People today know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde

Raj Patel has written The Value of Nothing a new book inspired by this Oscar Wilde quote. I like to slightly rephrase this as the value of no thing. The basic idea in the book, is that the free market economy has failed us by shifting our thinking to believe that considering price is the only determining factor of value. Yet, there is value in other things that a price cannot be attached to. For example, a hamburger that has a price of $4 really should be priced at $200 if you factor in the environmental costs of producing the hamburger, but the markets work in a way to exclude things like the value of the air we breathe, the safety of the water we drink, and the damage caused by a junk food diet. Unfortunately we have learned that if we can’t or don’t attach a price to something it is valueless and, therefore unimportant.

Since the economic collapse we are discovering that the free market centric model of thinking is, in Alan Greenspan’s [former chairman of the Federal Reserve] own words, flawed. Those things to which a price cannot be attached have the highest value. Unfortunately, the flawed model of how things work has been dominating the USA, if not the world since the end of World War II. That means that one change in crisis of consciousness must be that we begin to understand what we really value and act accordingly. Free market thinking may have brought us lots of material prosperity at the cost of our fundamental values. The truth is that free market thinking is only one world view. There are others, and the shift in consciousness begins when you reassess your own values and begin to act on what your true values are. For example, is it  more important to get a 15% pay increase that demands 20% more time or is it a higher value to spend time with your children. On a more global level, is it more value for you to get that new BMW every year or two or is more valuable to see that all Americans have reasonable health insurance.

The second example focuses on what I will call a “I’ve got mine and the hell with everyone else because I want to get more” way of thinking that has arisen out of market-centric views of the world. Suppose, instead, that we think in terms of “I’ve got mine now how can I help others” way of thinking, not at a billionaire philanthropic level, but at a day to day personal level. The best example of this that I can think of are Buddhist Bodhisattvas and the Bodhisattva Vow. In Mahayana Buddhism a Bodhisattva is sort of like a Christian saint. They are people who have achieved a considerable degree of enlightenment who but forgo their ultimate enlightenment to help others achieve liberation. In Christian terms they give up immediate rewards of heaven in order that other people might achieve heaven. The Bodhisattvas understand the interconnectedness of all human beings and that they will not be fully enlightened until everyone else is. The Bodhisattva Vow is simply the commitment that a monk may take to work as a Bodhisattva as his/her own wisdom increases.

Putting this in another context, are you willing to have a Chevy instead of a BMW so that everyone can have a car?

Today brings home the point because of the huge earthquake in Haiti. People are suffering unbelievably. So, what are your values? You can begin to restructure your life to fit your values using The Warriors Time Management System. Get it free by clicking here.