Economic growth can be responsible and in service of giving, rather than pure extraction and consumption.

In this final part of Ben’s conversation with James William Harrup, they explore the idea of “decent work”, what the Buddha has to say about earning well, how growth can be in the service of giving, and the importance of having a personal metaphor.

Links

• The story of growth, part 2: Greed – Episode 23
• James’ Pure Story project
• Hear this conversation in full via James’ podcast

Hey, and welcome to Peripheral Thinking.

Uh, my series of conversations with activists, advisors, entrepreneurs,

people all working, uh, on the margins on the periphery.

'cause the ideas which will shape the mainstream tomorrow are

hiding there on the margins today.

Now this conversation is the last of, uh, a three part conversation.

So if you're starting here, uh, I would suggest, duck out quickly and head back

and look at Conversation one with James.

James is a storyteller, in fact a kind of master of the art of story, and this

conversation is actually a conversation that I had on his podcast and I suggest

you check out his podcast too, uh, which is really looking at the role of story

and how we might seed and create new story, uh, seed and create that cult the

story into culture, uh, as a means of, of shifting how we kind of think about

and see and how we live in the world.

I.

Uh, and so as I said, this conversation is a, is a

conversation from, uh, his podcast.

It's three parts.

It's the third part, the third, the shortest part.

Uh, and in this part of the conversation, I mean the, the whole series, the

whole arc of the conversation be like has been around the story of growth,

the pervasive story of growth, which runs its way through our entire

culture, uh, and the problems of that.

And we've been talking about alternatives to that story of growth, where it trips

us up, what the problems of it might be, helping people sort of see this

story and where it, where it turns up, IE everywhere, uh, in our culture.

In this last little bit of the conversation, James and I talk

a little bit about the Buddha's attitude towards earning more, uh,

and why that might actually be okay.

Uh, and as well we also talk about the importance of a personal metaphor.

Um, I have recorded one of the other little episodes in this Peripheral

Thinking series was talking about, uh, trees, trees as a metaphor.

Uh, and, uh, in this conversation we talk about the importance of a metaphor

as a, as a kind of frame, as a story, which helps us think about our own lives.

So, um, if you've dived in already to parts one and two of this conversation,

uh, I hope you enjoy this part three.

Uh, and, uh, if you are, this is where you're beginning.

Like I said, I do encourage you go back, check out those lio parts first.

Uh, and then hopefully you get here all in good time.

But for now, it's back to, uh, James and Ben talking story.

We've had a, I think, a pretty good look at, uh, at this

subject, subject of growth.

And I think it's, you know, it is a really important one to, to address because I

mean, even, uh, number eight of the, uh, European Sustainability Development goals,

the SDGs Sustainable Development Goals is, uh, decent work and economic growth.

And it's like, uh, you know, I appreciate that, but I really think

that needs a caveat, that this idea of, uh, of economic growth.

Um, and I wonder if we could, you know, if we were writing the little, uh, if we were

gonna rewrite the sort of sub-paragraph of, uh, of that, how would we define,

what would, what would, how would we

Yeah.

What was the first bit of it?

What?

What kind of work?

Decent work.

Yeah.

So I mean, that, that definitely feels important.

Um, the economic growth of the, I guess the question is around economic growth.

So, uh, somewhere on the.

Bookshelf behind me there is, um, a, a book on a Buddhism book.

So in the Buddhist teachings, there was a set of teachings that he gave called

the Numerical Discourses, which obviously don't sound like the most interesting

teachings in the world, but it was basically teachings for lay people.

So people like us, people who are not monks, essentially, uh, in relating

to how they should think about work and how they should think about money.

And obviously there's lots in the kind of British teachings around work

actually, and work that you might do in work that you might not do.

And this, you know, I don't offer these things because I'm saying that

people should be kind of Buddhist.

I think there's just interesting kind of philosophy in it in

terms of how we wander, how we might wander through our lives.

So there's basically a few things he says is, you know, doesn't make good sense

to do work, which is relating to help, you know, feeding people's addiction,

not good work to sort of facilitate war, um, and, uh, not good work that kind of

involves sort of generally killing things.

So they were his kind of guidelines for, for work.

So assuming those things are kind of in play, when he was talking specifically

around money he was saying or so the teaching goes, you know, money in and of

itself right, isn't actually the problem.

And, uh, that your work is oriented is intended to actually increasing what

you have, that too is not a problem.

Right.

But you know, the question then becomes, well, how much are you trying to increase?

And for what purpose?

For to what intention?

Which actually goes all the way back, in a sense, to what you

were talking about earlier, around whether the relationship's agreed.

Because what he, what the teachings basically is sort of saying is, you know,

actually that your work does increase incrementally the money that you have

each year, that is not a bad thing.

In fact, that might be a good thing because that money can be used to support

the security and wellbeing of your family.

