USF Version 1.0
The Story
Chapter One - A Pattern of Bridges
"I am frightened teacher. There are so many bad things happening in the world."
"Do not be afraid my student. Life is short and fear only interferes with what we must do in life."
"But teacher, I do not know what I must do in life."
And the teacher said, "You will know what to do when you understand where you fit."
"What do you mean by, where I fit?"
"Remember this my student. All living things have a gift. We are all richer when each of us can express our gift. We are all poorer when any of us cannot express our gift. Go forth into the world and be aware of the gift of everyone and every creature you meet. They will each want to trade gifts with you. Be open to trade because every trade you make creates bridge - and there is more in the world with each new bridge - there is less in the world with each bridge that is lost."
"I do not understand teacher. What is a bridge?"
"Yes, it is hard to see. Right now you see only that which you desire. You seek to obtain the object of your desire before someone else gets it. Yet, you do not see how that object came to be - what gifts were traded to make that which you desire?
Chapter Two - The Money Cycle
"Teacher, I hear what you say about the gift each of us brings - but there is not enough money for every one to have what they need."
"So you think that what people need is money?"
"No teacher, but it takes money to get what people need."
"Why does it take money, my student? Why can't we just make what we need?"
"I do not understand teacher."
"Remember this my student; the goal of life is life itself. If we think the goal is money, then life will suffer. Making money is taking nature's resources and making it into something else. We call these financial resources - and these financial resources often have no where to go except to make more of themselves. The natural balance requires that these financial resources be cycled back into nature's resources."
and the teacher continued, "A business is an organization for the purpose of converting resources into financial resources. A family is an organization for the purpose of converting financial resources back into living resources. But, we are out of balance. Families cannot compete with corporations to fully complete the cycle. We need more powerful organizations in our communities to help convert financial resources back into resources to produce the things that people need."
"But teacher, will that not take money?"
"No my student. It will take more bridges - and the money will follow."
"Now we are back to bridges?, said the student."
"Of course, always one thing is related to another - and everything is related to everything else. Tell me, what is it that people need?"
And the student said, "Well, people need food, they need to stay warm."
And the teacher said, "Yes, and they need clean water, and basic health care. Those are things we need to survive. What do people need to express their gift?"
"I see teacher. People need information about the world so they can find out where they fit?"
"That is good insight my student. But information is not enough - when you can use information to accomplish some task we will call that knowledge - when you can understand the flow of gifts across all the bridges we will call that wisdom, because, then you will be able to see the gifts that are not being expressed and know where we need more bridges."
Chapter Three - Complexity Spirals
“Teacher, if everything already depends on everything else how can anything ever change?”
“Another insightful question. But, I ask you, what is the difference between more and less and many and few?”
and the student thought a moment and said, “we can have more of a few things, and less of many things?”
“Yes my student. What is the difference between a corn field and a rain forest in that respect?”
and the student said, “In the corn field we have more of only one thing and in the rain forest we have less of many different things.”
“Precisely,” said the teacher, “with many different things we cannot have as many of any one thing, but there are many different ways for things to interact. We call this complexity. What is the difference between a market economy and a state run economy?”
The student responded, “in a market economy each business is free to adjust its strategy to the conditions of the market.”
“Very good”, said the teacher, “with a complex of potential interactions, each actor has more options and the system is said to be dynamically stable. What is the difference between a closed agricultural economy and an open trading economy?”
and the student said, “well, there will be many kinds of businesses in an open trading economy. In either each actor is free to adjust its strategy to market conditions.”
And the teacher responded, “Yes, both of those are true, but there is something more. In the closed agricultural economy there are a limited number of source materials. In the trading economy there are more source materials allowing the production of a larger amount of a greater variety of goods. We call that increasing productivity. And so my student, what is the benefit of increasing productivity?”
“The more we produce of more different things the more room there is for new things?”
“Yes, yes, yes. We have just described the cycle of change. Diversity leads to complex interactions which leads to dynamic stability which leads to increased productivity that in turn makes room for increased diversity. With each turn through the cycle the system accumulates energy and we call that an upward spiral – new bridges being built with each turn – more people and more creatures able to find their fit and share their gift. But what happens if we reduce the number of actors? There are fewer potential interactions, the system has fewer responses to changing conditions, with fewer options production declines, and now there is even less room for new things. We call that a downward spiral – bridges being lost with each turn – fewer people and creatures able to find their fit and share their gift.
Chapter Four – Finding the Missing Pieces
“Teacher, we have freedom do we not? And there are upward spirals in our economy? Why is it that more people and more creatures do not fit?”
and the teacher said, “Can you see the missing bridges yet?”
