Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 2

My international travels have included most of the oil cartel countries of the world. When I board an airplane to leave one of those countries, I never know whether to rejoice because of the positive results of the industrial revolution, or to feel sad because of what laborless luxuries have done to spoil the privileged of those countries. I am tempted to perceive that no great inventions, models of science, industries, economics, arts, literature, music, or civics seem to flow from those countries . . . just boatloads of oil. So, most often upon exiting, I simply find myself, , excitedly looking forward to a post-petroleum-based world economy and scratching my head wondering why we have remained so long in the pitiful position of oil dependency.

All the international political folks have been wringing their hands and whining that we are in such a precarious position of oil scarcity, yet all the while, the constant drumbeat of exponential information and technology has continued. In my opinion, it has never been an issue of global scarcity, but of global accessibility to resources.

Technology has had to keep on the stretch to try to stay up with the exponential growth of knowledge and information. On average, technologies are doubling in power every eighteen months, in an effort to stay up with the exponential supply of knowledge and information. The prices for those technologies are also being slashed in half every eighteen months. Affordability continues to drive the growth. Inventions based on today’s technologies are usually outdated by the time they get to the market. That’s a marvelous thing.

Gordon Moore’s famed tech trend of trying to cram more and more components onto integrated circuits has paid off handsomely. Circuits on a computer chip have exponentially doubled every year since 1958 and the invention of the integrated circuit.

Today, exciting things are happening in the areas of sand and silicon. IBM is developing new breakthrough approaches in chip technologies by integrating electrical and optical devices on the same silicon chip. Instead of the old electrical signals, the new chips communicate with signals of light. That eliminates the historical problems of generating heat that has always limited the speed and required vast amounts of energy for cooling. Using light eliminates both problems.

Conservative estimates figure that IBM’s new chip design could increase a supercomputer’s ability a thousand fold. It should take the present 2.6 petaflops to a full exaflop that would provide some quintillion operations per second. Simply speaking, that is one hundred times faster than the human brain functions . . . and we used to marvel that the old horse-and-buggy computers could actually beat the Russian chess champion on a regular basis.

Our locally grounded and linearly acclimated brains have a tough time comprehending what is really going on in the progress of our world. Incredible miracles are taking place every day and we hardly notice. Just what are the implications of three billion new individuals coming on line presently by computers and smart phones? Three billion individuals who can learn, dream, invent, and experiment. They are now allowed by technology to open the treasure chests of information, knowledge, and contacts. Ignorance and scarcity brings poverty; abundance and access to that abundance brings opportunity for freedom.

In January, 1994, I took Anna Marie with me to Nairobi, Kenya. It was her first trip to Africa. From Nairobi we traveled to the majestic Rift Valley, to Begonia Game Park, and on to Nakuru. The large district hospital was located in Nakuru. Project C.U.R.E. was involved in donating hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of greatly needed medical goods to the hospital.

We were invited to visit the Tendress Coffee Plantation outside Nakuru. Alfred, the plantation foreman, wanted to show us the plantation school, as well as their small clinic. As we drove into the schoolyard, we saw the pupils still out playing soccer or huddled together talking. The teachers were standing outside near the entrance to the school. Alfred was kind enough to introduce us to the headmaster and the teachers.

Since it was about midmorning, Anna Marie, who has her PhD in education and communication, asked the headmaster if all the pupils were out together for recess. He explained that the people had not yet come by to give the teachers the lessons they were to use to teach the kids that day, but that they should be along very soon.

Inside the classrooms there was one chalkboard on the front wall of each room, and crude writing desks and chairs enough to handle up to forty-five students per room. In talking to the teachers, we discovered that they had never had textbooks, curriculum, or reference books at the large school. The headmaster would receive everyday what the teachers would be teaching to the classes.

We asked some of the students if they were given homework assignments. They informed us that they were responsible for their own pen or pencil and their own paper for their assignments. When we asked where they went to get their supplies, they told us that, since they had no money for such things, they would walk along the fencerows on their way to and from school and collect the windblown paper scraps on which they would figure out their math assignments.

Anna Marie began working with the school, and upon the return to her school in Evergreen, Colorado, she organized students and parents and ended up sending thousands of pounds of encyclopedias, non-cultural library books, maps, and school supplies to the plantation school. We later found out that when the encyclopedias arrived, the teachers began taking them home and reading them completely by the light of their cooking fires at night.

Now, multiply that thirst for information and knowledge over the continent of Africa that is large enough to contain all of the United States, Europe, China, the sub-continent if India, and more. That was in 1994. Today, those students aren’t waiting for the headmaster to receive the teaching material every morning. This morning the teachers aren’t even waiting for some encyclopedias to arrive along with some medical goods from Evergreen, Colorado. They now have wireless access to information that was not even available to Harvard University or the president of the United States just a few years ago!

Three billion new individuals are coming on line via computers and smart phones, who have never had access to a world community of information, knowledge, and contacts. They are not only going to be recipients of the exponential intelligence, but also they will enter onto the freeway of communication, and be able for the very first time to contribute to the discussions, the discoveries, and inventions of the future. Now that’s progress!

Next Week: Supposin’: A Look at Progress, Part 3

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Supposin': A Look at Progress, Part 1

For a brief session, let’s mute the invasive and persuasive barrage of the press and turn up the volume on some positive notes of hope and progress. Here are some facts that will make you smile for a change. It is time we take notice of the technological and cultural advances that are taking place without our even noticing. Your amygdala may not ferret out these facts, but your heart should be greatly encouraged when you hear them.

