"I would propose that we just rip up the discipline of economics as it exists and start over. This is my proposal in this regard: I think we should take the ideas of production and consumption, throw them away, and substitute for them the idea of care and freedom. As feminists point out, even if you are making a bridge, you are making a bridge because you care that people can get across the river. You make a car because you care that people can get around. So even production is just one subordinate type of care as what we do as human beings is take care of each other. ...One of the things that we have discovered, which is quite interesting, is that human beings have a psychological need to be cared for, but they have an even greater psychological need to care for others, or to care for something. If you don’t have that you basically fall apart. It’s why old people get dogs. We don’t just care for each other because we need to maintain each other’s lives and freedoms, but our own psychological happiness is based on being able to care for something or someone." – David Graeber
In a climate crisis and ongoing pandemic, we've found ourselves at a critical point in history. Our very survival depends on different ways of doing things; it depends on us rejecting dystopia and the doomed assumptions of endless extraction and endless profits perpetuated by the concentrations of privilege, power and wealth.
Let's take the bold steps forward to different ways of working together. I'm continuing to freelance in a way that allows me to fulfil the caring responsibilities that take up so much of my time, and that I take pride in.
With that in mind, I believe a world beyond capitalism and finance must be one where the only work worth doing can be re-framed as “care,” and therefore that is the kind that interests me. After all, the work we do today can help bring about that better future – and sharing information must be a key part of it, which is why I'm a strong believer in the transformative power of media technology.
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