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79 · V CE VISIONARY

"The Gift Economy"

Charles Eisenstein

CHAPTER
ch09 · No Way Know-How
TIER
Visionary
STATUS
Living · Active
ACTIVE
1967 – present
AFFILIATION
Independent · Schumacher College
JURISDICTION
Sacred Economics / Gift Culture / Civilizational Transition
COLD OPEN
"Money is a coordination system that encodes a story about what is real and what matters. When the story is wrong, the coordination system fails. Sacred economics is not about charity. It is about redesigning the coordination logic of exchange so that giving strengthens rather than depletes the giver."
OVERVIEW

Writer and speaker who argues that the deepest crisis of civilization is not economic or ecological but narrative: we are living inside the 'story of separation' — the belief that self, nature, and other are fundamentally separate — and this story generates the two-body optimization that is destroying the world. His gift economy is a coordination architecture built on interbeing rather than separation.

WHY THIS VOICE MATTERS TO KNOWWARE
Eisenstein locates the root of coordination failure in ontology: we built the wrong story about what things are. The market is a coordination system optimized for separateness; the gift is a coordination system optimized for connection. He argues that coordination intelligence requires not just better algorithms but better stories — a paradigm shift that Meadows would recognize as the highest leverage point.
OUTSTANDING NOTES
  • ◦Schumacher College Distinguished Lecturer
CLASSIFICATION
CE
VISIONARY · TIER V
ch09
METHODS & FRAMEWORKS
5 entries
Sacred economicsGift economyThe story of separationInterbeingCivilizational transition narrative
KEY WORKS
  1. 01 The Ascent of Humanity (2007)
  2. 02 Sacred Economics (2011)
  3. 03 The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (2013)
  4. 04 Climate: A New Story (2018)
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