We need to be reminded that our generation has more access today to services, goods, information, and modes of transportation, medicines, education, communication systems, human rights, and democratic experiments than any other generation in recorded history. Generally speaking, we are wealthier, healthier, and safer than any previous inhabitants on earth.

When I was eleven years old, Dwight D. Eisenhower ran against Adlai Stevenson for the presidency of the United States. I was pretty passionate about the General, and even wore an “I Like Ike” badge, wrote a poem, and also made a poster for the campaign. With World War II over, I recall how General Eisenhower tried to assure the American people that all the information and technology that had gone into developing the atom bomb could be turned into peaceful purposes.

He talked about using the nuclear power to turn the salt water of the seas and oceans into fresh water. We could irrigate the unused fertile land of the world with the water and transform it into a breadbasket for the millions of hungry people. He also explained how the harnessed power of the atom could one day be safely used so that there would never again be a shortage of electricity anywhere on the earth.

After his election in 1952, he spoke to the young United Nations organization in New York City and laid out the plan for his Atoms for Peace program: “To the making of these fateful decisions, the United States pledges before you–and therefore before the world–its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma–to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." (December 8, 1953)

Imposed fear and political manipulation pretty much sabotaged President Eisenhower’s dream. But in the ensuing years, the knowledge base regarding atomic and hydrogen power continued to grow exponentially every year. Exponentiallymeans the doubling of a number from one period to the next, (example: 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, etc.). And now, for the first time, our knowledge base and technology is beginning to catch up with our dreams and ambitions. Let’s talk about the exponential growth of our knowledge base.

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt claims that from the beginning of time until the year 2003, humankind created five exabytes of digital information (an Exabyte is one billion gigabytes . . . that’s a one (1) followed by eighteen zeros.) By the year 2010, the human race was generating five exabytes of information every few days. By the near future, the number is expected to be five exabytes produced every ten minutes. (1)

A major newspaper today will contain more information in one week’s worth of print than the average seventeenth century individual would have encountered in a lifetime. A culture can possess the possibility of storing, exchanging, and improving ideas based on specialization and innovation . . . building one idea or bit of information upon another.

When I first started traveling in Africa in the early 1980s, the only international electronic connections I had to countries like Zimbabwe was the old commercial Telex machines. Other than that it was air mail service that took about 10 days each way to communicate. It would take forever to communicate back and forth just to make travel arrangements, hotel reservations, confirm who would be at the airport to meet me, and any other inner-country arrangements.

I thought I had arrived in heaven when the fax machine was introduced, eventually followed by the marvelous computer email. Within just the time I have been traveling to Africa, the internet and wireless technologies have become within the grasp of nearly all Africans. They never had to go through the stage of stringing telephone lines that would have cost multiplied millions of dollars, because the technology was wireless.

Because of micro-lending and other available programs, 2% of the people had mobile phones by year 2000, 28% by 2009, and nearly 70% by 2013. Now, a common African businessman with a cell phone has better information and communication capabilities than the president of the U.S. did when I first started traveling in Africa. And if he has Google and a smart phone he has better information than the president did just fifteen years ago. Very soon the entire world’s populations will have the exponential technological advantage and experience that only the affluent experienced just a few years ago.

Three billion people who have never before had access to the internet or shared information will be coming on line via computers and smart phones. They are a brand new world market. Additionally, their contribution to the global intelligence will result in new ideas, inventions and discoveries, and products.

Next Week: Supposin’: A Look at Progress, Part 2

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Supposin': Naughty Doggie

We have just tagged the amygdala (a-mig’dala) as the Rottweiler of our brain. It was designed and employed as a guardian and helper. As a watchdog, it beautifully fulfills all expectations to seek out even the most obscure danger and warn us with a rousing raucous. Its duty is to point out problems and ignite our fear mechanism.

But, like every watchdog, it needs discipline and training. Left to its own nature, the watchdog that was engaged to patrol and protect our person and property can become a vicious and dangerous controller of the whole estate. Undisciplined, the watchdog has the potential of focusing all of its attention, and the attention of everyone in the household, on problems, problems, problems.

When that happens, the owner’s response is to give more attention and weight to the negative information and experiences rather than to any positive input. The atmosphere is more pessimistic than optimistic as the fear-driven assignment morphs into a full-time search for trouble. The naughty doggie has just taken over control of the whole estate, because he will find more trouble.

If some screwtape- type individual should want to negatively control the watchdog, and subsequently the whole estate, all that is required is to keep the watchdog’s attention fully focused on the distracting fears and threats. The watchdog will cause commotion enough to keep the whole household in a state of fear, and will paralyze the behavior of the owner so that he is prevented from accomplishing anything positive or productive. An even more subtle problem is that all the commotion and fear caused by the distractions will actually blind the owner from even seeing the present situation as it really is. He will develop a false perception of reality.

Does that sound even a little bit familiar as to what happens to us as we try to live out our individual lives? We become entangled in our fears about our shortages and perceived dangers. Our worries burn holes right through our inner eyes of hope, imagination, and achievement. We are left blinded to the good things that are happening today and the possibilities of future triumphs. Every time the watchdog barks, even if it is at his own shadow, we tend to become paralyzed by fear. It is time to stop the goofy game. It is time to say No, no, naughty doggie, I am the owner and this is my estate . . . No, no!