That money can be used to support the security and wellbeing of the

community of which you are part.

And so this idea that actually working to increase your wealth in

and of, of itself is not the problem.

Uh, working to increase your wealth so that you are able to distribute it.

Working to increase wealth so that you are able, you are better able to take

care of yourself and take care of the people to which you are connected.

That is really sound and good use of money.

And so, you know, like if in case anybody kind of wanted the permission to do

it, there is the permission from the Buddha himself, I've relayed here to

know that it is okay to work in service of increasing the money that you have.

The question is what you then do with the money.

So it's kind of, you know, it could be a responsible economic growth

and perhaps rather than decent work, maybe it would be meaningful work.

But I understand decency, I imagine has a kind of, you know, health

and safety aspect to it, you know?

I wonder if responsible economic growth is the, uh, if that's actually all

Yeah.

And, and obviously these words all start to become, which obviously you will

have a much better feel for than me.

The, the word starts to become a bit kind of meaningless, but in a sense,

like it's the spirit of something which is generative, isn't it?

So generative kind of, you know, that I'm using this growth in service of

other people's wellbeing, other people's growth in service, of a service, that

starts to feel a bit more wholesome.

That starts to feel, going back to kind of the metaphor that we were talking about

at the beginning of the conversation, that I kind of understand that, you

know, that the, the economic growth is in service of the whole forest that

the tree is plugged into, the whole garden that the tree is plugged into.

Uh, not just in kind of protecting and making that tree as big as it can be,

because the bigger it gets, the more disconnected it becomes from everything

which it was supposed to be connected to, and then in the end, it will die.

Yes.

It's a, it's a nurturing, sort of circular, cyclical, uh, interconnected

development, perhaps we would say, um, uh, kind of evolution, uh, of course, of

which kind of growing and dying is part of

Yeah.

The other thing which comes to mind just around the money, I

remember having a conversation on my podcast with an economist,

cause I was talking about money.

I was just really curious to understand, you know, like where money comes from

and which is like this whole real sort of confusing sort of stream,

uh, and I use that word sort of, uh, accidentally, unintentionally.

Cuz the point that he was making when we were talking about money

is, um, like, if you think about the words that are used to describe this

current currency, there are banks.

Actually a lot of the language around money.

Uh, and this is an economist who was telling me this, you know, comes from

these idea of flow, comes from the idea of movement, comes from, you know, the,

and actually what has tended to happen is the E the E, the financial accumulation

we hold onto, for a lot of the reasons that we are still speaking about, rather

than we understand its movement, we understand the flow, we understand that

as a kind of, that it's, it's a, you know, in service of giving in a sense.

That again, just that little, that little twist, that little

sort of, uh, um, switch.

It's, yeah, it's, all of it can still have come before, you know.

You can still be the, the lion.

Uh, and you can still take, and you can still kind of, you can grow, but

in service of, of giving might just, uh, might just kind of close the,

the loop or rather, you know, put it back into the, uh, into the, the sort

of feeding nurse rather than a kind of a, a pure, like pure extraction,

pure kind of consumption one way.

It's just turning that if it was an image, it would be turning that, uh,

upwards, you know, arrow into a kind of actually a much more complex, uh, uh, and

not, uh, interconnectedness and change.

Um, I think it would be nice to, uh, also give, like, take it right back down

to the kind of personal level again.

Uh, the sort of human, the human level of what could, what can, what can people do?

I mean, you spoke about these ideas to sort of like embody this, this

sense of kind of, uh, secular growth of uh, uh, cyclical evolution.

You know, with the sort of still kind of like getting better.

Um, and you spoke about these kind of, these little deaths that you can,

you can perform this sort of pruning.

Um, and you spoke about your kind of practice of, uh, of sort of change.

You were gonna change, you were gonna kill your riding in the cafe and go somewhere.

You see how it changes.

Would you have any other, uh, Any other, any other gifts you might kind

of like to give to, uh, to sort of help us with our own, um, evolution, let's

I'm kind of reminded, reminded of a conversation I had with a friend who

is kind of out of work at the moment because of health related thing,

but he's in a kind of big corporate.

Job.

Right?

So, big corporate, big, big job.

One of those big role, big job, massive company kind of thing.

So he has, he's now in this force thing where he's not, he's not gonna

be at work for about six months because of, uh, thing going on.

And, um, we were sort of talking, we've been having conversations about things

that he might sort of be doing over that.

And, uh, one of the conversations we have, which was, uh, sort of over a

kind of walk and walk a talk and a coffee was, um, was around sort of

symbolism and metaphors a little bit.

And uh, I was talking about my metaphor of the tree, um,

which is like one in the garden.

And he was remembering like in the kind of big Krenn sort of thing,

like, when in early on in his career, and obviously he was like

one of those like fast track things.

