some are due external circumstances (I am not including the recent
pandemic in this statement as the risk was foreseen three years prior to the onset, but the
risks and shortcomings were ignored at best, and possibly exploited as a business
opportunity at worse). Others happened due to incompetence and mismanagement. Various
attempts have been made to formulate “the rules”, and these rules are frequently used to
manipulate the economic circumstances in favour of a minority of the population, possibly/probably
at the expense of the majority. Magna Carta is often held up as a major step forward in the history
of political change; perhaps it was, but mostly for the Barons.
The philosophy of Daoism offers an interestingly different perspective as a world view. It is holistic
in its outlook and sees individuals as being intrinsically linked to the creation and that interactions
between the individual and their surroundings have far reaching effects. Hence, to harm the
creation is to harm the individual and vice versa. Thus could the point of economics be re-focused;
work for the benefit of creation and all in the creation receive benefit.
We are seeing the harm being done to the creation by the pursuit of benefit for “The Economy” as
if the economy had a separate life independent of of the creatures of the planet. If we worked for
the good of the creation in a more holistic way, this mythical beast “The Economy” must also
benefit, because everything would.
Taoist philosophy suggests that the work begins at the centre – in the individual – and works
outwards towards the universal. It does not protest, lobby, or buy its way to power.

Introduction to perspective
It is very tempting to be drawn into the illusion of permanence of the modern world, even though it
is filled with 24 hour change mediated through news channels and social media feeds where it is
understood that the average attention span of a Facebook cruiser is of the order of 10 seconds.
For example, how often did you hear – say, at work, “Oh God, I hate Mondays!” I heard it – every
Monday!

How about the idea that Monday has no real existence beyond
a name in the margin of a diary or calender?
Some centuries ago, if you were unguarded enough to express the idea that the earth wasn’t the
centre of the universe, you faced fatal censure by the religious authorities who controlled thought
with the help of the state authorities in a very iron way.
Now we know differently; We know that our “home galaxy” that we refer to as the Milky Way is
hurtling towards it’s neighbour (The Andromeda Galaxy) at a leisurely 1.3 Million Miles per hour,
while our galactic disk itself is rotating around its centre at a dizzying 483,000 miles per hour. Such
is the size of the galaxy that since the sun collected and illuminated, it has completed 20
revolutions of the disk. Since the first human stood up and looked at the sky, the disk has moved
hardly at all, even at those speeds.
So, from second to second, we are moving through space and time and will never be in the same
place again. Each moment is unique.

Same time, same place?

Referring to the above, impossible.
In its relatively short existence as an apparently solid planet, the continental layout of the surface
has changed radically: The solid surface of the planet is a relatively thin crust floating on a core of
molten rock. The continents drift over millions of years and sometimes are closer to the poles,
(cooler) and sometimes closer to the equator (warmer).
There are other influences; the climate has cycles (measured in tens of thousands to hundreds of
thousands of years) way. These are referred to as Milankovich Cycles, taking the planet into glacial
periods we refer to as “Ice Ages” - and back out to interglacial periods. The controlling factor of
this is mainly the irregularity of the earths orbit, the fact that it wobbles on its axis, but also that
effect of continental drift described above. It is interesting to note that we are currently in a
relatively mild spell in an interglacial period. Who knew? The Planet is also gradually slowing its
rotation about its own axis; there were once 400 days in a year, now there are 365 and a bit! The
“bit is why we have leap-years, but you probably knew that already.
One major climate effect happened about 2.4 million years ago; up to then, there were only traces
of oxygen in the atmosphere. Enter Cyano-bacteria (aka blue-green algae); The climate conditions
were such that algae were able to bloom in the warm seas and super-charge the atmosphere with
this highly reactive gas Oxygen that enabled much more complex life forms to flourish. Given the
right conditions, this can happen again.
We humans might see it as a disaster, to the planet, it is just another change – a shake of the
evolutionary dice, akin to the meteorite that heralded the end of the 150 million year reign of the
dinosaurs. There will be something that will turn this change to its own advantage.
So when the Duke of Westminster’s bit of land slides under the adjacent continental plate, and is
re-melted, and circulated out of existence in the northern hemisphere of the planet, will he sue
someone?
In the current phase of diminishing ice sheets, large quantities of methane that were previously
locked away under a layer of permafrost are now leaking into the atmosphere and adding to the
levels of greenhouse gas.

An economy for the present moment

The modern study of “economy” is a phenomenon that has hardly begun in the history of the world.
As it is currently structured, it only aids one species, and not all of them equally. In its current
embryonic state it is scarcely understood. It is studied and argued over, and in mankind's history,
has been used to justify war and the consolidation of perceived power. In its name, land has been
destroyed, animal species made extinct, whole peoples exploited and enslaved.
It is way past time for humans to “wake up and smell the coffee”, assuming human accelerated
climate change does not cause the coffee plant to become extinct, and also assuming that there is
some fresh water available to brew the coffee.
It is said that human’s have free will, and that we can exercise that will. We need to understand
that exercising it has always consequences. We will ultimately pay for those; it is also said that
when someone is in the present moment, there is no choice to be made but only the “right action”,
sometimes called “God’s will”.
We cannot carry on behaving as we have done in the past 100 years. We now know what damage
is being done and what needs to happen if we as a species are to survive the next 100 years.
So, what changes would need to be made? I would suggest firstly, education. Perhaps this is
already happening, but too slowly, and in too fragmented a way. It might be argued, vested
interests who have excess influence and much to loose will resist this, so the education has to be
at grass-roots level; waiting for a government to do a report or hold an enquiry is a well practiced
way of kicking an awkward question into the long grass. It should be made obvious to everyone
that change of behaviour is needed now, and by everyone. The notion of cost effectiveness of
action should be re-examined and prioritised to consider countering environmental damage at the
very minimum and preferably repairing existing damage as well. Carbon trading, if it continues,
should be based on the real current cost of actually capturing and/or neutralising carbon
emissions, and should not be tradeable between different companies. The idea was once prevalent
that some economic factors are “Externalities” which seems like a way of ignoring the
unpredictable.
In Taoism, external can’t exist without internal; it cannot be discounted. Or, it can, but it is
incomplete to do so. It is said that in Tao Te Ching “Good walking leaves no trace”. In our current
way of walking, just follow the damage and the waste. The way we are walking leaves many
traces.
I think the point to be made here, is that our windows of opportunity to develop on this planet might
be broad in the scale of a human lifespan - although they are now narrowing more rapidly - but
minute on a geological scale.
We would be wise to work in harmony with the planet and the nature we currently have, because
there is ample evidence that every so often, nature gives the evolutionary dice a shake, and the
scene changes more rapidly than we can adapt to. We behave as if the scene was set for ever,
and yet we may need to adopt a Nomadic mind set and that requires flexibility, and a different set
of values beyond the accumulation of goods and property. It requires a view of family beyond our
current patriarchal viewpoint, and needs to include our fellow inhabitants beyond our own species.
The first nations saw the other creatures of the earth as brothers. The European colonisers saw
only resource to be exploited and the indigenous population as competition to be eliminated in the
quest for wealth.
How will we respond if/when the ships from other worlds arrive to make a claim on our
resources, and use their superior technology to enforce their will?