I love it, Michael. The only bone I’d pick is with the singling out of capitalism as an extractive model. I’m having a hard time thinking of any broadly deployed economic model that hasn’t operated on scarcity, extraction, and (some level of) subjugation, either internally or externally.
Near as I can tell they’re all obsolete, but at least with capital it’s possible for small, emergent groups of self-directed people to experiment and organize things from scratch w/o the permission of the masses or elites.
The idea of capital (ie capitalism) is not part and parcel with the scarcity mindset, extractive actions, or inequity we see today. Those are all ethical quandaries inherent in the current maturity level of our species. Quandaries that are solvable without throwing out the baby.
To me, the way to abundance isn’t through a rejection of capitalism (or any ism), but rather through embracing that which is empowering within it and *aiming it towards abundance*.
We complain constantly of how evil and broken our current system is, but how many people have you tried to convince to mind who they’re empowering with their spending? I try frequently, and the idea that one may need to change their own habits is often met with shock, contempt, or outright confusion.
That’s *our* fault collectively, not just the fault of corrupt, greedy people. And it’d be about the same currently under any system. The path towards that more beautiful world leads through growing pains for all of us. Not just the identification of what’s wrong outside of us.
One may even argue that our attention should be *mostly* be personal and interpersonal growth and empowerment rather than perceived external wrongs. It’d get us “there” much faster.