So having been earmarked from quite early on to, you know, likely end

up in a really senior thing was on like a leadership training thing

and they were getting him to think about, uh, images, symbols, metaphors.

And the metaphor that he had in his mind right, was lighthouse,

that he was gonna be a lighthouse.

And uh, like he was saying when he reflected back on it, like that felt

like quite a sort of powerful thing.

But equally like when you kind of then feel about where he's is now, where there

is a health related thing and he not going to work, blah, blah, blah, like

this idea of kind of lighthouse that you are this manmade tower built on rocks to

protect people, to point people away and protect people from stormy dead seas,

you know, huge kind of responsibility and pressure that kind of comes from that.

Uh, and uh, so I guess one of the, one of the conversations that he and I

were having was about actually spending some time to think about a metaphor,

to think, well, to reflect on a kind of metaphor, an image, which actually

kind of reminds you of, and he was like, his, where he kind of got to was

thinking, oh, actually, you know, clearly that doesn't feel like a metaphor.

Now.

That was like a metaphor for before.

And his words were, I feel like I need an image, which is a bit

more fluid, a bit more actually.

He just said, I feel like I need an image which is a bit more fluid.

Uh, and uh, and I think that, you know, in a way is another

really useful place to start.

What is the metaphor that I hold up to sort of, to remind me about how I

want to be, the type of work I want to do, how I want to be at work today?

What is that metaphor that I hold up and.

You know, there is value and usefulness in taking the time to

reflect on what that might be.

Because like for me, it is the tree, right?

So like there is an actual tree in my garden.

There is, that is the tree that I kind of remind myself of.

And so look, when he was asking me what is it?

Is that about a thing that I'm sort of aspiring to?

It's like, no, no, it's just, you know, it's just, it's an ever present.

It's like, it's a, it's a reminder of orientation, it's a reminder of intention

and it is also a of a teacher and guide.

Just to kind of, just to bring me back to the kind of the, the kind of the

ideas, the principles, the stories if you like, which are important to me.

So I guess one of the useful things that I would suggest that people do is reflect

on what image is it that you default to?

What is the metaphor you default to, which frames how you go about your life?

And is that a metaphor which needs updating?

Where does that meta metaphor come, come from?

Is there a metaphor which might kind of more positively point you

to the other aspects that you might want to grow, the other stories that

you might want to grow, that might be born of a, of a more wholesome

growth, for want of a better phrase?

that's, uh, that's a wonderful thing to do.

We can all go off and find our personal, uh, growth symbol.

I think I like the idea of these kind of, rather than the lion on the shield,

you know, now you've, you've got a tree and someone's got a yeah, a uh, a

dandelion, um, spreading its, uh, seeds.

It's, uh, yeah, find your kind of, and obviously, you know, you perhaps don't

wanna predicate, uh, it has to be nature, but I think that's just a perfect example.

Okay.

It was a phallic tower, you know, it was a beaming out light, you know, like

it was this like conquering nature.

Uh, you're standing tall above it and you know, like keeping it in,

in check, um, to something, yeah.

Something more fluid, something more, uh, that, that kind of resonates.

That's something that, uh, that everybody can do.

And I think to hold these kind of, to hold these, uh, these metaphors to hold

these sort of symbols, these stories in our mind, it gives us a, a frame, gives us

a sort of frame of reference and a frame of reflection that is, uh, that is just

invaluable, especially to sort of check.

Back into as you, as you describe it, just to sort of look and kind of

Okay, read, readjust, readjust to it.

Um, yeah, and let's do this and let's see.

Uh, how then these, um, uh, these kind of individual stories then trickle up to

the, to the kind of global, global stage.

I look forward to seeing that happen.

Wonderful.

Well, Ben, thank you so much for your time and, uh, for your, uh,

thank you to the Buddha for your, for his, uh, for, for his insight.

We must, uh, thank you to the Buddha for your, to your tree.

Yeah, perfect.

I hope you enjoyed that.

That was the last part of this three part epic adventure.

Looking at, uh, the, the story of growth, uh, which is the all

pervasive story of our time.

Um, I really enjoyed that.

Uh, I hope you enjoyed this way of breaking things up too, this kind of

three part idea, trying to keep things a little bit more accessible for you.

So I'd really, uh, welcome your feedback on that.

And if you, if anyone you know would be interested is you think would benefit from

hearing a little bit more about some of the ideas that James and I talk about in

this, then please do share it with them.

Uh, for now.

Thank you for listening.

I really appreciate you lending me your ears, uh, and I look forward to us

sharing voice and hearing at some point.

In the future.

Uh, and if you're kind of curious about this podcast more generally, do

check over head over to our website.

It's peripheral-thinking.com.

You'll find all the information there, all the other episodes there, and of

course, the opportunity to sign up to the newsletter so I can let you know,

uh, as soon as new episodes come out.

And until then, thank you and goodbye.