EDE Curriculum 2012.pdf - Gaia Education

THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to...
� recognize dominant patterns and activate leverage points for change
� design various elements of a resilient local economy
� design and utilize community currency systems suited to local contexts
� bring personal economic activities into alignment with ecological values
� identify socially responsible local legal structures and financial strategies
“We know that we know how to end this suffering, and we have the resources to do it. From
sociology and anthropology to economics, from education and ecology to systems analysis...
the evidence is in. We know what works.”
Overview
54
Frances Moore Lappé
Today, economics rules supreme as the ‘master discipline.’ with all other subjects and values subordinated
to it. Critically, the environment is seen as a sub-system of economy rather than vice versa. Consequently,
the environment is seen primarily as a bank of resources for the undertaking of human
activities. Our task as we move towards sustainability is to reverse this equation, with economy properly
understood as a sub-system of ecology. Within this new paradigm, the scale and nature of economic
activities will be limited by the carrying capacity of the Earth’s ecosystem.
To begin to shift towards the new paradigm, however, we need to develop a clear under-standing of
how we managed to get into this mess in the first place. Only thus can we move beyond the fatalism of
our leaders who insist that there is no alternative to neo-liberal globalisation and develop a mature
understanding of the policy choices that have created this very unnatural and unsustainable system.
In so doing, we can begin to see what alternatives we need - and are able - to take to create a more just
and sustainable society.