Ep.01/22–Chuck Collins on the Industry That Protects Wealth and How It Hurts Everyone

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Simpler OneEarth Living Podcast
A co-production of Simple Living Works! and The Common Good Podcast (Jubilee OneEarth Economics)

To LISTEN, click the player at the top or the bottom, or visit the Episode Index at  SimpleLivingWorks.org (window #3) or OneEarthJubilee.com/podcast. SUBSCRIBE for free through your favorite podcast service, under the name Simple Living Works! Urge your friends to do the same.

SHOW NOTES

Most people feel on the outside of extreme wealth. Some aspire to it. Many are offended by it and consider it immoral—even evil. For most of us it’s a sideshow. But Chuck Collins, our guest today, says, “No! It’s not a sideshow. It’s the main show. It affects all of us.” We pay the taxes that build what everyone uses. They avoid taxes, sometimes paying none, taking no responsibility for the common good though they benefit from it. Who makes all this work? That’s what our guest today explains. Definitely worth staying with us. We hope you can.

Our guest, Chuck Collins, is Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, co-editor of Inequality.org at Institute for Policy Studies. I first became familiar with him through the book, Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change, co-authored by Chuck in 2000. Then I was greatly impacted by a book he wrote with Felice Yeskel, Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity (2005). That book so clearly explains how the economic system can lessen the economic divides in our society and how it can increase them. Subsequently, I established a relationship with Chuck at the Solidarity Economic Forum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009. When I wrote my first book, Blinded by Progress, Chuck agreed to write the “Foreword.” I’m grateful for that.

A good way to appreciate why Chuck can speak with authority to our topic today, inequality and the radical wealth divide, is to scan titles of his writings.

Most recently, Chuck has written, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions. And a short article appeared in “YES! Magazine” entitled, “Helping the Rich Give Away Their Wealth.”

Numerous additional references to Chuck’s writings:

He co-authored “The Moral Measure of the Economy,” with Mary Wright, a book about Christian ethics and economic life.

He’s also co-author of several Institute for Policy Studies reports including “The Road To Zero Wealth: How the Racial Wealth Divide is Hollowing Out America’s Middle Class,” “Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us” and “Gilded Giving: Top Heavy Philanthropy in an Age of Extreme Inequality.”

Also WORTH READING: YES! Magazine #88, Winter, 2019–“5 Opportunities to Solve Inequality.” Ask Jubilee for a free copy.

Earlier Ep. 3/19: http://simpleliving.startlogic.com/SLW-PODCAST/?p=2164

Chuck lives with his partner in Vermont.

More LINKS from Chuck. Stephanie Browbee: Good Ancestor Movement(?)

As 2022 begins, we urge you to read the revised Covenant for OneEarth Jubilee Living. It gives you strong, practical guidance for living in 2022 as we experience the growing attacks on democracy and Earth’s environment. None of the emerging disasters is being handled at the scale that is needed to end the 6th Mass Extinction or our own demise as a species. So, what can we do? The Covenant defines core practices that assure us we are participating in the growing and massive grassroots powers resisting the ways of death, and instead, living the path of life. Earth is our ally in this great endeavor.

Nearly every holiday needs to be reinterpreted in light of the climate breakdown underway. We have resources to help reinterpret the holidays. First there’s Lee’s book “The Liberating Birth of Jesus: A Birth Story Able to Reverse the Earth’s Perils.” It clearly shows how the birth stories of the gospels can make a big difference in reversing what’s happening on our planet today and to all of life. You can hear Lee interviewed about the book in an earlier episode.

Read reviews at TheOneEarthProject.com/books. Order a copy directly from Jubilee or from various suppliers on the internet. The first five orders Jubilee receives from listeners will be free. Just ask.

Also, Simple Living Works! Offers hundreds of free resources for individuals, families and congregations to have a more generous, much less consumer-oriented Christmas. Just visit SimpleLivingWorks.org and click on free resources in window #1.

Please tell us your thoughts on these subjects. Leave a message on Jubilee OneEarth Economics and/or Simple Living Works! Facebook pages.

Earlier Episodes

12/21–Della Duncan, Renegade Economist, Tells about Doughnut Economics and Other Economic Models Being Put to Work

So many voices tell us that saving life on our planet requires a whole different economy. A whole different way of thinking. Consider renegade economics and doughnut economics? How might staying in the dough of the doughnut be a model for us in our work in the world?

