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0:06

From the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, this is The

0:07

Steady Stater, a podcast dedicated to discussing limits

0:08

to growth and the steady state

0:12

economy.

0:16

Welcome to the

0:16

show. I'm your host, Brian

0:19

Czech, and our guest today is

0:19

Woody Tasch, a pioneer of

0:23

mission-related investing. Woody

0:23

is the founder and Chair of Slow

0:27

Money Institute, a nonprofit

0:27

headquartered in Boulder,

0:30

Colorado, that has channeled

0:30

tens of millions of dollars to

0:34

small, local, and organic food

0:34

enterprises around the world.

0:39

He's the author of such books as

0:39

Inquiries into the Nature of

0:43

Slow Money, and most recently,

0:43

AHA! Fake Trillions, Real

0:48

Billions, Beetcoin and the Great

0:48

American Do-Over. Beetcoin is a

0:52

new crowdfunding initiative from

0:52

the Slow Money Institute; we'll

0:56

talk about that in a few

0:56

minutes. In 2010, Woody was

1:00

recognized by UTNE Reader as one

1:00

of the "25 Visionaries Who Are

1:04

Changing Your World." Woody

1:04

Tasch, welcome to The Steady

1:08

Stater.

1:09

Thanks, Brian, appreciate it.

1:11

Well, first off,

1:11

Woody, I understand you recently

1:13

left Colorado for Providence,

1:13

Rhode Island, and are currently

1:17

going through the process of

1:17

unloading 70 boxes of books. I

1:22

wonder if old Jeff Bezos

1:22

approves!

1:25

Oh, man, like

1:25

you're airing all my dirty book

1:28

laundry in public. But you know,

1:28

I've been around a while, and

1:34

I've collected a bit of a

1:34

library and certainly glad I did

1:39

because over the course of writing the three books I wrote, I heavily leaned on many of the

1:41

books that I'm looking at right

1:45

now on my bookshelves. But yes,

1:45

I just moved to Providence to be

1:47

grandpa, be near my daughter and

1:47

my new grandson, and I grew up

1:51

on the East Coast. So I never

1:51

lived right in Providence, but I

1:54

lived all around here for many

1:54

decades.

1:57

Okay, well, nice to

1:57

be home for you, then. Well,

2:00

let's start with the concept of

2:00

slow money. People might have a

2:04

good instinctive idea of what is

2:04

meant by slow food, in contrast

2:09

with the term fast food. But

2:09

Woody what differentiates fast

2:12

and slow money?

2:14

Well, you ask the

2:14

question in exactly the right

2:17

way, because I had been writing

2:17

about -- a little, I hadn't

2:21

written my first book yet -- but

2:21

I'd been writing essays, and

2:24

letters, and different things

2:24

about patient capital for a

2:27

while in my capacity as

2:27

treasurer of the Jessie Smith

2:30

Noyes Foundation in New York.

2:30

And also, after that, I became

2:34

chairman and CEO of Investor's

2:34

Circle, which is an impact

2:37

investment angel group. And I'd

2:37

been talking about patient

2:39

capital, that perhaps the most

2:39

important thing we as impact

2:43

investors could do would be to

2:43

truly think long term, and then

2:47

work backwards from what that

2:47

would mean to us. That sounds

2:50

very simple. And it is. But it's

2:50

also extremely tricky for most

2:55

investors to actually do because

2:55

of all the pushes and pulls of

2:58

markets and whatnot. And so

2:58

there was patient capital, and

3:01

then I had the good fortune to

3:01

visit Italy in 2000 and meet

3:04

Carlo Petrini, the founder of

3:04

Slow Food and oh my god, patient

3:07

capital, it's really slow money.

3:07

When Carlo started Slow Food,

3:11

people knew what fast food was.

3:11

When I wrote the book on slow

3:14

money, no one was really

3:14

complaining about fast money.

3:17

But hopefully we are shining a

3:17

light on that.

3:20

Yeah, and it's kind

3:20

of a parallel complaint with our

3:22

complaint about the bloating

3:22

GDP. Because, you know, the old

3:26

formula, velocity of money

3:26

equals GDP divided by the money

3:30

supply. So I think in rooting

3:30

for slow money, we're rooting

3:34

toward a steady state economy at

3:34

least.

3:37

Yeah, absolutely.

