Riane Eisler and Nancy Folbre, Two Long-Haulers for Change

Riane Eisler's ground-breaking big-picture history, The Chalice and The Blade (1987), has influenced a whole generation of women. Fewer women have read her book, The Real Wealth of Nations (2007), the title a play on words that Adam Smith made famous in his 1776 economic tome, The Wealth of Nations. I used her economic book as part of seminar I taught at Vermont College, and just last summer was invited to present  with her at a Vermont "Womanomics" conference--and then she endorsed my book, Screwnomics!

I come from a long line of women accountants—and in my book I talk about the need to adjust our national accounting system.  Right now the GDP measures only one item: dollars. It is only an "income" statement, adding up every dollar exchanging hands. By GDP's reckoning, natural disasters are a windfall, costing Americans in insurance payouts, reconstruction, legal settlements and fines, and environmental cleanup, driving up the GDP! 

Is that a good thing? No, we need a balance sheet, that shows us more accurately our real costs and real benefits. In Screwnomics I mention GPI (Genuine Progress Indicators) now adopted by two states, Maryland and Vermont, though only Maryland updates figures annually. http://dnr.maryland.gov/mdgpi/Pages/default.aspx

I also talk about the GNH, or Gross National Happiness measurements, more serious than they sound, first adopted by Bhutan, and promoted here in the US by a movement begun by my Vermont friends Ginny Sassaman and Paula Francis. http://gnhusa.org/

We also should consider Riane Eisler's important new measurements, created in collaboration with Eisler's Center for Partnership Studies, and economist Nancy Folbre, who has long written about the unpaid work at the heart of any economy. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/nancy-folbres-feminist-unorthodox-economics. Their Social Wealth Economic Indicators (SWEI, pronounced "sway") actually seek to show how respecting and strengthening our rich, social connections at home and in our communities actually RESULTS in better economic-dollar outcomes. Then even our rather stupid GDP would be able to see it. http://caringeconomy.org/newindicators/

Eisler and Folbre actually presented together in 2013 at a conference sponsored by Champlain College and UVM's Gund Institute. You can watch it here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZNuSdGLBMA

Such measurements of what now remains invisible—our persistent love and attention to what really matters—should be part of women's Economic#MeToo movement! Let's SWEI with national happiness! —Rickey Gard Diamond

Sneak Peak: Chapter 9

S N E A K P E A K: Chapter 9: Proof of the Global Pudding

"Growing up, I was taught that manners are moral, and that if you couldn’t say anything nice about someone, it was better not to say anything at all. Already I’ve badmouthed the great neoliberal economist, Milton Friedman, as well as the schools of Keynesian, classical, Marxist and mostly male economists.

            I have served up a rude cabbage-radicchio soup metaphor to explain EconoMan’s overpriced and overconfident, gassy, lying bubbles of 2008. I’ve protested his toxic global farts, waved away and always blamed on someone else. I’ve insulted both major US political parties, calling them players and jackasses.

            I want you to know this goes against my grain and my feminine upbringing. It probably does yours, too. We’ve been taught to be nicer. So I will here resort to a kinder metaphor, another of my mother’s favorite homilies and foods. Whenever she said a sharp, cutting thing, which happened rarely and only with over-ample evidence, her chin would rise, her mouth would tighten, no-nonsense, because there it was, right in front of you: The proof is in the pudding, she’d say.

            By now, we’ve had about 40 years of neoliberal free markets in a global economy. I’ve been saying that neoliberal ideas sold by the Washington Consensus have been cruel and damaging—but an economist might answer—So? The real question is have neoliberal free market policies delivered the economic rich dish we were promised?"

The Eros of Money

I've been doing a lot of great radio interviews and podcasts, but not often with that rare bird, a female economist. Crystal Arnold and I had a conversation that went a little deeper than many of my short interviews allow--into the heart of my book. We talked about what I call EroNomics, the stuff you cannot buy or sell, but can only give away and share.  Eros is the renewable fuel of any economy. It motivates, and gives us purpose. It calls on us to open to our dreams and be better than we ever knew we could be. 

