• The Challenge and the Goal
• A Question of Direction
• Why We Will Succeed
• Seeds For Change
• Audio Visual Resources

• Things You Can Do
  • At the Personal Level
  • At the Community Level
  • At the Government Level
• "Life, Money & Illusion
  • What the book is about
  • Book Reviews
  • What people are saying
  • Where to find the book
• Touring with the Message
  • Where we are going
  • Where we have been
  • What people are saying
  • Discussion Outline
  • Planning an Event
• Measuring Well-Being
  • History
  • Measuring Genuine Progress
  • Current Program
  • Well-Being Measurement Act
  • Measuring Well-Being document
• Mutual Provision - Economy
  • Economic Concern
  • 3/5ths of Ecology
  • The Invisible Hand
  • Supply and Demand
  • The Genuine Progress Index

• About the Book
• Order the book
• Other writings
• Audio-Visual Material
• Arrange a talk by Mike Nickerson

Economics = Mutual Provision

Human beings are successful because we can refine our ability to do a few things and then trade with others, who have refined other skills, making it possible for us to benefit from far more talent than we could ever acquire as individuals.

We have come a long way from the clans and tribes within which our ancestors provided for each other. Mutual provision today includes a majority of the planet's 6.8 thousand million people.

Because of the enormous size of the present system the global economy has become increasingly abstract and removed from its impacts on local communities, the land and other life forms. Underlying circumstances have changed fundamentally; human activity has gone from inconsequential to being a major disrupter of community cohesion, natural resources and ecological life supporting systems.

Without an equally fundamental change in our economic structure we are in danger of overshooting planetary limits and collapsing.

"Life, Money & Illusion" looks at:

• Economic Concern- Problems caused by mistaken goals.
• Economics is 3/5ths of Ecology - an easy way to remember the needed change.
• The Invisible Hand- Justification for present system.
• Supply and Demand - The elegence of Markets and some problems.
• The Genuine Progress Indicator- A better way to measure long-term well-being.

Articles on related matters:

Reduce, Reuse, Recession - A warning from the economic cycle.

Making Markets Work for Sustainability - a look at policy options drawn from The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken and For the Common Good by Herman Daly and John Cobb.

How Economic Growth has Enriched the Few, Impoverished the Many and Endangered the Planet. - a précis of Richard Douthwaite's book The Growth Illusion.

The End of Shorter Hours - When we chose consumerism instead of increasing leisure.