Mark Dowds

Beyond Economics

A few days ago Mark Oestriecher posted on his blog about a great tool that sends you portions of a book (in sequence) each day. It is called DailyLit.

The first book I chose to read was "The Communist Manifesto". I have only ever read snippets over the years so I thought I should delve in for better or for worse.

Here is one excerpt that I have been reading over and over again here:

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones."

The run up to this (to give some context) is how the bourgeoisie have created a society that has a pure economic focus through the development of free trade. I recommend the read for historical and contextual background.

What has been going through my mind is the change in a new generation who are interested in a free market today but have a different vision. A vision of innovation and technology to lead us towards a better world that is sustainable and respectful of all people.

I have met enough people over the last season of life to have hope that we can dream and create new ways to benefit community and environment in a way that encompasses some of the hopes of the overall manifesto while embracing the free market principles.

I am choosing to believe that we can do better as humankind and that we are gradually shifting towards a mass that can improve the world without pure selfish gain....

That is my thought for the week

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Today I was reminded of the continuous need to remain curious in life. I don't know who coined the term "curiosity killed the cat" but they have a lot to be responsible for. It would appear that in a constantly changing world like we live in that belief in some form of fatalistic determinism that leaves us devoid of choice and play would make sense. At the same time it is worth considering great people of the past like William James, a father of American psychology. He was tormented and led to a deep crisis because of the influences of people like Darwin who left choice as a concept of the past. James entered a life full of depression until this paradigm was challenged and he chose to believe that we as human beings have choice in our day to day actions. This discovery healed him of the depressive ailment and led him into many focused years of experimentation and deliberation on our active role in our own lives and in society as a whole.

Today I have to acknowledge that the choice to be curious and belief that we have a co-creative role in our small but influential worlds is significant. If we choose to remain curious we can look for the positive intent in those who would suggest we seek our own gain or our pressure our own way. To look at others with an angle of believing there is something more beautiful yet to discover can lead us into a more exciting and beautiful experience. At the end of the day, we only have one life to live so we may as well live it as best we know and enrichen the lives of those we interact with...

Thoughts?

Mark Dowds