Building a Virtuous Economy: Regional Economies …“Spiritual Capital” ... and Ancient Blueprint for a New Economy Chapter 6, Part 3
Building a Virtuous Economy: Regional Economies …“Spiritual Capital” ... and Ancient Blueprint for a New Economy Chapter 6, Part 3
Welcome to the Birthing the Symbiotic Age Book!
NEW here? — please visit the TABLE OF CONTENTS FIRST and catch up!
You are in Chapter 6, Part 3, Building a Virtuous Economy: Regional Economies – a Virtuous Free Market…“Spiritual Capital” – The Key to a Virtuous Economy … and the Ancient Blueprint for a New Economy
Chapter 6 posts:
Are you trying to figure out where this is All Going? Read an overview of the Symbiotic Culture Strategy, which embodies the Transcendent through the nodes of intersection within local, grassroots-empowered community networks.
Voice-overs are now at the top of my posts for anyone who doesn’t have the time to sit and read! Also, find this chapter post and all previous posts as podcast episodes on
Spotify and Apple!
Previously from Chapter 6, Part 2
I want to go back to something I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter (the previous post), where I listed twenty-five “new economy” movements with their own ideologies and siloed communities.
At the same time, I have identified a “counter-trend” – awakening individuals and forward-seeing organizations that seek to weave the threads of what they have developed into a whole-cloth movement. Our experience in Reno – and, of course, Sarvodaya – calls on us to join in a common cause, step outside of the comfortable silos, and build bridges to local Main Street businesses and organizations.
It would be an “all species” movement that includes everyone in a local community who desires a new Culture of Connection. ALL local organizations—“conventional” enterprises AND “new economy” initiatives—would be brought together to build what I have previously called a “Network Commons” (more on this later).
That is how we truly, in the real world, build a virtuous economy using our
“spiritual wealth” as the Power to UNITE the Good and do that locally, wherever we are.
Chapter 6, Part 3 Building a Virtuous Economy
Regional Economies – a Virtuous Free Market
Adam Smith, even in late 1770, was against large mercantile companies such as the East India Trading Company forming alliances and getting politically “captured” by governments such as Britain. He thought this type of system, uniting large corporations and government, was a monopolistic evil, with top-down control oppressing the poor—the antithesis of free markets.
He believed that truly free markets couldn’t exist when large companies used their wealth and power to leverage governmental authority to gain an unfair advantage over smaller local businesses. His view of what would much later be labeled “capitalism” favored virtuous, local, regional markets rather than what has become the materialistic, neoliberal, globalist order—an immersive Culture of Separation.
I began to see how Adam Smith’s vision of strong regional economies was more in line with Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of India as a Commonwealth of Village Republics (through what he called Swaraj and Swadeshi, to be discussed later) and Dr. Ari’s Sarvodaya movement.
Smith’s free market vision was about horizontal, not vertical, organization. It promoted local free trade and community to community. This would not come about because of some expert’s “5-year plan” but voluntarily and spontaneously. It’s a self-organizing system where people in local regions retain agency to govern themselves rather than falling prey to national politicians of right or left, who always seem to want to impose their idea of a “socially engineered” society.
Along those same lines, Adam Smith was famous for championing local communities governing themselves rather than defaulting to what he called the “man of system.” He wrote that politicians and leaders of movements get infected by what he called the “spirit of the system,” a “messianic” moral certainty that the political reforms they want are necessary regardless of who it hurts to achieve them. We can certainly see these righteous, absolutist positions in today’s social movements, both left and right.
It is the classic top-down approach of people “above,” thinking they know what is best for those “below” them, and their tendency to want to impose their ideas on others — for their own good — as if society were a chessboard and people were just pieces to be moved around.
Bottom line: The collectivist impulse to benefit “all of us” must be balanced by the libertarian concern for “each of us.”
Even in his time, Smith recognized that our impulses for “self-serving” love were the primary cause of societal imbalance. He wrote, “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”
It is sad that today, we live in a world where those on the polarized left and right wield the power to impose their own pre-determined solutions on the rest of us, while those who seek to unite us and work for the common good—a sane and sacred center—can barely be heard through the noise.
I hope this book will foster a public conversation about these real solutions.