In the Simpler OneEarth Living Podcast we’re committed to living well AND not to exceed the capacities of our one planet home. We want to live in full interdependence with trees, soils, plants, water, animals–all the eco-systems that sustain life. We experience the sacred in all that is. Humanity needs a lot of help to get to such OneEarth living. So we seek out others with a similar commitment and invite them to be guests on this Podcast.

Della Duncan describes herself as a renegade economist. Her goal is to create islands of alternative economics in the ocean of capitalism. We hosts think of ourselves as being one of those islands.
Della hosts the Upstream Podcast about economic systems change. She is also a Right Livelihood coach, a Senior Fellow of Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute in the London School of Economics, the Course Development Manager of Fritjof-Capra’s Capra Course on the Systems View of Life, a co-founder of the California Doughnut Economics Coalition, and an Alternative Economics Consultant.

VISIT:

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Ep.11/21—-Lauren Van Ham: Radical Inter-religious Cooperation Is Working to Save Life on Our Planet

Is competition more important than cooperation in evolving a better world? Or is it the other way around? Does cooperation lead the way with competition playing a secondary role? We often hear that life is about the survival of the fittest. But maybe that’s too narrow. Perhaps life survives and thrives best through the most cooperative. We are talking today about the extraordinary results when we shift from competing to cooperating, from defining ourselves by differences to recognizing our interconnection. 

An essential difference between MultiEarth and OneEarth living regards the role of cooperation. In the MultiEarth way, competition is more highly regarded. The argument is that competition drives the economy, fosters innovation, and brings some of the best efforts from people. But the MultiEarth way is also driving us beyond the capacities of our planet. Over-emphasizing competition has moved us into a multitude of crises and disasters. Contrast that with the OneEarth way in which cooperation is more important. Whereas competition was once thought to be at the heart of nature, driving evolution, the life sciences now teach that cooperation exceeds competition in importance to evolve life in a most amazing web of interdependence and connectedness in all forms of life. We’re only beginning to understand just how extraordinary and far-reaching interconnectedness is in nature. Clearly, an emphasis on cooperation is essential to saving life on our planet.

Religions around the world are joining in this recognition that interconnectedness is deep among spiritual paths. Not to gloss over the fighting and violence between religious groups—it’s deadly— but to focus only there we will miss the cooperation that’s rapidly increasing in the past few decades and bringing great results.

This episode of the OneEarth Simpler Living Podcast tells how religions are working together to forge new possibilities in ecology, economics, and women’s empowerment—all are making real difference in their communities. Listen too for the importance of organizing as circles in the practice of cooperation. Our previous podcast episode presented the circles of Jubilee. This time we present the circles of cooperation in United Religions Initiative as we talk with Lauren Van Ham in her work with United Religions Initiatives to form and empower Cooperation Circles around the world.

Our guest Lauren Van Ham is deeply dedicated to living sustainably on Earth, our only home. She was born and raised beneath the big sky of the Midwest, and holds degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Naropa University, and The Chaplaincy Institute. After completing a B.F.A. in music theatre, Lauren pursued her childhood dream of living in New York City and worked off-Broadway. She moved to the Bay Area in 1998 for graduate studies in psychology, creation spirituality, and interfaith worldviews. Following her ordination in 1999, and until 2007, Lauren worked as an interfaith hospital chaplain, serving St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco, where she specialized in adolescent psychiatry, palliative care and bereavement support.  

In 2007, recognizing that caring for the Earth had become her deep love, Lauren declared herself an eco-chaplain. With necessary naiveté and determination, she entered corporate America and went to work at Saatchi & Saatchi S, a sustainability consultancy in San Francisco. There she became the Director of Consulting Services. She was a member of the founding team that designed and facilitated over 200 day-long sustainability workshops for the 1.2 million associates of Walmart Stores, Inc. She has worked with a range of Fortune 1000 clients, combining her passion and skills to custom-design curriculum and facilitate trainings to increase awareness, encourage behavior change and build new bridges between the inner/outer ecology of individuals and organizations, one person at a time.

