5.1 Lesson-1: Ecology and Regenerative Economy 1

?To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.? 

? R. Buckminster Fuller

Our monetary and economic systems structurally determine a large portion of our daily behavior and cultural activity. A key factor in the move to a regenerative culture is their redesign. The only way we can make changes that are significant enough to prevent the civilization’s demise and further harm to ecosystems and the biosphere is to restructure our economic system(s) at every scale. This is a bold salutogenic [health creating] design intervention.

We must ask ourselves if our present financial and economic system serves 100% of humanity without causing ecological harm or disadvantage to anyone in line with Buckminster Fuller’s primary design goal. It obviously doesn’t! We require new economic laws and basic structural adjustments to encourage mutually beneficial and cooperative interactions. The system will need to be modified to prevent the abnormal behavior patterns that are currently justified and rewarded by the neo-Darwinian biology and neo-classical economics that underpin our current culturally prevalent story of separation.

Our existing monetary and economic systems are built on the story of separation, which fosters and encourages competition, even though human beings are by nature empathetic and collaborative. For far too long, we have justified the worst aspects of human nature as being “red in tooth and claw” of nature. Lack of cooperation and a limited worldview are the main causes of scarcity, not a biophysical reality! Scarcity is produced by competition, and this is then used to defend competitive behavior.

Scarcity as such is not created by the bioproductivity’s inherent constraints or the functioning of healthy ecosystems. In the context of healthy ecosystems and a healthy biosphere, cooperation may transform these inherent restrictions of the world into facilitating constraints that lead to abundance for all. Shared abundance that results from teamwork entices additional cooperation. Which universe we want to create together is up to us!

Our economic structures must be restructured to promote rather than prevent essential improvements that will lead to better overall system health. More abundance is produced by good ecological activities the healthier the system as a whole is. Based on debt, our existing monetary system creates money out of thin air (every time anyone takes out a loan). Compound interest and differential interest for loan and borrowing further propel a system that not only is designed as a lose-lose scenario but also requires ongoing economic expansion to function.

Additionally, this system is dependent on the ongoing exploitation of natural resources, which privatizes them and makes the associated economic burdens external. This system is not structurally viable.

We have produced a monetary and economic system that encourages the systematic extraction and destruction of sound ecosystem functioning rather than a medium of trade and a store of value that incentivizes proper involvement in the life-sustaining activities of the biosphere. Furthermore, we are forced to compete with one another rather than work together by this poorly structured system.

Many of the crises that are converging around us are caused by our utterly unsustainable monetary and economic systems. They support a narrative of competitiveness and scarcity that feeds on itself. Only if we address these essential and fundamental structural changes will a regenerative culture develop.

The potential of a culture to renew and modify itself in reaction to change is implied by the word “regenerative” in the phrase “regenerative cultures”. The ability of a culture to preserve and renew healthy environmental functions is referred to as the foundation of real wealth and wellbeing. Initiating structural reforms that would foster favorable conditions for all of humankind to flourish will be possible if we finally recognize that our existing monetary and economic systems are not appropriate for their intended purposes.

Our current economic structure is not inevitable nor unalterable. Always keep in mind that economics is, at best, a “management system” and, at worst, a perilous ideology. Economics is not a science, in contrast to biology and ecology. Based on ecological principles, we may rebuild our existing economic system to better serve our shared goal of advancing human health and wellbeing as well as the community of life.

Designing new monetary systems, trade policies, financial institutions, scale-linked local living economies, and regionalised circular bio-economies backed by cooperation and collaboration and resource- and knowledge are all necessary when redesigning economics from the ground up.

The existing system’s structural flaw is no longer only a fascinating theory put forth by a select group of thought leaders. The current economic and monetary system is broken, a fact that has been acknowledged by the World Bank, the United Nations, major international financial institutions, several political leaders, and most crucially, a groundswell of increasingly aware global citizens.

In the middle of the trip, we are given the task of redesigning the aircraft. Many people in leadership positions are reacting to short-term democratic and economic loops with little room for maneuver instead of launching transformational change with the lengthy benefit of humanity and life in mind due to the necessity of “Horizon 1” ? to keep the lights on, people fed, and employed. “Business as usual” is driven by this structural lock-in. Just a few of the major issues with the existing monetary and economic system are listed below: 

1. Extreme disparity is fueled by “money as debt created out of nowhere” and “competition” becomes the law. 
2. The paradoxical need for exponential expansion and unrestrained consumption is driven by compound interest on loans and deposits, which structurally creates a ‘playing field’ where winners lose rather than winners gain. 
3. Inappropriate and inaccurate indicators of economic success, such as GDP, focus our attention on increasing economic output rather than promoting systemic health and welfare (caring about qualities) (caring about quantities) 
4. Outdated subsidies and trade agreements made as a result of the economic sway of powerful lobbyists favor the wrong sectors and energy sources.
5. Despite sabotaging regional and local manufacturing and consumption (to the disadvantage of the majority of the world’s 5 billion poor people and ecosystem functions), existing trade regulations favor financial advantages for the shareholders of international firms. 
6. Tax regimes that structure inequality and promote social and environmental degradation by taxing work rather than resource use
7. Value is created through an oppressive system of extraction, production, and consumption which externalizes the costs to society and the environment of depleting our resource base and generating severe climate change.
8. If value creation were based on healthy ecosystem functions and regeneration, the flow of investments and subsidies would encourage salutogenic and regenerative activities and technologies.

Current economic and monetary systems are structurally flawed and, at best, only benefit a small number of people (for a while). They will never guarantee that everyone leads a healthy, fulfilling life. We must understand that out-competing others while damaging the planetary existence systems is not an evolutionary development strategy on a crowded planet with deteriorating ecosystems. In the long run, win-lose games become lose-lose games.

We can restructure our global economy and establish resilient local and regional economies as the cornerstones of flourishing, diverse, and regenerative cultures by starting with the systemic control mechanisms outlined above.

Local economies need to be safeguarded against “cheap” imports enabled by covert subsidies, externalizing genuine costs, and outsourced production. Jobs and supporting communities are produced through relocalizing and reregionalizing economies while retaining international cooperation and fair commerce. It backs an economics that has positive effects on society and the environment.

Our economic structure is currently undergoing change. Innovative thinkers in the fields of social, cultural, ecological, and economic change are already proposing and investigating a wide range of alternatives. Our socioeconomic systems are being completely redesigned. All of these methods are founded on the crucial ecological concept that collaborative regeneration systems exist in nature. Cooperation in circular patterns of resource use or regeneration is the foundation of efficient resource sharing in natural systems. We must meet human demands within the annual bioproductivity of the earth while working to restore the bioproductive potential of all degraded ecosystems in order to build a sustainable economic system. The importance of repairing harmed ecosystems from Willem Ferwerda, Executive Fellow at the Rotterdam School of Management and Special Advisor to the IUCN.