Slow Money

So I just got back from the SFA conference, and the number one take-away message I got from Woody Tasch is that slow money is about relationships. Traditional economic theory is entirely about transactions, and in no way speaks to relationships. Yes: every person is a transaction, and I am a human resource.

But traditional economics cannot preserve wealth, nor can it enrich lives. It can only measure value, which itself is a meaningless concept. Only communities preserve wealth.

John Perkins made the distinction between actual wealth and purchasing power. And he made the clarification that it is those with the purchasing power that control the wealth, whether they own it or not.

Another aspect of our financial system, which previously had not occurred to me, but which became abundantly clear in conversation, is that our current monetary system is very poorly situated to help the aims of those in the slow money movement. We have the most evolved, efficient financial system in history, and yet it is utterly deficient when it comes to tying together monetary capital with social capital.

Banks and financial institutions may often say they are about community, or that they help build community, but the fact is, you can’t easily put a face to your money at a bank. The bank is necessarily an abstraction. You are a step removed from the investments your money promotes. You are also removed from the rules governing those investments or how they are enforced.

This does not just concern money in the bank. It is our insurance premiums, our retirement funds, and our credit cards. Slow money is about investment in real people. It is about investing with a conscious, often in small farms and other enterprises that provide the cornerstones of real wealth and health of communities.

Most of our investments serve to promote the extraction of wealth and the destruction of communities. Moving out of this system is not simple but it needs to happen. That does not mean we drop everything and isolate ourselves from society. Our infrastructure is already in place. Our job now is to do what we can while creating new systems for the oncoming generations.