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Money, Money, Money. What is money for? Photo: britannica.com
‘Our attitude towards wealth played a crucial role in Brexit. We need a rethink’
‘Money was a key factor in the outcome of the EU referendum. We will now have to learn to collaborate and to share’
‘But we can and will succeed. Humans are endlessly resourceful, optimistic and adaptable. We must broaden our definition of wealth to include knowledge, natural resources, and human capacity, and at the same time learn to share each of those more fairly. If we do this, then there is no limit to what humans can achieve together.’ Photo: rawstory.com
Does money matter? Does wealth make us rich any more? These might seem like odd questions for a physicist to try to answer, but Britain’s referendum decision is a reminder that everything is connected and that if we wish to understand the fundamental nature of the universe, we’d be very foolish to ignore the role that wealth does and doesn’t play in our society.
I argued during the referendum campaign that it would be a mistake for Britain to leave the European Union. I’m sad about the result, but if I’ve learned one lesson in my life it is to make the best of the hand you are dealt. Now we must learn to live outside the EU, but in order to manage that successfully we need to understand why British people made the choice that they did. I believe that wealth, the way we understand it and the way we share it, played a crucial role in their decision. As the prime minister, Theresa May, said in her first week in office: “We need to reform the economy to allow more people to share in the country’s prosperity.”
We all know that money is important. One of the reasons I believed it would be wrong to leave the EU was related to grants. British science needs all the money it can get, and one important source of such funding has for many years been the European commission. Without these grants, much important work would not and could not have happened. There is already some evidence of British scientists being frozen out of European projects, and we need the government to tackle this issue as soon possible.
Money is also important because it is liberating for individuals. I have spoken in the past about my concern that government spending cuts in the UK will diminish support for disabled students, support that helped me during my career. In my case, of course, money has helped not only make my career possible but has also literally kept me alive.
On one occasion while in Switzerland early on in my career, I developed pneumonia, and my college at Cambridge, Gonville and Caius, arranged to have me flown back to the UK for treatment. Without their money I might not have survived to do all the thinking that I’ve managed since then. Cash can set individuals free, just as poverty can certainly trap them and limit their potential, to their own detriment and that of the human race.
So I would be the last person to decry the significance of money. However, although wealth has played an important practical role in my life, I have of course had a different relationship with it to most people. Paying for my care as a severely disabled man, and my work, is crucial; the acquisition of possessions is not. I don’t know what I would do with a racehorse, or indeed a Ferrari, even if I could afford one. So I have come to see money as a facilitator, as a means to an end – whether it is for ideas, or health, or security – but never as an end in itself.
Interestingly this attitude, for a long time seen as the predictable eccentricity of a Cambridge academic, is now more widely shared. People are starting to question the value of pure wealth. Is knowledge or experience more important than money? Can possessions stand in the way of fulfilment? Can we truly own anything, or are we just transient custodians?
These questions are leading to a shift in behaviour which, in turn, is inspiring some groundbreaking new enterprises and ideas. These are termed “cathedral projects”, the modern equivalent of the grand church buildings, constructed as part of humanity’s attempt to bridge heaven and Earth. These ideas are started by one generation with the hope a future generation will take up these challenges.
I hope and believe that people will embrace more of this cathedral thinking for the future, as they have done in the past, because we are in perilous times. Our planet and the human race face multiple challenges. These challenges are global and serious – climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans. Such pressing issues will require us to collaborate, all of us, with a shared vision and cooperative endeavour to ensure that humanity can survive. We will need to adapt, rethink, refocus and change some of our fundamental assumptions about what we mean by wealth, by possessions, by mine and yours. Just like children, we will have to learn to share.
If we fail then the forces that contributed to Brexit, the envy and isolationism not just in the UK but around the world that spring from not sharing, of cultures driven by a narrow definition of wealth and a failure to divide it more fairly, both within nations and across national borders, will strengthen. If that were to happen, I would not be optimistic about the long-term outlook for our species.
But we can and will succeed. Humans are endlessly resourceful, optimistic and adaptable. We must broaden our definition of wealth to include knowledge, natural resources, and human capacity, and at the same time learn to share each of those more fairly. If we do this, then there is no limit to what humans can achieve together.
This article was first published in The Guardian on Friday 29 July 2016
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Dear Prime Minister-Britain needs a New Economic Model
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"The Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few but by you. We won't entrench advantages of the fortunate few. We will do everything to help you go as far as your talents can take you.We must fight the burning injustices. We must make Britain a country that works for everyone.”-Photo: upi.com
Dear Prime Minister,
May I firstly offer my congratulations to you on your 'selection' by your memebership as Prime Minister; I wish you every success in this role.
I was most pleased to note your commendable goals to reform our crises-prone capitalism. This is music to my ears, so to say.
This was so, until this morning, when I read in today’s papers that your administration has steadfastly refused to explain how you may “reform capitalism”, so desperately needed, given the examples set by our “Noble” knighted business leaders, such as the likes of Sir Philip Green who have broken our country to pieces, sinking it to lowest levels of decency and humanity.
