chicken coops and chocolate

 Dee, I agree with your emphasis on the economic empowerment as a means to the UL self-awareness of individual psychological empowerment , which I would liken to "chocolate" (the beautiful - I love chocolate!).

  In my unpublished book, An Answer to the World's Problems: The Marketing of Virtue, I mention the need to shift from labor unions to "economic unions". When groups of people control the purse strings economically, they have the power to create the infrastructure needed to do health culture creating ("cultural engineering" is the term I use in the book) which, in turn, shapes the minds of the participants of the group. In the book, the group is an "indigenous corporation" where the whole model community is one profit sharing corporation. The engineered culture is aided by the practice of using consented-upon "spiritual principles" that are of a sufficiently secular quality to cut across all faith practices.  

Here are the principles: "Whole-to-part"(letting mind operate primarily from whole to part, rather than confabulating patchwork wholes from particular thoughts, or ideologies, etc.) , "Responsible Creating (recognizing that each person is a co-creator of an ever unfolding reality, and that each is responsible for the "shape" and effects of that creation) , "Interconnectedness" (we are one body, interdependent and more intimately related than we initially realize) "Appreciation" (of human "gifts"/apptitudes and other "gifts" or blessings), and "Lightness" (non clinging, acceptance, let go and let Whole). The fictional community even formed new spiritual practice based on only the generic principles, "Genarriage". Even athiests can participate in Genarriage, and use the principles as mind (perhaps deep mind) principles (which others can call "spiritual" if they want). 

A little voice told me to give the book away (at least for the time being), so if you are interested, I can email a PDF file of the book for you to skim through or read. It is packed with ideas. Not sure how many of the ideas would work exactly as stated, but the book does provide a first draft of blueprint for a model interfaith community which uses and interdependent social paradigm (sharing of resources) in a way that just might integrate with the modern world. 

Also, I have a think tank discussion group that bounces ideas off of shared excerpts of the book. the group ( Allsberg: Mapping out A Model Interfaith Community ) uses both a structured Q and A method, as well as free-flow discussion. Participation level is inching forward, moving up gradually. You are more than welcome to join. The group is located at the (free) Gaia site. If not a member there, sign up was relatively easy, as I recall. Hope to continue community/social franchising type conversations of this type with you on a regular basis, if possible. Like you, I too feel we need creative applications of ideas - not just a bunch of great sounding ideas. 

I am also working on a new book, Christians Thinking Like Energy, if you would be interested in reviewing what I have so far. I need all the feedback I can get. My ideas tend to be way better than my writing skills, so any feedback contributes to improving that skills deficit. I'm a writer who can't write! Least that's what it feels like much of the time.

Thanks for your excellent post. IMO, you picked out one of the most relevant features of the talk. Without economic empowerment in this marketplace world, how can folks get ahead? I see it as a means to an end that probably someday comes up with a new distribution and decision-making system than capitalism, but we must work with what is, in order to get to what may be.

Notice the phrase the "marketing of virtue"in my book title. That is my tip of the hat to the need to find economic strategies in order to bring in the new social paradigm. The self sufficient schools which generate money (that is feed back into the schooling) are right in step with this same line of thought - the marketing of virtue, where the main "product" is the growing of human virtue and actualized potentials. 

 Darrell