Poet Audre Lorde influenced my thinking about the practicality (and even necessity) for claiming your deepest desires. She wrote an important essay "The Uses of the Erotic." Another influence was psychologist Rollo May, who wrote Love and Will. May warned Americans of a predictable demise when we deny Eros, or what psychologists call the sum total of all our instincts for self-preservation and survival. We need those instincts more than ever today.... I was delighted to discover Arnold's show, Money-Wise Woman....Here's the link! 

Rickey Gard Diamond / The Eros of Money

Money-Wise Women / Crystal Arnold

SNEAK PEAK Chapter 12!

A Sneak Peak from Screwnomics*, Chapter 12...

           "The real world economy is very different than that described in standard economic theory, writes economist Sabine O’Hara in her article “Everything Needs Care: An Economy in Context” from a book I’ll revisit in the next chapter. She explains,  there is only so much arable land to grow human food and so much water to be polluted or used up. By concentrating only on output and ignoring the biological sources for that output—human and ecological inputs—we are using up non-renewable resources and harming nature’s ability to renew life. That is the ultimate inefficiency.

            O’Hara writes, “As restorative and reproductive capacities are impaired, efficiency levels cannot be sustained without ever increasing investments. The results are self-evident. Half of the world’s wetlands, temperate and tropical forests are gone; more than half of all arable land is suffering some degree of deterioration and desertification; oceans are dying and 75 percent of marine fisheries are either over-fished or fished to capacity.”

            Without care and attention, earthly communities that support our human ones will come unraveled, and so will we.  A rise in human poverty in exhausted environments where people formerly sustained their lives is another marker of our threatened future.

            EconoMan finds competition unerringly good. By contrast, biologists find competition a state that brings harm to species. If two species compete for water or a particular food, natural selection requires that one species ultimately dies out—or else adapts. Equilibrium within an ecology results when species efficiently interrelate and reproduce only enough offspring to sustain numbers.

            I learned more about adaption when I went to Cape Cod for a field trip seminar on the horseshoe crab..."

What readers are saying on Goodreads...

We're getting new reviews on Goodreads every day...check them out!

“Screwnomics is just what the Econo-Doctor ordered! With candor, humor, and a bit of smut that befits the boorish, loutish nature of the current and historical economic system, Gard Diamond provides an eye-opening education for American women of all ages on what goes on ‘behind that curtain.’" 

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“No one but Rickey Gard Diamond can take a dry subject like Economics and bring it to life, make it sexy, and over the top readable! I dare to say this book is for women! All women, all ages.”

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“This book is a real eye-opener even for those of us who thought we knew something about the financial system in this country. Rickey Gard Diamond explains how we women get screwed by the system and also shows us that when women are in charge of economic policy, they work for the well being of all rather than the 1%.”

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“Part college textbook, part “a peek behind the curtain”, and part casual conversation; Screwnomics is a must read for anyone who’s every thought “the economy” was a vague term encompassing complex concepts beyond their comprehension.”

Gross National Happiness: Ginny and Paula's Long Haul Pursuit!

I've been writing about Gross National Happiness for years. It's exciting to see women and men working together to challenge old measures of money-only, the GDP, to evaluate how our economy is REALLY doing. Especially inspiring to me are the women who remain so committed to the long haul.

Ginny Sassaman's kitchen in Maple Corners Vermont was the site of early organizing of GNH-USA, and Linda Wheatley became its first president. In 2010 the new organization organized the first American conference, which was attended by officials from Bhutan, where GNH originated. I served on its board a short while. But Linda, Ginny, and Paula Francis, another early GNH leader, went the second mile, and then some. They committed to a Happiness Walk across the US. They are spreading the word and engaging people in conversations about their pursuits of happiness—and have walked 5000 miles to do it!  

Here's a link to their recent interview about GNH and why it matters, with Thomas Rosenberg, host of "Envision" on https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/106465/encore-beyond-gdp-new-metrics-for-a-more-inclusive-future

What if the nation weren't so divided in its values as we are told daily by our media? What if our community and family connections were counted in our economy? This interview introduces other accounting methods, like the Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI) and (GNH) and....

Interested? Check out Screwnomics' Chapter 13, a history of EconoMan's accounts and new, sexier accounting that just might save the world. Also see the GNH website here:  http://gnhusa.org/

Next week, I'll post a video from another important woman leader, Riane Eisler, looking at measures of caring—and their economic results. This stuff matters! 

—Rickey Gard Diamond