After a few years in this corporate setting, Lauren became Dean at The Chaplaincy Institute for interfaith ministries in Berkeley, California. Leaving her position as Dean after nine years, her passion for spirituality, art and Earth’s teachings construct her focus in eco-ministry, grief & loss, and sacred activism. She is a guest writer for “Progressing Spirit,” an online publication exploring theology, spirituality and public events. Currently, Lauren is Climate Action Coordinator with United Religions Initiatives. She is also an interfaith spiritual director and serves as guest faculty for several schools in the Bay Area.

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Ep. 10/21–Encuentro: A U.S./Mexico Conversation on Living the Alternative Worldview We Call OneEarth Jubilee

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Ep. 09/21–Eric LeCompte: Forgive Us Our Debts—Woes and Wins in Canceling Student Debt

As we pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” And for all who pray the other version, which is “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” remember that the greatest trespasses are the structural ones that separate people from one another, dividing us into categories like have-gots and have-nots. With either version of the prayer, we’re praying to forgive economic evils that separate us from one another and from our souls.

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08/21–Brenda Wyss: Feminist Economics Is Creating Just Systems That Meet Current Crises

For more information, visit these sites:

Center for Popular Economics  

Amartya Sen - His Nobel Prize winning work was on development and freedom.

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Ep.0721-Matt BrennanAn Advocate for Your Congregation and Nonprofit on How to Install Solar Power

Visit CollectiveSun.com

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Ep. 0621–Carrie Radloff: MidWest Environmental Activism

The motto of WildOnes.org: Native Plants / Natural Landscapes — Healing the Earth one yard at a time. In contrast to her other environmental work, Wild Ones focuses on one thing: getting more native plants into the ground. Native plants are the Swiss Army Knife solution to so many issues, and more people need to hear that message.

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Ep. 0521–Neddy Astudillo: Adding Environmental Actions to Our Spiritual Practices

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neddy-astudillo-067b449a

https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/astudillo-receives-presbyterians-for-earth-care-annual-eco-justice-award/

https://justiceunbound.org/one-body-with-earth-a-wake-up-call/

SacredPeopleSacredEarth.org

GreenFaith.org

LivingTheChange.net

As an eco-minister and eco-theologian, Neddy directs Green Faith in Florida and in Latin America. Be sure you go to the GreenFaith.org to learn far more about Neddy’s accomplishments and hopes. How they frame their work:

Religious and spiritual communities everywhere generate a moral awakening to the sacredness of Earth and the dignity of all people. Together, we are building resilient, caring communities and economies that meet everyone’s needs and protect the planet. The era of conquest, extraction, and exploitation has given way to cooperation and community.

The good life is one of connectedness—with each other and all of nature. It is a world of flourishing life that replaces despair with joy, scarcity with shared abundance, and privilege with justly distributed power.

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Ep. 0421–Arborist Robin Rivet on Reversing Climate Crises through Informed Tree Actions

If you’re not so sure you can plant or tend any trees, can you consider making a donation to the OneEarth Jubilee Tree Fund? In 2021, we are getting trees in the ground in the San Diego region as well as two regions in Mexico. This  Fund also gives you a chance to compensate for the CO2 your travel and energy use put into the air. The trees you fund will take it out of the air. Either by planting or donating, we encourage action. The crises underway on our planet require us to act differently, to act in cooperation with nature as our ally. You can donate by check, payable to Jubilee Economics Ministries (designate that it’s for the Tree Fund), or online at www.oneearthjubilee.com/donations

More Info

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Ep. 0321–Mike Little: The Power of Money—Making All Our Money Accountable to Our Faith

Visit FaithAndMoneyNetwork.org

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Ep. 0221–Economist Barry Shelley: Economic Assumptions and Initiatives for Change

(1) the underlying assumptions of the prevailing economy and the challenges in moving our economy in new directions, (2) the discussions happening among professional economists about changes and different economic models, and (3) local initiatives he considers important in showing that alternative sub-economies can be created within the larger, prevailing economy.

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Invitation to Sign OneEarth Jubilee Covenant for the 2020’s

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The Simpler Living Daily NUDGEs
How Do It Get It (for free): Send NUDGE to SimpleLivingWorks@Yahoo.com

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Share your thoughts on this podcast and this episode. Email SimpleLivingWorks@yahoo.com, leave a message on our Facebook page or on the SLW! blog.

Peace, Gerald “Jerry” Iversen, Chief SLW! Activist

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