So, what are some of the things to which our inner eyes have been blinded from our incessant preoccupation with our fears of shortage, lack, and insufficiency? This is, of course, not a problem exclusively identified with Americans. It is universal. It was the problem and process of Eastern Europe. It was at the heart of the messes in Bosnia and Rwanda, as well as Vietnam, Serbia, Cambodia, and now again in the Ukraine. It is a prime example of cultural economics, because all transformational change takes place at the intersection of culture and economics.

Let me share some observations I have made as I have traveled and studied cultures in over 150 countries of the world. These are the subtle issues of which discontentments and even wars are made:

  • We lose proper perspective of the good things we already possess. We begin to hoard and become stingy toward others.
  • We abandon our attitude of gratitude and become acutely aware of what other people have in comparison to what we have.
  • We adopt the idea that we are entitled to more than what we have and fear that we might end up with even less.
  • We spend our time worrying about not having enough, even though we have never tried to figure out just how much is enough.
  • We are tempted to believe that the reason some others have more is because they somehow took our share away from us.
  • We begin to subconsciously think about ways to redistribute things that others have in order that those things can justifiably be ours.
  • We start becoming attracted to those we consider strong enough to take things away from those who have and distribute them to us.
  • The fear and preoccupation surrounding the perceived inequity of scarcity and shortage shuts down our creative processes of problem solving and drives us to a deeper dependency on government, insurgency groups, mafia, or another voice that will offer to do the worrying for us and ultimately take care of us.

Here’s the good news, however: the disposition of the naughty watchdog can be altered. It is possible that we can shed the old logic of the limited and embrace theability of abundance. The old paradigm does not have to remain, it can be replaced. Our ability to hear the good news again can be restored.

A quick look again at history can validate the fact that things are not as bad as we have been made to believe. Real progress is being experienced right now where we live. It is fair to state that never in history has there been a time when living standards have improved so dramatically as in the past century. Who would have thought a hundred years ago that even the poorest folks in America would be enjoying such luxuries as indoor flushing toilets, personal cars, telephones, and multiple televisions? It is time we take a candid look at just how much available abundance our culture presently enjoys and how rapidly things are continuing to change for the better. 

Next Week: A Look at Progress

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Supposin': A Big Clue to Our Problem

It seems to me, as a cultural economist, that there is ample evidence in ancient manuscripts, contemporary writings, and anecdotal traditions, to make a strong case for an economic model based on abundance, choice, and accomplishment, rather than scarcity, choice, and cost. If that is a possibility, then why is it that we have a natural propensity to base our daily decisions on a fear-based model of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Let’s do some exploring.

When you were born, you came equipped with an amygdala (a-mig’ dala) as standard equipment. Aren’t you happy for that? In fact, you came equipped with two amygdalae and didn’t have to pay extra for either one. As an owner, that should really make you twice as happy . . . or maybe not.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the front part of the temporal lobe of your cerebrum that is part of the limbic system and is involved in the processing and expression of emotions, especially anger and fear. It has a lot to do with the flight-or-fight response. It also plays a pivotal role in triggering a state of fear based on the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Because of that, there may also be a link between the amygdala and patterns of extreme anxiety.

I like to think of the amygdala as the Rottweiler of your brain. It was born and bred to be the ultimate watchdog, assigned to your personal survival. As standard equipment in your brain, it is your first line of defense and a warning system that is expected to always be hyper-alert and seek out any and all danger. It never sleeps and never slumbers and its growl and bark sends instant messages to the heart, the lungs, the nerves, the skin, the eyes, the ears, the memory chips, and even prepares the muscles for instant action.

This Rottweiler of the brain is always looking for something to fear . . . and will always find something to bark about. The more barking, the more he is considered successful. He is always looking for something that is negative and is never patted on the head for discovering something positive. And, as you might expect, if the watchdog ever gets hold of something that has agitated him, it is possible that he will never let it go.

Now, with the Rottweiler in mind, let’s ask the questions again: Why is it that we have a natural propensity to base our daily decisions on a fear-based model of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Why is it easier to believe something negative than something positive? In order to get higher listener and viewer ratings, wouldn’t the newspaper, television, and computer outlets cram the airwaves with negative stories as opposed to any positive stories? Why would we always have the feeling that we are under siege? Why is it so lucrative to sell pessimism and fear? Why don’t potential dangers ever go away?

The simple answer is, because we have allowed the watchdog to run amuck and have rewarded him for his incessant behavior. We have developed and encouraged a messed up watchdog that possesses an insatiable appetite for the negative, the fearful, and the insufficient.

So, what are some methods to modify the out of balance behavior, other than selling the Rottweiler, buying a Golden Retriever, and moving out of the dangerous neighborhood? Realistically, how do you ratchet down the fear and insecurity mindset in order to make room for the alternative of hope and confidence? Let’s brainstorm:

  • Limit the tsunami of negative media flow into your conscious and subconscious mind. Just say, “No thank you” to 90% of the news.
  • Try to remember that the fear of scarcity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • Quit rewarding the watchdog when it barks at its own shadow.
  • Train your watchdog to perceive that the person approaching may not be an intruder, but may be your best friend.
  • Dare to investigate the idea of My God shall supply all your need . . . (Philippians 4:19).
  • Try to remember that the attitude of shortage is bondage. The attitude of abundance is freedom.
  • Begin to delete the information on the memory chips of your amygdala to replace it with new and positive information on sufficiency, abundance, and accomplishment.

