Episode 20: New Beginnings & Capitalism
Are we in “late stage capitalism?” Can capitalism be reformed, restored, or redeemed? Marti and Todd cover why these are not the most important questions to consider. Rather, we need cycles of action at all scales that create the frameworks of the future.
From the Edge: Cosmology (Marti)
Conscious Rant: Simplistic Platitudes (Todd)
Series: New Beginnings
We're at risk of mistaking the current surge of new energies and opportunities for chaos, instead of recognizing them as energies of a new beginning that have risen from what is completing. Marti and Todd began to wonder about all the things we're deeply familiar with that may be coming to completion, and what may be emerging as well.
Timeline
1:30 Marti’s opening thoughts on new beginnings
3:59 Cycles of action
8:26 Todd’s opening thoughts on capitalism
13:14 Late stage capitalism
17:26 The end of the advertising age?
24:41 Where momentum is growing
27:09 Mutual aid & beyond money
31:46 Rethinking investment
34:09 From small scale to large scale
36:47 Stuffing people into frameworks
44:52 Focusing on what works
54:49 From the Edge: Cosmology (Marti)
1:02:10 Conscious Rant: Simplistic Platitudes (Todd)
Quotes
“If we don't know about these two momentums [endings and beginnings], we'll inadvertently stay with the first one because we know it. But that first one is designed to take things to ground, to end. If we're not careful, we'll get stuck down there trying to do new things with the old information—old energy.” — Marti Spiegelman
“The world and life and consciousness are always on the move, surging ahead into change and growth. They never go backwards. So we can either fight against this surge and try to recreate what we had, or we could leap into the surge and learn to move forward and grow with the forces of change around us.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Every cycle of action creates for itself the knowledge and the momentum to do two things: One, to express itself, and bring itself to full completion. The second thing a cycle of action creates is new wisdom and new momentum for a new beginning.” — Marti Spiegelman
“It's not the systems that are the key, but the level of consciousness that lies beneath them.” — Todd Hoskins
“Evolution doesn’t happen at the level of form.” — Todd Hoskins
“For us to declare that the next iteration of capitalism is more compassionate or more fair, or that it's socialism or democratic socialism, this takes us away from the energies that are helping create those new systems and structures.” — Todd Hoskins
“Collectively there is a feeling,a knowing that the forms that we have created—the form that we call a business, or the form that we call a bank—these frameworks are becoming unstable.” — Marti Spiegelman
“People are scrambling for new ways to do business. One of the problems is that they're holding onto an old idea of business.” — Marti Spiegelman
“It's either me or you, my product or your product, my country's way of doing it—my currency, not your currency. So when we talk about shifting the idea of capitalism and new beginnings for capitalism, we're talking about shifting consciousness on a really big scale.” — Marti Spiegelman
“The people who are doing new ways of business and new ways of creating value and distributing value, it doesn't matter at the scale that you're doing. These small scale things are going to become the big scale.” — Marti Spiegelman
“I really don't want to spend more time arguing about what is the best system. Let's look at what's in front of us as possibilities here now.” — Todd Hoskins
“Fluidity always speaks its own best structure.” — Marti Spiegelman
“There are millions of people who feel like their decisions, their actions don't really make a difference. And they're stuck in a system that they don't want to be in.” — Todd Hoskins
“People are always focusing on what doesn't work, and what they can't do, and what what's wrong with ‘this,’ and what's wrong with ‘that.’ In the meantime, there are all these seeds of possibility that never get planted, that they never germinate. It doesn't matter what doesn't work. I mean, you can learn from what doesn't work. Absolutely. But focus on what does work because that's where the next inspiration comes from. Everyone's creative action, no matter the scale, is vitally important.” — Marti Spiegelman
“As expression evolves, the framework evolves. And the problem with things like capitalism is they're not evolving.” — Marti Spiegelman
“One of the worst things a cosmology of scarcity creates for us is fear of the unknown. The unknown seems emptier than the known. It feels more like a place of scarcity to us and in the face of the unknown – as now – we develop a reluctance to try something new, to begin anew.” — Marti Spiegelman
“This new cosmology – new beginnings, new alignments, the sacred in all things – offers us a framework for growth, for emerging not just anew, but wiser, stronger, more deeply connected to one another, with a new level of respect for life and our role as humans on the planet. It is so much more powerful and practical than our old cosmology of scarcity. Instead of aiming our attention at finding the missing piece, we aim our attention toward continual, abundant, collective, sacred life.” — Marti Spiegelman
“Part of the reason these simplistic platitudes appeal to us is we want things to be tidy. We don’t like messiness. For a human world that is still envisioned as and modeled after a machine, we expect a manual. There is no manual.” — Todd Hoskins
Links
Elkington recalls the “Triple Bottom Line”
Stuart Kaufmann & The Adjacent Possible
Credits
Theme music courtesy of Cloud Cult