Photo: pbs.twing.com
I know you are very busy sorting out other peoples’ mess, the Brexit. Therefore, I will try to be as brief as I can, in offering my humble opinion on how you may reform our feral and values-less capitalism:
1- Please do not listen to your new policy chief, George Freeman, or for that matter, your new international trade secretary, Liam Fox. From what I have read about them, they are a Thatcherite, free-marketeer, neo-liberal-obsessed individuals.
Please no more fooling of the masses. The world is facing a crisis of humanity. One thing is clear: These crises have the same global currency- the inhumane, values and moral-free neoliberalism.
What your policy chief, or your international trade secretary are telling you is a so-yesteryears model. Please be aware of the dark forces in your midst!
Thatcherism is now very much discredited; even the IMF- the once main cheerleader for neo-liberalism- has disowned and rubbished it. I am sure you must be aware of their recent report: Neoliberalism: Oversold?
Given the importance of this timely thinking, I wish to offer you a couple of more readings, so as we leave no stones unturned:
People’s Tragedy: Neoliberal Legacy of Thatcher and Reagan
The Destruction of our World and the lies of Milton Friedman
Now the Big Question: How may the feral, greedy, dishonest, selfish and untrustworthy capitalism be reformed?
The answer is: Very easy indeed, if heart and mind work together in harmony for the common good.
2- Please reform our education system and model: It is the current educational values that have given respectability to feral capitalism.
So away with the current model and usher in the new education model:
"Education to Build a Better Future for All"
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.- Lao Tzu
'We live in a world with many complex problems, at all levels, local, regional and global. It is said that education is the key that opens the door to a more harmonious world.
The pertinent question is: What kind of education and learning would help us address these challenges and create a sustainable world and a better life for all?
T.S. Eliot posed the question: "Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
Reflecting on the questions above, we are going to need an education system that respects planetary boundaries, that recognises the dependence of human well-being on social relations and fairness, and that the ultimate goal is human well-being and ecological sustainability, not merely growth of material consumption.
The new education model recognises that the economy is embedded in a society and culture that are themselves embedded in an ecological life-support system, and that the economy can't grow forever on this finite planet.
In short, we need to listen to our hearts, re-learn what we think we know, and encourage our children to think and behave differently, to live more in synch with Nature.
If we do this successfully we can become wiser as a species, more “eco-logical.” We and the planet that gave birth to us can be happier and healthier, healed and transformed.'...
The Journey to Sophia: Education for Wisdom
Our Emotional Inheritance and the need for Emotional Education
3- The rise in corruption must be tackled head-on.
Based on my own extensive experience and observation, I must admit that the ordinary British are not corrupted so far. But many institutions, high-ranking officials, MPs, Lords, business and financial leaders, media tycoons, and more have become corrupted to the core, since the rise of Thatcherism with its inhumane values.
This has resulted in a huge erosion of trust at every level, destroying the fabric of our society.
How can we restore trust? We need to be guided by the values that are not informing our actions today, the values that have brought us disaster, leading to the continuation of crises after crises.
Values-led action to eradicate corruption
The Value of Values: Why Values Matter
4- We need to encourage simplicity and a more simple life.
“Simplicity is not grinding poverty: It is not the polar opposite of wealth. To live simply is to pursue a quiet path of moderation. In a life of balance between opposite extremes lies inner happiness.
People everywhere, in their quest for happiness outside themselves, discover in the end that they’ve been seeking it in an empty cornucopia, and sucking feverishly at the rim of a crystal glass into which was never poured the wine of joy."...
Why a Simple Life Matters: The Path to peace and happiness lies in the simple things in life
5- And finally, if we are true to ourselves, if we truly wish to reform this horrible economic system, then, there is only one option:
All we do has to be for the common good. Our economy must become just, and all our actions should be taken in the interest of the common good. No ifs or buts, if we are truly serious and honest.
How may we achieve that?
What might an Economy for the Common Good look like?
Thank you prime minister. I do hope you may find time to reflect and ponder on the common good, as you formulate your economic policies in more detail.
The time is now for a radical departure from our recent troubled past. Let us seize this opportunity and stand side by side to build a better, kinder, and a more gentle Britain for the good of all. Carpe Diem!
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Altruism has more of an evolutionary advantage than selfishness, mathematicians say
Scientists say they have proved that doing good things for no personal gain can have an evolutionary advantage in the long run
‘Darwin thought that sympathetic and cooperative tribes and groups would flourish in comparison with communities made up of more selfish individuals, and that natural selection would thus favour cooperation.’ Photo:theguardian.com
'Altruism is real and developed because it confers an evolutionary advantage that is ultimately greater than the benefits of selfishness, an international team of mathematicians claims to have proved.
Evolutionary biologists have sometimes struggled with the idea that genuine altruism can exist, given the belief that all life is shaped by a constant Darwinian battle that allows only the “survival of the fittest”.
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