    It is true that your personal model came equipped with a left and right amygdala. They were designed and installed as a benefit to you. But, you are the one in charge of your current model and have the responsibility of overseeing the use and discipline of the function of the amygdalae. Your new automobile also came from the factory equipped with two windshield wipers for your benefit, but you are in charge of turning them off and on at the appropriate times. If you find yourself with a complicated problem regarding your factory supplied equipment, it would be recommended that you contact the manufacturer of your model. 

    It is our choice whether we allow the information we receive into our human beings to affect and influence us negatively or positively. That call is ours. It is not the set of circumstances in which we find ourselves, but how we respond to those circumstances that makes all the difference in the world.

    Next Week: Naughty Doggie

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

    Supposin': In Search of a Solution

    I have had people in the past come up to me and say, “So, Dr. Jackson, just how did that relinquishment thing work out for you, where you and Anna Marie gave away your accumulated wealth and started over? Did you have to take out bankruptcy, or did God bless you for being a good guy and reward you by giving back to you a trillion dollars of real estate in return for the sixteen million you gave away?”

    The simple answer to that is, “neither.” God is way more creative and intelligent than that, and he has way more integrity than that. We didn’t give to get. That is, we didn’t give away our things in order to manipulate God into giving more back to us in some sort of quid pro quo game of economics. We gave those things away because that was what we felt we ought to do, and we never suggest that anyone else should ever necessarily follow suit. We needed to push the restart button of our lives and get our priorities straightened out. I personally needed to break the dangerous addiction of wealth accumulation and simply stop it!

    I don’t have anything against wealth or people accumulating wealth. But I certainly wasn’t seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness . . . and I needed to do that. Relinquishment was the lesson I needed to learn, and spending my life and energies in helping other people be better off was to be my future involvement.

    Now, to the reality of what actually happened: everything that we would have spent the accumulated wealth on to buy, we now have in abundance. I’m still not sure, however, just how a thing like that happens. All I can attest to is that, like the widow from Zerephath when she obeyed Elijah’s challenge to her, all of our needs have likewise been graciously met. And then, on top of all that, we were allowed the indescribable privilege of seeing Project C.U.R.E. start from absolutely nothing and grow like a seed from the ground into an entity that has enriched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. A handful of relinquished goods has miraculously become a multiplied resource for spreading health and hope in over 130 countries.

    Allow me to pose this question: Why is it so difficult to base our lives on the possibility of abundance rather than on the basis of insufficiency, lack, and shortage? Why do we base our entire economic system on the trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost to the exclusion of the serious possibility of abundance? Is there a chance that we are cheating ourselves and our culture by not pursuing the possible?

    I’m not into dreams, or illusions, or strange things. I’m a rather concrete Scotch/Irishman. But sometimes I slightly awaken before the alarm goes off in the morning and I review a reoccurring apparition dancing in my mind. It can’t be more than twenty years in the future. I am in heaven (I like that part!) and God is giving me a tour, much like I would give someone a tour of one of our warehouses.

    He is so excited telling me about never ending space, and interplanetary travel, and earth, and growth, and life, and chemicals, and systems, systems, systems. “Do you have any idea what you are going to get to do forever and forever, and how much exciting knowledge there is for me to share with you? I could hardly wait to share it with you. You are going to absolutely love the adventure and the knowledge and wisdom available to you forever . . . and you will know even as you are known. 

    “There was so very much more I wanted to share with you and other humans on earth. But, you didn’t listen. You didn’t stop to hear. You were so preoccupied with arguing and fighting wars over who was going to control the oil reserves, the fresh water, coal, precious metals, and all the other things you thought were scarce. I designed the earth with sufficiency enough to take care of everything and everyone I ever allowed to live there.

    “Some people, however, slowed down, unplugged their ears and listened. I was able to share insights and wisdom with them that began to grow exponentially. That pleased me, because there was so much more I was eager and willing to share that would have solved so very many of your problems and puzzles.”

    It’s always about that time the alarm sounds and the music box stops. I’m left with the rest of the day to think about all we have missed and how much is right now available to us to see and hear and learn.Next Week: 

    Next Week: Supposin’: A Big Clue to our Problem

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

    Supposin': A Personal Choice

    It was a beautiful March day in Israel. My son Jay and I were traveling with Shaul Amir, an executive of the large Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Tel Aviv. Shaul wanted to introduce me to some of his close friends who were very important Israeli government people in the city of Haifa. We drove north, with the Mediterranean Sea on our left and the Jordan River to our right, to the base of Mt. Carmel, and then on toward Sidon. Before we reached Haifa I, spotted a signpost that pointed toZarephath.

    “Shaul,” I excitedly asked, “is that the same Zarephath that is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures when they talk about Elijah and wicked King Ahab and how God made it not rain for three years?”

    “How would you know anything about our old prophet Elijah?” Shaul inquired with a bewildered expression. “How would you know anything about Zarephath? You know I grew up just over there on the side of Mt. Carmel. I rode horseback all over this area when I was young.” We had a marvelous conversation as we drove on. I told him all I remembered about the story and he filled in the local color.

    You see, King Ahab was the most wicked king Israel had experienced to that time. And his foreign wife, Jezebel, was twice as evil. God got their attention by sending Elijah to the king so he could tell Ahab that God was going to stop the rain until he sent Elijah back to see him later. Jezebel and the king didn’t like the message, so they decided to kill the messenger (nothing new in history).

