The Economic Process – Investing in the Human Being

“It is essential above all to grasp the essential nature of money …money-as-such does not exist; there are only the three kinds of money…we must find out what money is in its real essence; this must first be recognised and known. For it is with money that we master the economic process nowadays. This is the important thing. We must not fight shy of penetrating beneath the surface, into the depths, to see the real underlying facts”

The statements above, taken from Rudolf Steiner’s Economics course, are likely to present a kind of challenge to conventional thought, schooled as it is on the idea of the market. In reality, our world is dominated and run according to a language that very few people know about let alone understand and, in many regards, it is this unknowing that continues to propel the world into the abyss.

Economics is unique in that it is both a theoretical and practical science. Rudolf Steiner’s approach offers a way of taking hold of current phenomena, from the capital markets to the financing of one’s own initiative. We follow up his indication to explore money as accounting, brought up-to-date with recent research, in order to see how it translates into today’s situation.

This workshop offers a practical introduction to Steiner’s economic thinking, with an emphasis on how to become financially literate in one’s own undertakings. It will include a balance of presentation (illustrating the thinking with pastel on black paper) and discussion arising from questions and case studies.

This approach aims to span from the details of individual circumstances to the bigger picture concerns of the significance of economic life for humanity today.

Themes include:

•    Contemporary events, how do we understand them?
•    Economic initiative as the new context for initiation.
•    The form of the corporation as the body for higher beings.
•    The nature of money and the wisdom of accounting.
•    The meaning of association.

We aim to think our way into the future economic life of humanity, imagining a situation beyond the so-called credit crunch in which initiative is given credit and the individual is capitalized.

“Economic life is the sphere which, on its own ground, can give rise to the preparation for life after death. How we conduct ourselves in the economic life, what feelings we unfold there, whether we are human beings who willingly help one another in a brotherly fashion, or whether we enviously want to grab everything for ourselves, all this is connected with the fundamental constitution of our soul …Today’s pressing demands of the social movement are primarily economic concerns.”



Presenters:

Jesse Osmer is a director of LiliO Design. He has been giving courses in associative economics for the past 5 years. He is presently designing full-time for organizations and business around the world.
Arthur Edwards is a director of the Centre for Associative Economics. He gives courses in economics and financial literacy, co-edits Associative Economics Monthly and is presently undertaking doctoral research in Rudolf Steiner’s monetary economics.