Wealth/Prosperity/Abundance

These are very different things. We should be designing for and chasing abundance, and resultant prosperity. That comes from rich ecosystems, lots for everyone, from the happiness and sufficiency in people around us, from a lack of scarcity.

A lot of wealth is built atop scarcity, and reduces overall and real prosperity.

Abundance and prosperity are in sync with the planet and can easily help it get better. It is not a zero sum game and not competitive. It speaks the language of nurture and cooperation. Wealth often comes at the cost of the planet, extracting from and destroying it. It is relative, so someone more must lose for the ever larger wins of a few. It speaks of leverage, exploitation, externalized costs, cut-throat battles, grabbing marketshare, destroying competition, and war.

The more our economy, or food systems, our public spaces and private lives are built around abundance and prosperity, the better we will live on this planet and belong to it. It’s time to throw the old ways away altogether, and reimagine and reinvent.