    Eventually, God had to send Elijah to the village of Zarephath, where he arranged for an old widow to hide him and take care of him until the rains started again. When Elijah arrived at the edge of the city, there was the old woman gathering sticks to build a fire. “Please bring me a glass of water,” requested Elijah. As the woman turned to fetch the water, Elijah called to her and said, “Oh, yes, and while you are at it, please bring me some bread, also.”

    That was enough to trip the trigger of the old widow. She was thinking what a stretch it was to even consider getting the old man some water, since there was almost no water available because of the imposed drought. But now he was asking for some bread! She replied, “I don’t have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it – and die.”

    Elijah responded, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’ ”

    The woman went away and did what Elijah had told her to do. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family, for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry as the Lord had said through Elijah. (I Kings 17:7-16)

    Shaul, Jay, and I had a spectacular time discussing the story about the village of Zerephath on our way to Haifa. Whether we risk our life on our belief in the economic concept of scarcity, insufficiency, and lack, or dare to believe in the possibility of abundance, is really and finally up to us. . It is our call. It is like what my old dad used to say: “Be alert to the image you hold in your mind, because you ultimately become what you think about all day long.”

    Many times as I would be in flight somewhere on the millions of miles I have flown in the past thirty years, I have thought about the strange and glorious adventure Anna Marie and I started on when we decided to risk our lives on this call to obedience and abundance. At the beginning of the adventure it looked more like “de-abundance” than abundance. We had spent our life radically accumulating wealth for ourselves that would last us until we died. We had worked hard and acquired sixteen times more than I had thought we would ever have in our entire lifetime. But, it was not satisfying. We were doing well, but we were not doing good. We were not happy, and as I looked around none of our friends who were addicted to accumulating more and more were happy, either.

    After a lot of discussions, we decided to give away what we had accumulated and start over again. Perhaps we needed to learn that God couldn’t trust us with heaven’s riches until we could be trusted with no riches. I never suggest that anyone else do just as we did and give away all his or her accumulation. But for me, I had to break the radical accumulation addiction and I needed to do it cold turkey. I needed to change from a person who was bent on getting to a person who was bent on giving.

    A mental and spiritual disposition of getting springs from a fear that there is only so much available in the scheme of things and we must hoard, covet and redistribute what someone else has for our own taking. The doctrine of shortage promotes bondage; the doctrine of abundance promotes freedom. After all these years I have come to believe that it is through relinquishment that you come to true abundance. To have relinquished the old paradigm and embraced a new and different concept of abundance was the best business deal I ever made in all my life. But the choice to move from a paradigm of scarcity, choice and cost to one of abundance, choice andfulfillment is a very personal decision.

    I have often thought how Washington Carver must have felt in his experiments with the lowly peanut . . . we are merely scratching the surface of the scientific investigation of the possibilities of sufficiency and abundance. Our new adventure required us to purposefully let go of those things that we had considered as our security blankets, but were in fact items of bondage. We then had to allow a new image of trust and expectation to become our security. We kept focusing on My God shall supply all your needs . . . (Philippians 4:19). In starting over we had to push to the edge of the cliff, and then walk over the edge, expecting that there would be something beneath our next step or else we would be taught how to fly.

    Now, some forty years after that decision and launch of the adventure, some of the results are being tallied. Over one billion dollars’ worth of medical goods have been donated through Project C.U.R.E. into over 130 countries around the world. Because of the help of over 16,000 volunteers and staff at Project C.U.R.E., literally tens of thousands of people are alive and economies are stronger. We had purposefully chosen to take our hands off the things that would last for a short time so that we could lay hold of the abundant things that would last forever. The best business deal we ever made was to choose, along with the old widow from Zarephath, to exchange what we could not keep for the abundance we could not lose.

    Next Week: Supposin’: In Search of a Solution

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

    Supposin': A Potential Resource

    The itinerant rabbi told the people that there was no shortage, insufficiency or lack. He told them that they could risk their lives as individuals, as families, and as a nation on the abundance of their God. He told them that if one of the foreign soldiers commanded them to carry his munitions backpack down the road for a mile; they could carry it for another mile as well. If someone asked them for their coat they could give them their topcoat also. When other people are in need you can help them be better off because you can afford to give to them out of your unseen abundance. Then he told them, freely you have received; now let us freely give. (Matt. 10:8)

    Most of the people who listened to the rabbi as he spoke could neither grasp nor process all that he was saying. They had been taught the logic of the limited rather than the ability of abundance. So, he resorted to telling them a lot of stories and amazingly performed lots of miracles to help them understand and believe. More than once large crowds of people came to hear him teach and stayed right past their mealtime. On one occasion there was a gathering of five thousand men, plus women, plus children. Only one young boy had prepared for lunch by bringing five small barley loaves and two small fish.

    The rabbi seated all the people, blessed the meager bit of food, and his companions started handing out the bread and fish to everyone. They kept passing it out until everyone was completely satisfied. When the large crowd left, he sent his companions around to pick up the leftovers. They picked up enough to fill twelve baskets. It was an astounding feat. It was a miracle where the local people could participate and go away with their stomachs full and their hearts and heads believing. There was no shortage and there was no garbage.