If I seem focused on Adam Smith – I am.
I want to debunk the cliché idea of capitalism and reiterate that what passes for capitalism these days is really “corporatism” – the unholy alliance between too much money and too much power. He was against corporations and government colluding because he felt that unchecked power would destroy the basis for a virtuous market system, oppress poor people, and lead to tyranny.
In contrast to our amoral or downright immoral global system—which values the anti-virtues—Smith’s market system favored regional, owner-managed enterprises. Owners who reside in the communities where they do business have a moral and personal stake in the future of the community—creating local employment, producing local goods for local consumption with local resources, and contributing to the regional economy.
He had a local bias, favoring regional free markets and trade, but likely would have opposed global trade, as he was critical of large corporations, such as the exploitative East India Trading Company. Adam Smith clearly favored regional economies, not the global economies we see today.
In that spirit, I say it’s time to evolve beyond any of the “isms” like capitalism, communism, and socialism and recognize that isms are rigid belief systems, barely capable of encompassing new ideas, let alone collaborating with those who have differing views. And … these belief systems are artificial constructs that don’t tangibly exist!
When we stop to consider how much energy is spent being anti-any one of these, it is no wonder the world system is so stuck. Railing against an idea that doesn’t exist is a form of insanity!
We need to combine ideas that work practically and help uplift ALL people and communities.
I believe there must be a moral basis for a free market, with the sovereignty of the individual and the family unit combined with a community-based “network commons,” still a beautiful, functional idea that works at a regional scale.
Arguments about the three economic systems mentioned above miss the main point: they are all part of a Culture of Separation, with its underlying structure of secular materialism as the true “unseen hand.” When people criticize Marxism (rightly so) as promoting atheistic materialism, the same could be said about Western “capitalism” and “socialism.”
Adam Smith wrote that free markets without a common “Ground of Being” or connection to a higher Transcendent Ideal, a greater Good, or a spiritual foundation focused primarily on wealth and power become the basis for tyranny. Our system, without a shared vision of love, is doomed to repeat the sorry history of empires' rise and fall.
Back to the story!
Word got around, and our symbiotic network idea spread to other regions. In 2004, I was invited by a professor of community development in Madison, Wisconsin, to a breakfast that inspired the formation of the Dane County (Wisconsin) Buy Local Initiative. They had more than 100 business owners, community leaders, political officials, and citizens all wanting the same thing: to bring their community together by supporting their local economy. It has since become Dane Buy Local and one of the largest such organizations in the United States.
It’s heartening to know the symbiotic network idea can spread with minimal involvement of “outside” leadership. This example demonstrates that when given clear and effective tools, people and communities can empower themselves — just like Sarvodaya. My hope is that you will be inspired by what I have done and do so much more, with only a minimum of support from the “outside.”
Meanwhile, back in Reno, our endeavor took hold and gathered momentum. Our network of locally owned independent businesses and community organizations ended up having a region-wide, even statewide impact.
A website and an online directory were created, all before Facebook. In 2005, a total of 30,000 physical Hometown Directories were published to make it easier for residents to “Think Local” first. The city of Reno and the state of Nevada ended up adopting some of our key concepts and projects. You will read about those in the following chapters.
Here’s an excerpt from our physical Hometown Directory:
“Where Locals Shop Locals,” the message was to “seek an improved and sustainable community-based economy and culture committed to encouraging positive, conscious behaviors that promote shared, universal virtues to help solve community needs in the Truckee Meadows micro-bioregion … you have a vital role in shaping the community economy and local culture … we seek to mobilize the communities resources by re-localizing our spending patterns into the regional economy.”
As I look back, I cringe a bit that we called our project a “Conscious Community Network,” not just because it sounds a bit “new-age” or woo-woo but because of the implied spiritual arrogance — we’re spiritual, you’re not. And yet, the words “conscious community” reflected the fundamental intention of addressing not just the outer but the “inner” — individually and collectively.
The idea of a conscious community is not about people who think they are conscious coming together — it’s the opposite. A conscious community would be one where the people within it can recognize when they are not conscious. This is in alignment again with the Christian idea of conscience, where a person is in touch with knowing right from wrong in the field of action and being able to own up to any wrong they may do.