3:39

Tell me if I have

3:39

this right, Woody. Beetcoin is a

3:42

new crowdfunding platform, where

3:42

small donations are bundled as

3:46

grants for local community

3:46

farming groups. And these groups

3:51

are called SOIL groups, that

3:51

stands for Slow Opportunities

3:55

for Investing Locally. And these

3:55

groups dole out 0% loans to

4:00

local farmers and food

4:00

enterprises in general. Is that

4:04

the gist of it?

4:05

That's it. Sounds

4:05

good to me. So we've got, yeah,

4:10

basically, there are two

4:10

components. There's one on the

4:13

ground, the local component,

4:13

where groups are making 0% loans

4:16

locally, and that's made with

4:16

donated capital. So the members

4:19

of these local groups chip some

4:19

money in, and then they get

4:22

together -- pre-COVID in person,

4:22

now, mostly virtually even

4:27

locally. And they vote on making

4:27

0% loans to local farmers and

4:30

local food entrepreneurs and

4:30

whatnot. When that money gets

4:33

repaid, it stays in and

4:33

recirculates in the community.

4:35

So it's like a permanent

4:35

revolving loan, grassroots

4:38

revolving loan. There's a lot of

4:38

words you could put on it:

4:41

microlending, revolving loan

4:41

thing... but we just call them

4:45

SOIL groups -- as you described

4:45

it -- they're just 0% loan

4:48

groups. And now we're adding the

4:48

layer of the Beetcoin platform.

4:52

We want to see if we can

4:52

generate a large number of small

4:54

donations online and use that

4:54

capital as matching grants and

4:59

seed capital to grow the SOIL

4:59

groups. We'd like to see the

5:02

SOIL groups go from five --

5:02

which there are now -- to

5:05

hundreds, which is a rather

5:05

daunting prospect, but given the

5:08

state of things, we feel we

5:08

should -- that's what we need to

5:11

do.

5:12

Yeah, well, the

5:12

time is right, for sure. And

5:14

let's talk a little bit about

5:14

the etymology of that word

5:17

Beetcoin. You know, what comes

5:17

to mind to me is "beat it

5:21

Bitcoin, we want Beetcoin!" You

5:21

guys on the website describe it

5:28

as both a "non-crypto,

5:28

non-currency," and a

5:33

"deceptively simple" idea, which

5:33

would be opposed, I guess, to

5:37

the deceptively complex world of

5:37

cryptocurrencies, NFTs now, and

5:43

blackchains in general. So, did

5:43

you have any more in mind behind

5:47

the choice of that name?

5:49

No, I mean, you're

5:49

making this interview too easy,

5:52

because you're kind of getting

5:52

it all. I don't really have to

5:54

explain anything. Which, of

5:54

course, is very heartening to

5:58

me, because we worked hard at

5:58

how to put this out in the

6:00

world. Yeah, the basic, the

6:00

playfulness of the Beetcoin

6:04

brand, if you will, or the name,

6:04

is important, you know. There's

6:07

such a, there's a pall over all

6:07

of us now, you know, there's a

6:11

shroud of confusion and, let's

6:11

say, thinly veiled despair. I

6:16

don't know why I'm picking these

6:16

words right now. But you know,

6:19

we're dealing with a lot of very

6:19

horrible stuff. Some of it is,

6:23

well, a lot of it is

6:23

environmental, obviously, at all

6:25

layers, and a lot of it is

6:25

political and social, and that's

6:28

also at all layers. And then

6:28

we've kind of got that extra

6:31

thing of fake versus true,

6:31

versus, you know, what's -- We

6:35

don't know what to believe

6:35

anymore. And those are all tied

6:37

together, obviously. To me, the

6:37

power of the Beetcoin brand is

6:40

that it touches on all that in a

6:40

second. It's not for me to

6:43

explain the power of the brand,

6:43

per se. But I'm just saying, in

6:46

my interactions with lots of

6:46

people, as we were developing

6:48

it, we could see that it kind of

6:48

hit on a lot of things. And yes,

6:52

it is deceptively simple. Just

6:52

like everything we're talking

6:54

about -- what's simpler than

6:54

people getting together and

6:56

making 0% loans to farmers down

6:56

the street, that should be the

6:59

simplest thing. But because of

6:59

the 0%, and because of the world

7:03

we're in, it's perceived as

7:03

being not that easy to do. It

7:07

should be the easiest thing of all to do. It's the most concrete. It brings us together

7:09

with our neighbors, our friends,

7:13

connects us to the place we

7:13

live. But thank you for, I mean,

7:17

you called it out in the right way, when you were kind of playing with the word Beetcoin.

7:18

So that's very heartening to me.