    In one of his teaching sessions the rabbi actually told the people to stop fretting about not having enough. He seemed to know that living a life convinced that everything was in very short supply, or else already all gone, was not a healthy way to live. That kind of thinking would lead to weird behavior and set into motion tragic consequences. So he instructed them: 

    Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink: or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 

    And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 

    So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well. (Matt. 6:25-34) 

    So, wherever the rabbi traveled and taught, the people were challenged to recall that throughout their history they had experienced abundance commensurate with believing in and being faithful to their God. When they had depended on themselves and their own cleverness and greed they had repeatedly shut off the spigot of abundance and had lived with the consequences of shortage, scarcity and insufficiency.

    While teaching, the rabbi began explaining very explicitly who he really was. He was not just an itinerant rabbi, but the promised son of God who had come to present and explain eternal truth to those who would listen. That was even more perplexing and difficult for the people to understand and believe than the stories he told and the miracles he performed. He explained that the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10) He went on to explain that he would, of necessity, need to die to make provision for the promised resources and abundance, but would come back to life again to insure it.

    I have personally witnessed how such things as this work. I have been a part of such miracles of abundance. While I was in Nagorno-Karabakh I saw the sad devastation in the country and the maiming and crippling of many of the victims. The constant bombing and the hidden land mines had left so many of the victims without arms or legs. Many others needed physical rehabilitation in order to be restored to health. I had promised the doctors and nurses that Project C.U.R.E. would help them establish a physical rehabilitation facility to be located in the city of Stepanakert.

    When I returned to Denver from Nagorno-Karabakh, I had found out that we had sent all the rehabilitation equipment that we had collected in our warehouse inventory to a hospital in Turkey. What would we do? The time was quickly approaching when we had to ship the ocean going cargo container into Yerevan, Armenia to be transported by land to Stepanakert. Justin and his crew began to pray for the people in Nagorno-Karabakh, and that a miracle would take place allowing us to receive the needed rehabilitation equipment and prosthesis pieces. They kept the list of needed things for Karabakh right on their desk in the warehouse.

    Then, one day our warehouse was notified that a large truck would soon be arriving at our docks. The truck was loaded with medical goods that had been donated to Project C.U.R.E. by a prominent medical company. But, Justin did not know what would be on the arriving truck. When the truck backed into the dock space, the driver hopped out and handed to Justin a manifest of all the donated contents in the truck.

    “Jim, it was a miracle, an absolute miracle,” Justin said to me with tears welling up in his expressive eyes. “Jerry and I stood there, and I had the manifest of the new load from the truck that had just arrived in one hand and the list of needed equipment and prosthesis pieces for the Nagorno-Karabakh load in my other hand. The two lists were almost identical. Jim, it was a miracle,” he told me. “When we arrived at the warehouse this morning we didn’t have what we needed. Then within the next hour we had everything we needed to send. Now they will have almost everything they requested to complete the rehabilitation center, plus lots and lots more medical supplies than they even expected! We have just been a part of a miracle.”

    I am learning that with God’s abundant resources available to us as a family, we can afford to give abundantly. I am learning that we can risk our lives on the enduring economic trilogy of abundance, choice, and accomplishment.

    Next Week: Supposin’: A Personal Choice

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

    Supposin': Abundance, Choice and Accomplishment

    Supposin’ that we developed an economic model and instead of using the standard economic trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost, we used abundance, choice, andaccomplishment. What if we actually worked into our model the possibility that the cost factor could be shifted because the consequence of our choice function did not necessarily eliminate the utilization of the next highest two or three other alternatives?

    In our traditional economic model we presume that everything is scarce because it has at least two alternative uses for the resource. We then presume that the cost of our having chosen one of the alternative uses is the lost opportunity of utilizing one of the other next highest alternatives. What if . . . the abundance of the resource eliminated, or at least minimized the consequence of the choice to such a degree, that a positive accomplishment, or multiple accomplishments, could be realized rather than a negative cost? The whole paradigm would change!

    The example of George Washington Carver comes to my mind. Born into slavery in 1864, he became an inventor, scientist, botanist, and professor at Tuskegee University for 47 years. The South had become a one-crop cotton culture. The soil had become depleted and the boll weevil was spoiling any cotton that could be grown. Carver creatively took up the challenge to introduce alternative crops to the land to pump needed nutrition into the ground as well as into the farm families’ tummies

    Mr. Carver started with the lowly peanut. He invented 145 different uses for the peanut, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and nitroglycerin. He also came up with 105 food recipes using peanuts. Sweet potatoes and soybeans then caught his attention. Products from just the sweet potato included: wood fillers, dyes, breakfast foods, molasses, glue for library books, vinegars, coffee, after-dinner mints, lemon drops, and orange drops.

    George Washington Carver told Raleigh Merritt, one of his biographers, that he was merely scratching the surface of scientific investigations of the possibilities of the peanut and other Southern products. (1) Fortunate for Mr. Carver, there was no one from our generation present to persuade him that there was such a thing as insufficiency, lack, or scarcity. He really believed that the economic trilogy should be abundance, choice and accomplishment. It makes me not only wonder how many more items would be on our local grocer’s shelves had Mr. Carver lived another fifty years, but also, can you imagine what he could have accomplished with the new technology just from the gleanings of the NASA discoveries? You would have had a difficult time convincing him that we live in a culture of shortage and zero sum economics!

    There was another historical character that comes to my mind who tried to convince his culture that abundance should be at the very heart of their economic thinking. He found out, however, that folks that make up cultures don’t necessarily respond positively to the good news of abundance. He experienced that there are a lot of people on this earth who are pretty much stuck somewhere between ignorant and stupid and would rather resort to coveting, lusting after, and stealing what someone else has in their possession than to personally experience the concept of abundance, choice, and fulfillment.