The positive part of conscience is to cultivate the virtues of love and compassion in our community work. In other words, it brings consciousness to the community — and that community, in turn, brings greater consciousness.
While businesses may have gotten on board because of the perceived financial benefit, the project ultimately had staying power because it had a “glue” in universal positive Virtues and strengthened relationships inside our community. Local businesses recognized that to compete against the chains that offered lower prices, they had to serve customers in other, more personalized ways. Business owners began to help their employees learn to listen better to customers and to take more care so that those customers felt better when they left than when they came in.
Another reason for our success is that we replaced the old “battlefield” with a new “playing field.” Instead of complaining, criticizing, or railing at the incursion of big stores into the local economy, we withdrew focus from fighting what we didn’t want and used that energy to build something better. At our initial meetings, there were business owners who were angry and wanted to “boycott” Walmart.|
“We’re not going to do that,” I said. “We are going to take this energy that you have against these extractive corporations that have come to our community, and we’re going to turn it around into a positive campaign, to use our dollars to support locally owned businesses to build the community we want.” I have since seen a phrase to describe this positive, proactive alternative to boycott — “buycott,” a campaign to BUY FROM businesses that reflect your values.
Those involved in our community felt uplifted from the inside out, and that attitude permeated the entire network — and that’s what helped our network grow organically. People would look at what we were doing — and the camaraderie and creativity we enjoyed — and say, “I’ll have what THEY’RE having.”
While the core group of business owners all supported making the values and virtues such as the Golden Rule, love, and sharing part of our operating principle, many of the hundreds of business owners who came on board later may not have had the same intention. But it turns out it doesn’t matter.
If you start with a smaller, healthy core around positive virtues, make that public, and stand up for them, what I discovered is that people can make behavioral change when it’s also in their self-interest. I know that might come across as cynical, but frankly, people are malleable — that is, they are susceptible to both positive and negative “incentivization” — right out of “game theory.” You can bring out the worst in people, which is the nature of our modern materialistic society, or when you stand for something, you can bring out the best.
We truly experienced Dr. Ari’s credo: “We build the road, and the road builds us.”
When I left the world of nonprofit charities and neighborhood development, I was looking for a way to apply the Sarvodaya model to industrialized society. In Sri Lanka, when Sarvodaya was started, there wasn’t very much organizational infrastructure in the rural villages. In Reno, it seemed like there was too much —too many organizations doing the same thing, in silos and in competition. The tendency in our overdeveloped civilization would have been to build yet another organization, another separate entity feeding at the trough.
Instead, we created an emergent, network-centric organism, a “network commons,” that benefitted every business, charity, and local government department involved — and competed with none of them.
It had a revitalizing, re-humanizing, and regenerative effect on the community. Not only did we re-localize economic power, but we also created a new model of shared and distributed people power within our communities.
Because our network was a growth rather than a dominance hierarchy, the connections were more likely to transcend status and official titles. At our meetings, each voice counted the same as the next. As I learned in the San Diego neighborhood networks, when people who perceive themselves as powerless begin to see the impact of their words and ideas on others, they become even more willing to step up as contributors to the community.
“Spiritual Capital,” the Fuel for a Virtuous Economy
I thought back to Adam Smith and the “true wealth” of nations, which is “universal fellow feeling”—dare I say Universal, Symbiotic Kinship! Without any traditional political action, conflict, or domination, using Love in Action, the power of a “free” marketplace, and the choice to “vote with our dollars,” we were able to create a sense of community and connection that’s rare in industrialized societies.
Over the next several years, we sparked several more movements that transformed the food system in Northern Nevada, helped our community identify shared virtues and purpose, and brought neighborhoods and neighbors together to care for one another.
Most importantly, we were a living demonstration of how applying virtues in the context of a “network commons” can help an entire community build a vital Culture of Connection.
Through our process, we became aware of something “invisible” that really made all the difference in the world.
I’m calling it “Spiritual Capital” because it resides in the human heart, becomes the primary source of stored “value,” and multiplies like loaves and fishes as it radiates outward through our symbiotic networks.
