The way our cur­rent eco­nom­ic sys­tem is designed does not attract the health­i­est peo­ple. Ego-dri­ven com­pe­ti­tion is ready to be replaced. Sys­temic coop­er­a­tion will reaf­firm con­nec­tions between peo­ple, ecol­o­gy, and economy.

In Feb­ru­ary 2019, John Fuller­ton spoke in record­ed con­ver­sa­tions with Thomas Hübl about eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples that can sys­tem­i­cal­ly change how cap­i­tal is man­aged and dis­trib­uted. Hübl describes him­self as a “mys­tic in the mar­ket­place”, whose “teach­ings aim to guide prac­ti­tion­ers toward a deep­er lev­el of self-awareness—from an ego-cen­tered world­view to a life of authen­tic expres­sion, ser­vice, and align­ment.”⁹ Respon­si­bil­i­ty, as Hüble says, can be described in terms of an abil­i­ty to respond where atten­tion is need­ed most.

Hübl points out how the super-intel­li­gence of the human sys­tem evolved over hun­dreds of thou­sands of years. He explains how the future is call­ing us while the past has a grav­i­ty that can hold us down. The path for­ward is paved with excite­ment, inno­va­tion, and eros. The fire of change is cur­rent­ly look­ing for oxy­gen to flour­ish. We want to aspire to a future built to exceed the lim­i­ta­tions before us now. But if we fail to rec­og­nize how deeply engrained the past is with­in us, we may encounter an invis­i­ble break­ing point and we will not be able to progress onward. How­ev­er, if we can gain the skills to under­stand the trau­ma with­in us as a les­son from the past, then we have all the nec­es­sary ele­ments to move for­ward unencumbered.

Work­ing on one’s con­scious­ness offers a path­way into deal­ing with the prob­lems that afflict human­i­ty. Humans run the sys­tems like econ­o­my that we have invent­ed. And, when humans in lead­er­ship posi­tions feel stressed, that stress enters those influ­en­tial sys­tems by way of bad deci­sions, affect­ing large num­bers of com­mu­ni­ties and environments.

In response, Hübl pro­pos­es that each one of us estab­lish con­tact to one’s body. He believes it is our body that often holds many of the answers we seek. Healthy self-reg­u­la­tion occurs when we are relaxed enough to rec­og­nize what’s hap­pen­ing with­in us and why we’re feel­ing what we feel. That con­tact with our inner being brings us clos­er to bal­ance and bet­ter equips us to break pat­terns that do not serve us.

The basis for life is a healthy fam­i­ly sys­tem. If that fam­i­ly is dys­func­tion­al, then it’ll affect how we act in groups as well as com­pa­nies. If we don’t know who we are and don’t feel right in rela­tion to our­selves, that will affect every­thing else. Neg­a­tive cor­po­rate cul­tures are rife with infight­ing, dis­trust, and mis­in­for­ma­tion. These qual­i­ties do not lead to wise deci­sion-mak­ing. For the symp­toms of greedy self-inter­est to yield to the good of the true major­i­ty of a com­pa­ny or a col­lec­tive, more peo­ple need to be involved in finan­cial deci­sions. When only a small num­ber of elite indi­vid­u­als con­trol a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of cap­i­tal, they are nat­u­ral­ly more prone to engag­ing in risky deci­sion-mak­ing. A sure­fire path for less knowl­edgable deci­sions is one built upon lim­it­ed per­spec­tives. We believe that peo­ple who pos­sess intu­itive, car­ing inter­ests in the envi­ron­ment and their fel­low human, will work well togeth­er to redi­rect cap­i­tal toward our future economy.

The more we fos­ter car­ing and embrace change, the bet­ter we can main­tain our cap­i­tal mar­kets. But care must come from a place of per­son­al invest­ment. Think of com­mu­ni­ty trash pick­up events at the beach. Think how effec­tive it is when every­one par­tic­i­pates to restore a space toward its true beauty.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty for wide­spread par­tic­i­pa­tion in a trans­for­ma­tion of the glob­al econ­o­my is cur­rent­ly under­mined by wealth dis­par­i­ty. Accord­ing to a report by Oxfam (a glob­al orga­ni­za­tion aimed at end­ing pover­ty), the total of all wealth owned by the poor­est 3.6 bil­lion peo­ple is equiv­a­lent to what the rich­est 8 peo­ple con­trol.¹⁰ This dis­par­i­ty is such a clear exam­ple of eco­nom­ic mis­align­ment. The wealth is clog­ging up at the top. Clogs do not end well. Shit spills over. To ease this unpleas­ant effect of any clog, cap­i­tal of all kind needs to be redis­trib­uted. Wealth needs to be cir­cu­lat­ed even­ly, much like oxy­gen and nutri­ents need to cir­cu­late even­ly for a healthy body to be at its best.

“The cir­cu­la­tion of mon­ey and infor­ma­tion and the effi­cient use and reuse of mate­ri­als are par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal to indi­vid­u­als, busi­ness­es, and economies reach­ing their regen­er­a­tive poten­tial.” — From the Cap­i­tal Insti­tute White Paper¹¹

The Cap­i­tal Insti­tute calls this cru­cial aspect of a regen­er­a­tive econ­o­my Robust Cir­cu­la­tion. Accord­ing to this notion, when all the basic needs of human­i­ty are met, then every­one is empow­ered to par­tic­i­pate in the glob­al econ­o­my. The more that cap­i­tal becomes con­scious­ly redis­trib­uted, the more that all peo­ple can con­tribute to the ongo­ing health of that entire species-wide system.

By design­ing eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples with respect to prin­ci­ples of bio­log­i­cal health, we gain the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reshape our eco­nom­ic rela­tion­ships in a ben­e­fi­cial man­ner. This shift in eco­nom­ic atti­tude can occur if we dis­tance our­selves from ego and redi­rect our focus toward a more holis­tic, future-ori­ent­ed per­spec­tive. To bring about more trans­for­ma­tive eco­nom­ic poten­tial, the idea of mys­ti­cism must con­tin­ue to gain ground in the marketplace.