Caring Economics

"The people we entrust with our pipes (plumbers) make $50 to $100 an hour. The people we entrust with our children (teachers) according to the US Department of Education make $10 an hour."
-Riane Eisler

I am currently soaking up the Big Easy at the National Montessori Conference. While I am attending various workshops and seminars, I thought I'd take the time to blog about the three keynote speakers.

Today's speaker was Riane Eisler. One word...Genius. Growing up in World War II era Austria, her and her family fled for their safety. Today, she is an economist and futurist, president of the Center for Partnership Studies and an author of several books - The Chalice and the Blade, Tomorrow's Children, and True Wealth of Nations. The focus of her work and her conversation today was something she refers to as caring economics.

In my own humble summary: (which is much less eloquent than her delivery, especially since she is Austrian and has this great accent which only adds emphasis to her already academic language) we as a society must experience a fundamental cultural transformation. We need to leave the old hierarchy of domination and fear and freedom for those on the top to do what they want and move toward a new hierarchy of mutual respect, mutual benefit and actualization. This new movement is a partnership in which leaders illuminate, provide, and empower life instead of trying to dominate it.

In our American culture, we only measure time by length and order. How long something lasted, did it happen before or after. We don't measure time's depth, the value or richness of a moment. Greek culture has a word for this called Kairos. A Kairos moment is a moment pregnant with great potential and lasting impact. According to Eisler, the current economic crisis is a Kairos moment. As we shift from industrial to post industrial, the opportunity is there to move to an economy of caring where value is given to life sustaining activities. The beauty of everything she was communicating, is that the Montessori philosophy fully promotes the ideals she speaks of, giving us as Montessorians a huge opportunity to play a role in creating the future.