“Spiritual Capital” naturally flows because we all have a heart connection to the Transcendental Order – this is the primary conduit of Virtue and Value! As we receive the “Gift of God” with the Virtues of Cosmic Love streaming through us, it creates a coherent, psychological, and moral order within us, ordering our personality towards being of service to ourselves, with a desire implanted within us to offer this gift to others, while serving and “unifying the Cosmos for the Common Good.”
It makes total sense that “charity begins at home,” where we want to serve ourselves as we receive this abundance, then share with our family unit, then share with our neighbors, and then share with others in our local community who are contributing in the same way.
The more we experience Virtue and the Gift of ourselves on a daily basis, the more vital the networked connections will be, and also, the more prosperous we and our families will become. From this unshakeable foundation, we can share with our neighbors and build a virtuous, local Network Commons and Virtuous Community-Based economy.
This is not just a nice dream but can become a practical way of life.
Every economic activity we engage in, whether we produce goods or offer services, is a sharing of spiritual capital. When we give the gift of ourselves, add value to things, or exchange goods and services, we create tangible opportunities to express love, concern, and respect for other people.
On a very concrete level, it’s also about how we apply these principles inside our workplaces and businesses, in our business transactions, in how we treat our employees and pay them, how we treat other businesses that we “partner” with, like our vendors and suppliers, and how we care for the natural environment we inhabit.
It’s also in the “nitty gritty” of doing business—how we set our prices, what we sell, how we market our products and services, how we advertise, and how we connect to our local environment and community as a whole.
By becoming conscious of the power of spiritual capital, we naturally align our “self-interest” with connecting and amplifying the good in our community, increasing compassionate action aligned with the Ground of Being – the underlying pattern, the Ancient Blueprint, a fractal of the Kingdom of Heaven.
This brings us full circle to where we started in this chapter—E. F. Schumacher’s call for a “deeper moral and spiritual reorientation” is an essential foundation for any New Economy initiative.
We have found that there is a natural desire within people who experience life as a Gift to also:
Respectfully consider how resources are used (natural and manmade)
Accord dignity to the human being (rather than being relegated to the role as a factor of production) and
Consider the environmental, human, social, cultural, and other factors before, during, and after production
What’s most remarkable about this “deeper spiritual and moral reorientation” is that it’s not something we need to create out of thin air but is hidden in plain sight in every major religious and spiritual tradition!
The Ancient Blueprint for a New Economy
As I conclude this chapter on building a virtuous economy, let me re-connect some dots — to share a larger vision beyond the level of an individual person, business, or community that could include the entire national and global economy.
If we think back to all the well-intentioned organizations I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, generally founded on the idea of a “new economy,” no doubt all of those would resonate with our results in Reno.
However, our success came not from some derivative economic theory or plan but because of the “Spiritual Capital” at the foundation of all of our work. That is – whether they realized it or not – those who helped build our local living economy network and subsequent networks were space-holders for an Ancient Blueprint, a pattern that we can connect with, embody, and make real.
The template of a new economy isn’t based on opposing any existing system—that feeds the Culture of Separation.
The template (pattern) for a New Economy and a Culture of Connection has always been present within the underlying structure of Reality.
Throughout Section 1, I have shown a lineage of the Ancient Blueprint that can guide not only how we build communities but economies as well — from Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount and later church teachings, through Mahatma Gandhi and village-based economies to Dr. King and Beloved Community and economy, to Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne’s real-world example of Sarvodaya Shramadana, with its network of 5,000 local, community-based economies — and became the foundation for our work translating these principles to western urban settings through Symbiotic Culture and networks.
This template for a new economic and political order can be found in the practices of early Christian communities, Mahatma Gandhi’s Hindu-based village economy movements, Dr. Ari’s Buddhist-based Sarvodaya Shramadana movement, and the teachings of the Catholic Church over the past century.
In contrast to the top-down “everything industrial complex” that seems to reach every corner of the planet, the common teaching of all these wisdom traditions points us toward local economy and local sovereignty—beginning with each of us and radiating outward to our families, local communities, region …and then our nation and the world.
The Catholic Church's principles of Subsidiarity and Solidarity remarkably resonate with Mahatma Gandhi's concepts of Swaraj and Swadeshi despite originating in entirely different cultural and historical contexts. At their core, these concepts emphasize spiritual formation, local autonomy, community empowerment, and collective responsibility.
