simplelivingworks's podcast

Most people feel on the outside of extreme wealth. Some aspire to it. Many are offended by it and consider it immoral—even evil. For most of us it's a sideshow. But Chuck Collins, our guest today, says, "No! It's not a sideshow. It's the main show. It affects all of us." We pay the taxes that build what everyone uses. They avoid taxes, sometimes paying none, taking no responsibility for the common good though they benefit from it. Our guest explains who makes all this work. Our guest, Chuck Collins, is Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, co-editor of Inequality.org at Institute for Policy Studies. I first became familiar with him through the book, Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change, co-authored by Chuck in 2000. Then I was greatly impacted by a book he wrote with Felice Yeskel, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (2005). That book so clearly explains how the economic system can lessen the economic divides in our society and how it can increase them. Subsequently, I established a relationship with Chuck at the Solidarity Economic Forum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009. When I wrote my first book, Blinded by Progress, Chuck agreed to write the "Foreword." I'm grateful for that. A good way to appreciate why Chuck can speak with authority to our topic today, inequality and the radical wealth divide, is to scan titles of his writings. He is author of the popular book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (Chelsea Green) There's also: Is Inequality in America Irreversible? (Oxford, UK-based Polity Press). He's also written 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. He is co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth, (Beacon Press, 2003), a case for taxing inherited fortunes. Chuck's work with wealthy persons led to co-founding Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, high-income households and partners working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation. This network merged in 2015 with the Patriotic Millionaires. Most recently, Chuck has written, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions. And a short article appeared in "YES! Magazine" entitled, "Helping the Rich Give Away Their Wealth."

So many voices tell us that saving life on our planet requires a whole different economy. A whole different way of thinking. Consider renegade economics and doughnut economics? How might staying in the dough of the doughnut be a model for us in our work in the world? In the Simpler OneEarth Living Podcast we're committed to living well AND not to exceed the capacities of our one planet home. We want to live in full interdependence with trees, soils, plants, water, animals--all the eco-systems that sustain life. We experience the sacred in all that is. Humanity needs a lot of help to get to such OneEarth living. So we seek out others with a similar commitment and invite them to be guests on this Podcast. Della Duncan describes herself as a renegade economist. Her goal is to create islands of alternative economics in the ocean of capitalism. We hosts think of ourselves as being one of those islands. Della hosts theUpstream Podcast about economic systems change. She is also a Right Livelihood coach, a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof Capra's Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a co-founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and an Alternative Economics Consultant. Visit: Donella Meadows' Leverage Points essay Doughnut Economics Action Lab Upstream Podcast How to Implement Doughnut Economics in Your Community by Della Duncan

Jubilee OneEarth Economics is not focused on just one issue, but on a worldview—a way of viewing the world and living in it. That is a strength, because we need this worldview to save us from the devastation of life happening from the practice of the MultiEarth worldview that prevails today. But worldviews are big and reach into all areas of life. That makes them challenging to describe. This worldview of OneEarth Jubilee guides us in ways similar to how Indigenous peoples have been guided to live sustainably on the Earth for millennia. The Bible also presents this worldview as an alternative to kings and empires. In the Bible, it goes by various names—the Kingdom of God, living acceptable to God, and Jubilee. But in the name of progress, civilization came along and proposed improvements. Some of the ways of progress worked in close interdependence with nature, but most have violated nature and the evolved systems of creation, bringing us death and repeated disregard for life. And now it's taken us to within a few years of destroying our planet's capacities to sustain life. Scientists are alarmed. Yet, corporations from pharmaceuticals to banks and meat producers race ahead, valuing billions of dollars over life itself. Indigenous ways continue to suffer, being thought of as in the past or outdated, and the Jubilee worldview has been forgotten from the biblical narrative. But not everyone. In this episode, four people understand that the situation of life is dire and that just as surely there is a worldview that saves life. Two of the four are from Mexico; two from the U.S. They are part of circles of other people who share a devotion to living the OneEarth Jubilee worldview in radical contrast to the reckless gamble the powers in charge are making with life on the planet.   Angelica Juarez is a physician and artist in the village of San Mateo, Puebla, MX. Lindsey Mercer-Robledo is a community organizer in the city of San Cristobal, Chiapas, MX. John Michno is a former IT person who now directs Jubilee Economics Ministries in San Diego, California, USA. Lee Van Ham is a co-founder of the nonprofit OneEarth Jubilee Economics, and has worked to deepen his understanding and practice of the Jubilee worldview for over 20 years. They tell how the Jubilee worldview came to appeal to them, and how they're devoted to put it into practice daily. For them, it is a spiritual path for living in the midst of the breakdowns happening in the current crises. Notable Quote: "Immigration.  When people see how people live day by day, sometimes they don't have enough even to eat, you can be touched.  Tools for people to develop their income. You don't have to go to other places.  They can live here, and stay together as a family.  In the pandemic, in this time fewer people have gone to the United States." OneEarthJubilee.com -- Living Within Our One Planet's Capacities SimpleLivingWorks.org