Friday, September 18, 2009

Event Info: Envisioning a Compassionate Economy, Sept. 20 2009

A Conversation in Four Parts with David N. McCarthy

4-6 PM, September 20, 2009
At the Lifebridge Sanctuary
Rosendale, New York

This event is free of charge. Donations to the Lifebridge Sanctuary are warmly invited.

If we want to create a compassionate economy, just how would we go about implementing it? This event presents some practical ideas, the results of over ten years of study and creative work in relation to economic theory and practice. The four sections of the conversation will be:

The Case for an Economics of Compassion
The Case for the Reform of Capital
The Case for a Civil-Guided Economy
The Case for a Civil Endowment System

There will be a short talk on each topic followed by conversation.

David N. McCarthy is a founder and the current Executive Director of Buddhist Television International (Dharma TV). He is the former Chairman of Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network (now Sustainable Hudson Valley), and has spent many years studying the classic and alternative theories of economics. This event is the first comprehensive public presentation of his creative work in the field.

This event is offered in the spirit of the United Nations International Day of Peace, as well as the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

The Lifebridge Sanctuary is at 333 Mountain Road in Rosendale. It's just down the road from Sky-Lake Shambhala Center, if that is helpful. Here are directions to the Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary is a wonderful space and I strongly recommend becoming familiar with it if you aren't already.

1 comment:

Mike Ignatowski said...

David, your talk at Lifebridge was great food for thought. One of the interesting ideas that came to mind was that governments, when functioning at their very best, act quite a bit like the civil organizations you talked about - they invest funds for the overall benefit of their citizens. Obviously this is not always the case, but I’m sure I can come up with many examples where it is. Is there a clear distinction in your mind between when governments do this, and when NGOs do it? Or is the important distinction more along the lines of working within the current economic structure as opposed to exerting some alternative influence over it?

Another interesting idea you mentioned was that civil organizations can be very local at times. I live in a small town, and like most small towns it is struggling. A civil organization with a modest endowment fund that is dedicated to helping a small town prosper is fairly easy to imagine. I would assume that there must already be many examples of such things. I’d be curious if you know of any, and what types of things they might actually be doing.

Thanks again for the very thought provoking talk.
- Mike Ignatowski