7:22

Yeah. Well, you

7:22

guys are really good at

7:24

communicating. We found in your

7:24

AHA! book this quote: "What I've

7:29

come to hear when people say, 'I

7:29

don't know much about finance'

7:33

is, 'I don't like the financial

7:33

jargon and all that represents.

7:38

I don't completely trust even

7:38

the best investment products. I

7:43

don't completely trust my own

7:43

common sense, either. I want to

7:47

have an authentic conversation

7:47

about money, but I'm afraid to

7:51

do so because I know deep down

7:51

that economic growth is doing

7:55

long-term harm.'" Woody, do you

7:55

really think that the

7:59

understanding of the ills of

7:59

growth is really that

8:04

widespread?

8:06

I don't think I

8:06

said in that passage that it was

8:09

widespread. But I'm being a

8:09

little coy in that reply, I

8:14

think it's very deep. I think

8:14

that's how I'll answer you. I

8:17

think there are a lot of people

8:17

that, at a very deep level, have

8:21

some awareness of this. How many

8:21

people it rises to conscious

8:24

level where they would talk

8:24

about it at a dinner party or

8:27

have an open conversation about

8:27

it -- I can't say that. I can

8:30

report based on my career, but

8:30

more importantly, the last dozen

8:34

years of doing of talking to

8:34

people all over the country

8:36

about slow money. And this is

8:36

everybody from farmers to

8:39

financiers, you know, a few

8:39

billionaires here and there. The

8:42

reason slow money has happened.

8:42

The reason I'm on this podcast

8:46

with you and I've gotten we've gotten to the point of developing Beetcoin and whatnot,

8:47

is because I've been on the

8:51

sending and the receiving end of

8:51

lots of energy about this for

8:54

quite a number of years now with

8:54

many thousands of people, both

8:57

directly and indirectly. And

8:57

that means something. I feel

9:00

like I've learned something from

9:00

that. And it has to do with

9:03

what, you know, your question

9:03

about how many people use the

9:06

word "illth", which I believe

9:06

came from Ruskin -- at least

9:10

that's who I attribute it to --

9:10

who, you know, was very

9:12

influential in Gandhi's thinking

9:12

and whatnot. So it's not a new

9:17

idea. In other words, I mean,

9:17

Thoreau was talking about parts

9:19

of this too. In my reading or

9:19

thinking whatever it goes back

9:22

to Thoreau, and through Thoreau

9:22

to Ruskin, and Gandhi and

9:25

Tolstoy, then jumps foward to E.

9:25

F. Schumacher, and Herman Daly,

9:28

and Wendell Berry. So this is a

9:28

thread that's been going on for

9:31

a while, as people, as a few

9:31

people, were seeing the

9:34

long-term consequences of

9:34

industrialization and

9:37

globalization, and whatnot, you

9:37

know, it's just seeing it a

9:39

little sooner than the general

9:39

public. And now, I think we're

9:42

at a point where that the depth

9:42

of that is, you know, it's down

9:46

there at the root level for lots

9:46

of people, but it's very scary.

9:50

It's complicated. You know,

9:50

money's always been a hard thing

9:53

to talk about. But now in a

9:53

world where things are so fast

9:56

and so volatile, and so

9:56

complicated. So I guess what you

10:00

just heard is I can't really

10:00

answer your question. I'm

10:02

delighted that you found that

10:02

passage. And I'm not surprised

10:05

you did, given your work on

10:05

steady state economics.

10:09

Now, that's a great

10:09

answer, actually very

10:12

insightful. And when we review

10:12

books like yours, that'll be one

10:16

of the first things we look for.

10:16

And we're gonna talk a little

10:20

bit more about the book and how

10:20

easy it is to read and stuff --

10:24

which is saying, it's a big

10:24

compliment, you know. It's

10:27

something that we all have more

10:27

of in this kind, in this genre,

10:30

if you will. But the 0% loans

10:30

are the part of the model that's

10:35

most likely to catch the

10:35

attention of steady-staters. So

10:39

you guys at Beetcoin describe

10:39

the 0% loans as an [quote]

10:44

"unequivocal statement of intent

10:44

to shift radically and

10:48

constructively from an ethos of

10:48

'how much can we make, how

10:52

fast,' to an ethos of patience

10:52

and care." I'm wondering, did

10:57

you have the steady state

10:57

economy in the back of your mind

11:00

when you devised that element to

11:00

Beetcoin?