    There was a certain rabbi in the area of Palestine who traveled teaching and explaining the old Jewish scriptures. With his very presence, he reminded the common people and leaders of their historical inheritance and traditions. At the time they lived in a land occupied by conquerors and controlled by financial restraints and taxation. In fact, the rabbi had been born on a trip where his parents were registering for a census and a new tax that would become more tribute to the conquerors.

    The people who heard the rabbi were already familiar with the past heroes of their culture. They were aware of the abundance of creation. They knew the story of how wealthy God had made their early patriarch, Abraham (Gen. 13:2), and how God had promised Moses: the Lord will grant you abundant prosperity (Deut. 28:11). God had promised them through their hero Isaiah: Instead of shame and dishonor, you shall have a double portion of prosperity and everlasting joy (Isa. 61:7). The sometimes wealthy old guy Job had reminded them, this is the way he (God) governs the nations and provides food in abundance (Job 36:31) and Haggai had cleared up the question as to who really owned all the earth’s wealth, the silver is mine and the gold is mine declares the Lord Almighty (Haggai 2:8).

    The people along the routes of the itinerate rabbi from Bethlehem north to the Sea of Galilee knew about the writings of their beloved psalmist and former patriarch, King David. But they needed to be reminded of his words regarding provisions, sufficiency and abundance. It had been the psalmist who had written:

    • The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Ps. 34:10).
    • . . . but you brought us to a place of abundance.(Ps. 66:12)
    • He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (Ps. 1:3)
    • In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty. (Ps. 37:19)
    • Our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. Our barns will be filled with every kind of provision. Our sheep will increase by thousands, by ten thousands in our fields; our oxen will draw heavy loads. (Ps. 144: 12-14)

    Their history included stories about when their leader, Moses, had led them out of Egypt’s captivity and they had no food. Their God had supplied manna, a food that fell on the ground like morning dew. When they had no water, springs of fresh water came gushing out of the solid rocks to quench the thirst of over a half million people. For the next 40 years their shoes never even needed repair, because they simply never wore out!

    But that was in the past. That was just history. Now they got up each morning to encounter occupying troops in the intersections of their towns. They were in need of a refresher course and new proof of the old but enduring economic laws of an eternal economy. The weariness of the day had beaten them down until they were beginning to believe again in the old rumors of scarcity, insufficiency and lack. Even some of their own people, like Zacchaeus, had begun to believe in scarcity and zero sum economics and had joined the occupying troops of the conquerors and were actually cheating their own people by collecting more taxes than were due and stealing the difference for themselves. Something new needed to happen.

    Next Week: Potential Resource

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

    Supposin': A World of Abundance

    Supposin’ we were to design an economic model based on abundance rather than on scarcity, insufficiency, and lack. What if our new trilogy sounded more like:abundance, choice, and accomplishment? What if we applied our laser focus of intelligence, creativity, and energy on inventing and discovering a world of abundance? What would you imagine that new paradigm would look like?

    In 1960, when I was a freshman in college, Dr. Maxwell Maltz published his book,Psycho-Cybernetics, A New Way to get more Living out of Life. He claimed that imagination sets the goal picture that activates and guides our automatic achievement mechanism. You may live your life in a world that does not seem perfect, but the doors of opportunity are not all shut and the new frontiers are not all closed. That strongly held imagination, he felt, can essentially determine what we become, because we begin to take courage to bet on our ideas, calculate the risks, and act on our visions and dreams.

    When I first read Maxwell Maltz, I responded by thinking, well sure, how else would anything come about, unless someone would first have an idea, then would become convinced of its possibility, and then would risk what it took to see the idea or dream come to pass? Were that not the case, we would never have heard of pendulum clocks, steam engines, cameras, zippers, Velcro, or peanut butter.

    But the scary part of the ordeal is that the person involved ultimately determines what is imagined. You can imagine good things, beautiful things, and things of discovery and abundance, or you can allow yourself to imagine bad things, sad things, and things of scarcity and shortage. Then it is natural to set into motion actions of fulfillment that are consistent with your image.

    If you believe all is lack, insufficiency, and shortage, the tendency will be to hoard, covet, and redistribute what someone else has for your own advantage. That kind of focus squelches invention and positive discovery and encourages greed, entitlement, and selfish expansionism. It is a closed economy, a zero sum game, and the person must strategize to take his fair share of what presently exists.

    I have come to believe that the doctrine of shortage promotes bondage. The doctrine of abundance promotes freedom. One of the weaknesses of the economic model created by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, was that they saw the wealth of the Czars as a thing . . . a pile of stuff. They figured that if they could get their hands on it they, as the politburo, would be able to distribute it according to their dictates and all would live happily ever after. There was nothing included of growth, investment, positive incentive, rewards, enterprise, discovery, or multiplication of production for sustainability. It never dawned on them that production was wealth and income paid the bills.

    Years later, when the pile of stuff –the Czar’s wealth– was all gone there was only one option feasible for sustainability: they continued to become what they had thought about all the time. They resorted to military expansionism where they raped and pillaged their neighbors, like Central Asia, and took their stuff to continue to pay the bills.

    Another idea Maxwell Maltz talked about was how our own strongly held self image and imagination will essentially determine what we become. I recall how that line of reasoning struck a note of truth with me, because our dad used to caution his three creative boys by telling us, “be alert, because you will ultimately become what you think about all day long.”