“No teacher, why doesn't the system grow to let every one and every creature share their gift?”
And the teacher said, “When you think about where you want to fit, what are your choices?”
and the student thought about that and said, “I could go into business, or get a job with government, or perhaps go to work for a social purpose organization.”
“Why are those your only choices? What kinds of people and creatures do not fit with those choices?”
“I know the answer to that teacher, there are those who cannot find jobs, or at least jobs that express their gift, and there are creatures who have lost their habitat.”
And the teacher said, “Yes, we limit the options to express our gift to those who can fit in government, business, or charity. That leaves people poor and ecosystems in downward spirals. But government taxes to help the poor and preserve the environment and business supports charity to help the poor and preserve the environment. Why do we still have poor people and a declining environment?”
And this was a hard question for the student and she went home and thought about it over night. But in the morning she had an answer. “Teacher, a handout, whether taxes or charity, does not create a bridge. It is not an exchange of value – the value only goes one way.”
The teacher said, “I am very proud of you. Do you remember our talk about financial resources? When we look at the flows through the three aspects of our systems, those that fit can do quite well. But welfare and charity do not create a fit for the poor because there is no value returned to the system in exchange.”
and the teacher continued, “It takes four points to build a stable structure. Government, Business and Charity are only three. We need a fourth aspect to our systems so that value can flow across all six sets of bridges. That is the system feeding value back into itself supporting an upward spiral.”
“I am not sure I follow teacher. If a person does not fit in government, business or charity why would they fit in this fourth aspect?”
And the teacher responded, “Do you remember our talk about what people need? Poor people cannot buy what they need from business because they have nothing of value to the market. Does that mean that they have no gift?”
“No teacher, every living thing has a gift, what they are missing is a bridge.”
“Yes, yes my student. And if we cannot create a bridge to business or government or charity perhaps we can create bridges amongst ourselves? And perhaps we could think of this in the way that a family thinks about the assets it acquires to make life more comfortable. And perhaps this group of people in each community – building bridges amongst themselves – sharing their gifts amongst themselves – would be in a position to convert some of those excess financial resources we talked about back into living resources?”
“That is an interesting possibility if we could figure out how to do it. But what about the declining environment?”
“My student, my student. Follow the flows and see the spirals. What would happen if agriculture was something we did where we lived involving many creatures - and those who do not fit elsewhere – instead of monocultures done somewhere else. What if we honored the gift of the smallest of creatures and treated ecosystems as something that is a part of us – instead of something to be preserved someplace else? What did you learn about upward spirals? Do we have any idea how productive we could be if we added bridges for all the poor people and all the creatures?”
Chapter Five - Making Bridges without Money
If something is abundant, like labor in a town where the local factory work was outsourced, it has no "market value". Does that mean that people without marketable skills have no gift? Of course not. It only means that we cannot value that gift in "market money". What is it that we want to be abundant? Food, clothing, shelter, education and health care. If those things were abundant would they have no value? Of course not, but we would need a different way to measure contributions to that abundance. Is it possible that people without marketable skills could use their gift to produce an abundance of food, clothing, shelter, education and health care?
Every community in the world is looking for ways to support upward spirals for their citizens - whether they use that terminology or not. Every community has unused human potential and unused biological potential. We call those poverty and environmental degradation and treat them as a problem instead of as assets.
Money is only a medium of exchange. It does not take money to create value - it only facilitates exchange. So, if money is the limiting factor, we ought to be smart enough to figure out another way to facilitate the exchange.
Chapter Six - Why doesn't somebody do something?
As a member of a community, there is always the opportunity to do a favor for a neighbor and have a neighbor do a favor for you. The more things you accomplish through favors, the fewer things you have to pay for thereby lowering your cost of living. The more favors you give and receive, the more you get to know your neighbors and the higher your quality of life. We only need a way to keeps track of those favors, creating an incentive to do more of them, and accumulate tools and assets to make those favors easy to perform (convert financial resources into living resources).
We can treat contributions of labor as capital contributions. Each contribution can be recorded and that record entitles the contributor to share in the abundance produced by all the contributions.
It is not necessary to choose one life style over another. Each of us is capable of maintaining many bridges. We can all have bridges into both the money economy and the local exchange of favors. We are all richer as we extend bridges to more and more people who where poor and more and more creatures that were losing habitat.
No government, or foundation, or international corporation can do that for us.
Chapter Seven - How do Humans Come to Live in Peace and Plenty?
And so the student went forth into her community, armed with the knowledge of how the system functions, in search of wisdom . . .
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