A Dignity Economy
Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet
by Evelin Lindner
published Jan. 2012, XXX + 429 pages
ISBN (print) 978-1-937570-03-3
USD 28.00
About
This book’s publication has been hastened by the Occupy Wall Street movement. This movement gave the author the motivation to bring an unfinished manuscript to the level of publication. The first version of this manuscript was presented on August 20, 2009, at a conference at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Since then, it has been growing almost daily and has had many titles. It is not a traditional manuscript planned at the drawing board, designed "to sell." It is rather a snapshot taken at one moment of an ongoing process, an ever unfinished book, a "walking" book, part of a journey.
The economic crisis has many labels, ranging from "subprime crisis" to "credit crunch," to "financial tsunami" or "economic Armageddon." Around the world, people are coming to a single diagnosis: "Something is deeply unhealthy in our world." This book advocates a deep paradigm shift, not just from one rigid paradigm to another rigid paradigm, but away from rigidity altogether. Away from massive institutions toward a global movement that is co-created by people and their enthusiastic energy. We need a dignity revolution, and not just in Tunisia or Egypt. Now we need a global dignity revolution, a world dignity movement, a movement that creates inclusion, both locally and globally.
About Evelin Lindner
Evelin Lindner is the founding president of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network (www.humiliationstudies.org). She holds two Ph.D.s, in Medicine and in Psychology, and publishes extensively. Her book Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict was honored by Choice as 2007 Outstanding Academic Title. Other books from Evelin Lindner include: Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict (2009), and Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs (2010).
In 2009 Evelin Lindner received the prestigious Norwegian "Prisoner's Testament" peace award.
More about Evelin Lindner at the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies web pages.
Books by Evelin Lindner
Clicking the cover pictures will direct you to the Amazon website:
- Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict, 2006, Foreword by Morton Deutsch
- Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict, 2009, Foreword by Morton Deutsch
- Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs, 2010, Foreword by Desmond Tutu
- A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy That Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet, 2012, Foreword by Linda Hartling and Uli Spalthoff
- Honor, Humiliation, and TerrorHonor, Humiliation, and TerrorAn Explosive Mix – And How We Can Defuse It with Dignity, 2017, Foreword by Linda Hartling
See more publications by Evelin Lindner at the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies website
Excerpt from Chapter One:
Linda Hartling and I, since we are not economists, hesitate to analyze economic topics. On the other hand, we cannot avoid witnessing the humiliating effects of existing economic practices and institutions. Furthermore, since economic structures represent the largest frames within which human activities are played out, they are of utmost importance and cannot be overlooked. If the largest frames were to introduce systemic humiliation, in the way apartheid did, this would be extremely significant. Under apartheid, since it was an all-encompassing system, all lives and relationships were tainted with humiliation. It was impossible to dignify apartheid by merely being kinder to each other or creating well-intentioned small-scale initiatives: the entire system had to be shaped anew at the appropriate large-scale level. What if today's apartheid is represented by the fact that (exponential) growth is incompatible with sustainability?
Or should we encourage everybody to agree with Herman Cain, United States Republican presidential candidate, to individualize systemic problems? He said on October 5, 2011: "Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself." Should we follow Cain and try to make people fitter for a rat race that might be unfeasible and damaging for us all and our environment?
We often feel as helpless as the Archbishop of Canterbury, who called for a "rehumanising of economics", and a "discussion on the relationship between wealth and well-being," in a debate at the British Library on Tuesday evening, on October 1, 2010. "The Archbishop described himself as an 'economic illiterate.' He said the Church had been 'hypnotised by the assertion of expertise' on issues related to the economy."