In his 2009 encyclical, Caritas In Veratate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict offered a foundational principle for a Virtuous Economy -- Gratuitousness, the Gift of Self.
This “self-giving” approach to business calls on business people to “work not only for themselves but also to ensure for others a future and a dignified employment.. to engage in economic activity for the sake of the common good, and they experience this commitment as something transcending their self-interest, for the benefit of present and future generations.”
(I can see Dr. Ari looking down from above, nodding his head affirmatively.)
Two other concepts that derive from Papal encyclicals are “Solidarity” – the idea that we’re connected with our neighbors: down the street, in our local communities, then throughout our country, and finally around the world – and Subsidiarity, the idea that issues are best dealt with at the most immediate and local level.
Subsidiarity suggests that charity does indeed begin at home—that our moral obligations to tend to our family are higher than our moral obligations to care for our neighborhood, community, city, state, country, or planet. We have some degree of moral duty and responsibility towards each of these, but practically speaking, they are best understood as concentric circles, starting with the self.
Pope Leo XIII introduced the principle of subsidiarity as Catholic social teaching in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which was further developed by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. Pius wrote, “It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.”
This echoes profoundly with Gandhi's Swaraj, translated as self-rule, which envisions individuals and communities holding the reins of power and governance, bolstering bottom-up rather than top-down authority.
Gandhi said, “It is arrogant to think of launching out to serve the whole of India when I am hardly able to serve my own family. Concentrate first with your own family…and with that, you are on a path to serve all humanity.”
Moreover, Swaraj and Subsidiarity both advocate moral self-discipline, entrusting individuals to act responsibly for the common good. They underline a commitment to personal and social responsibility, underscoring the interdependence of individuals and society.
It is interesting that such diverse traditions call for grassroots empowerment fueled by individual virtues and “moral reorientation.”
The aforementioned Solidarity, another pillar of the Catholic social doctrine, speaks to our collective responsibility for all, particularly the underprivileged. This aligns closely with Gandhi's Swadeshi movement, promoting the use of domestic goods and labor and kindling a spirit of kinship with local communities. Swadeshi and Solidarity both foster economic interdependence and collective responsibility, aspiring for the welfare and development of the entire community.
All of these resonant ideas were, of course, fully in practice in the Buddhist-based Sarvodaya Shramadana movement in Sri Lanka. Talk about working with “the least of us.” Dr. Ari worked with the poorest of the poor, uplifting the lower classes and uplifting all of society.
In true Gandhian tradition, Sarvodaya was a “network of village economies” where road-building and spiritual development went hand in hand.
Another pillar of Sarvodaya is Swaraj or self-rule. As we mentioned, this is a Gandhian concept that focuses on Virtues radiating outward.
Self-rule begins with self-control, ruling over oneself – meaning restraining selfish impulses, adhering to the truth, and serving family, neighbors, and society so as to attain uplift for all. Self-rule is the foundation for self-government – beginning with the village.
Swaraj (self-rule) and Swadeshi (communal kinship) are the practical founding principles for a truly virtuous economy and virtuous society, a Culture of Connection built in parallel with existing society.
Think of this infrastructure, this scaffolding, as concentric radiating circles.
Wrote Gandhi:
"In this structure composed of innumerable villages, there will be ever-widening, never-ascending circles. Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose center will be the individual, always ready to perish for the village, the village ready to perish for the circle of villages…therefore the outermost circle will not wield power to crush the inner circle but give strength to all within and derive its own from the center.”
While this might sound awfully idealistic, I want to remind you that this is ALREADY happening in the national network of 5,000 villages and towns in Sri Lanka.
In subsequent chapters, I will share more personal stories that show how it is possible and practical to implement these beautiful ideas in a medium-sized urban city.
While nobody in our Reno symbiotic networks offered to “perish for the village,” we did indeed practice and promote the interreligious ideas of Swaraj and Swadeshi, Solidarity and Subsidiarity.
In doing so, we transformed the economy and politics of the Reno region from the inside out and from the grassroots up.
Find out next how we wanted to build a broader network capable of spinning off additional, multiple networks in the NEXT POST — Chapter 7, Part 1: The Conscious Community Network and Building a Local Food Ecosystem Network
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