    In our home as boys, we were never allowed to say “I can’t.” The shortage thing was not an option. If we used that line as an excuse for not doing what we were told, we were given the opportunity to go no farther with what we were doing until we had gone through the exercise of figuring out ten ways, instead of one way, to make it happen. I remember my brother Bill walking through the house with his shoe flapping. Our dad instructed him to tie his canvas tennis shoe so that the tongue wasn’t flapping and his shoe would stay on properly.

    Bill made the mistake of saying he couldn’t because he had lost the long shoe string. Thereupon, the two of them sat down and figured out ten different ways to bind up the shoe to keep the tongue from flapping. They solved the problem by using string, wire, bailing twine, an old piece of electric extension cord, and six other ways to tie the shoe. Then our dad would always end up such a session by telling us that it would be far easier on us if we would simply find one good method to take care of the shortage in the first place, rather that needing to go through the experience of finding out how to solve the problem ten different ways after saying “I can’t.”

    I became an ardent believer that our imagination will ultimately determine who we are and what we become. Insufficiency can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

    Next Week: Abundance, Choice, and Accomplishment

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

    Supposin': What If?

    My research for the Cultural Economics writing project has forced me to do a lot of focused thinking. In the last thirty weekly postings I have tried to faithfully present the principles of traditional economics.

    Together, we have thought about enterprise, production of goods and services, the concept of money, and who controls the money system. We have investigated banking and its fractional reserve system, and the Federal Reserve System with its control of the money supply. We have discovered the cause of inflation and how we monetize the Federal Debt. We have even looked at the cycles of business recessions and the phenomenon of serious economic depressions. Following our discussions about Keynesian economics, we continued by studying the trilogy of scarcity, choice, and cost and the tragedy of zero sum economic thinking.

    I am very eager to get into discussing the idea of how every occurrence of major transformation in this old world takes place at the intersection of culture and economics. We will be taking a look at the ideas of land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur in relationship to traditions, institutions, families, and individuals. That is at the very heart of cultural economics. But wait a minute. Before we go there, I feel compelled to take a bit of a bird walk to share some things I have been seriously considering lately. And I would like to discuss some of them before we move on.

    You will notice at the bottom of all my recent postings it says Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics. I have been able to freely share concepts and traditions with my reader-friends, fully realizing that some of the issues will never make it into the new book. They may simply add to the collection of paragraphs that end up on the floor of the editing room. But being able to send up trial balloons of ideas into the atmosphere of reason and discussion is pretty stimulating.

    C.S. Lewis used to walk about ten miles a day while he was teaching at Oxford University. He used that time to contemplate, dream, and imagine. Suppose there were a world like Narnia.

    Suppose it had animals in it. Suppose God wanted to redeem that world as he has ours. Then suppose he had his Son take on an earthly form such as a lion and enter this other world as He did ours.

    C.S. Lewis used to refer to his mental “what if” propositions as Supposals. For example, using animals like a lion that would talk, and a witch, and kids entering into another world through the doors of a wardrobe, would be a Supposal. 

    Lately, I have been doing some Supposin’ of my own. As a worldwide observer, I can see how the traditional views of the cultures, economies, and behaviors of the present inhabitants of earth have set into motion some very sad consequences. In our previous discussion we talked about how the unquestioning acceptance of thescarcity, choice, and cost trilogy has promoted the expectation of absolute insufficiency, lack, and scarcity of everything. In my opinion, that acceptance has led to fallacious conclusions regarding reality.

    Supposin’ . . . what if? What if that premise of insufficiency, lack, and scarcity was not factual or true? What if it was wrong- headed thinking? How would that affect our lives and the lives of our friends? How would that affect our communities and nations? How would that influence the phenomenon of poverty in the world? What if we changed our very paradigm and based our economic model on the concept ofabundance and not shortage?

    Supposin’ that instead of spending all our time choosing between alternatives that presume our resources to be either hopelessly limited or gone, we would use our intelligence, creativity, and energy inventing and discovering the world of abundance.

    Europeans began using a black shiny rock called coal as energy to cook their food, warm their houses, and produce steam after Marco Polo brought a sample back with him from China. When I was a small boy, my mom used to read me the story about young John D. Rockefeller and how he went to his neighboring state of Pennsylvania in order to check out a new industrial discovery that was called oil. While inspecting a field where the oil had surfaced and had formed a sticky black pond, it was necessary for John and his partner to cross a rickety wooden plank bridge. Half way across, the plank broke and John plummeted into the oily slush below. Covered from head to foot, he scrambled to solid ground. “I see,” said John’s partner, “that you have plunged into this oil business head over heels.” John D. Rockefeller not only established an oil refinery near there, but went on to discover and invent uses for oil, and eventually became president of the Standard Oil Company and, at that time, the wealthiest man in the world.

    Who said you could burn coal in the first place? Who said you could use oil as energy? Who knows what great discovery or invention is just around the corner that could change our world as we know it today? Only one thing is known for certain: if we so completely buy into the notion of shortage, depletion, and zero sum behavior, so that we fail to pursue the universe of possibility and opportunity, then we will by default become the ultimate losers.

    I am looking forward to sharing in the next few weekly postings some ideas about shortage vs. abundance. I would welcome your ideas and insights, and you can help me by contacting me at press@winstoncrown.com. Who can tell, perhaps all of those paragraphs may not end up on the floor of the editing room after all.

    Next Week: Supposin’ a world of abundance

    (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

    © Dr. James W. Jackson  

    Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House