Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein [Interview]

From Shareable.net
Interview by Mira Luna
01.29.12

Charles Eisenstein is the author of two of my all time favorite books, the Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics. He graduated from Yale with a degree in Philosophy and Mathematics and now teaches at Goddard College. He is a well known speaker on the topics of culture, spirituality, economics, gifting, the money system and community currencies.

Mira Luna: What got you interested in Economics?

Charles Eisenstein: While researching for Ascent of Humanity and looking into the origin of the all the crises on Earth, when you go down a few levels, you always find money. The money system is deeply implicated obviously in everything that's happening. For a while I believed money is the problem, but money is built on deeper causes - the defining myths of civilization. Still money is deep down and at the core.

I read economic philosophy by a myriad of well known economists, including Keynes, Henry George, and other more mainstream economists. I found that they were all contradictory. I didn't have a degree in Economics, but all these PhD Economists disagreed with each other so I thought a fresh perspective was needed to shift and expand the dialogue. I bring philosophy, history, spirituality, psychology, and nuts and bolts economics into it.

On a personal level I went through a phase where I was deeply in debt and went bankrupt and then broke. I was sleeping at other people's houses with my kids for a while and hit bottom. It became obvious that what I was doing wasn't working. That got me interested in the psychology of money. Money embodies unconscious beliefs in the nature of reality, self and the world like: more for you is less for me, we live in a finite universe with scarce resources, we are separate from each other, we are fundamentally in competition.

Mira: What are the myths underlying the money system?

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