11:04

Well, it's really

11:04

interesting. I'm, how would I

11:07

say this? I'm kind of an

11:07

irreverent. Irreverence, you

11:13

know, can be the highest form of

11:13

compliment. I think I just

11:16

poorly paraphrase Jefferson or

11:16

somebody, anyway. It's very hard

11:20

-- so I'm not a trained

11:20

economist. I didn't stay in

11:23

academics. It had nothing to do

11:23

with. I mean, if I probably

11:26

would have been an English teacher, if I'd stayed in academics, you know, in 1973.

11:27

And the reason I went there to

11:30

your question is because when I

11:30

hear the word steady state

11:33

economics, I kind of think about

11:33

the word "economics." And it

11:36

makes me think about the profession of economics. It makes me think about

11:38

specialization in general, and

11:42

all the reductionism and

11:42

problems that have come from

11:44

overspecialization. And it also

11:44

makes me think about

11:47

institutions and institutional

11:47

approaches. I know everything

11:51

I'm saying could be a hot button

11:51

for somebody listening to --

11:53

many they are. So I'm not trying

11:53

to piss people off, per se. I'm

11:56

just being honest about where I

11:56

come from. And I think it's okay

12:00

to say that because you wanna to

12:00

talk about the book, which I

12:02

love -- because the book is

12:02

obviously a very personal

12:05

summation for me of a lot of,

12:05

let's say, work on-the-ground

12:09

activism-- doing

12:09

entrepreneurship, making small

12:12

venture capital investments,

12:12

being a foundation treasurer,

12:16

working on mission-related

12:16

investing in the early days --

12:19

and those were all very

12:19

entrepreneur, they were actions

12:21

-- they weren't, there wasn't --

12:21

I didn't have a theory. I mean,

12:24

people ask me if I have a theory

12:24

of social change, and I still

12:26

don't, for better or worse, I'm

12:26

not saying it's a good thing.

12:29

But I'm just being honest that I

12:29

don't. So yes, of course, the

12:32

ethos of steady state economics,

12:32

but it wasn't not at a

12:35

theoretical level, per se. So in

12:35

other words, when I get, when I

12:39

hear discussions of degrowth and

12:39

steady state economics, you

12:41

know, it's probably as hard for

12:41

me as it is for any other

12:44

non-economists to grok to all

12:44

the complexity of that. So I

12:47

prefer just to go down to the

12:47

grassroots level and say, what

12:49

needs doing in my town, in my

12:49

place, that I understand. And

12:53

then from an investment

12:53

standpoint, you confront it,

12:55

which is how much money do I

12:55

need to make, how fast, that's a

12:57

very personal -- that's about as

12:57

personal as you can get. And as

13:01

we talk about the book, I think

13:01

what will become very obvious is

13:04

how humanistic it is. It's not,

13:04

it's interdisciplinary. Whatever

13:07

words you want to put on it, but

13:07

it's not theoretical -- there's

13:11

not a theoretical construct that

13:11

I really put out. That's, let's

13:14

say, pro-growth or against

13:14

growth per se. It's just obvious

13:18

if you take all this to heart,

13:18

that you're gonna be moving that

13:21

fastly away from maximizing

13:21

growth.

13:25

Okay, well, that's

13:25

that'll be a good thing to

13:28

follow up on. But first, we need

13:28

to take a short, non-commercial

13:32

break with James Lamont. Take it

13:32

away, James.

13:42

Hello, listeners.

13:42

We hope you're enjoying the

13:44

show. You might be interested to

13:44

learn and we recently sent out

13:47

the Winter edition of The Steady

13:47

Stater newsletter. It's a

13:50

quarterly email newsletter that

13:50

gives a roundup of CASSE various

13:53

activities over the previous few

13:53

months and is really helpful for

13:57

catching up on any thought

13:57

provoking content that you may

13:59

have missed. It's also an easy

13:59

way to introduce those steady

14:02

state curious friends in your

14:02

life to an abundance of great

14:04

material with a simple forward.

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You can sign up for the email

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list and read previous editions

14:08

of the newsletter by going to

14:11

steadystate.org and panning over

14:11

the "Follow" tab. Now, back to

14:15

the show.

14:16

Welcome back. We're

14:16

talking with Woody Tasch,

14:19

founder and Chair of Slow Money

14:19

Institute and the initiator of

14:23

Beetcoin. Woody, as literally

14:23

grounded and serious as much of

14:28

your work may appear, you also

14:28

place an importance on poetry

14:32

and graphic design too. Your new

14:32

book is almost more like a

14:36

pamphlet with small digestible

14:36

sections and a pleasing

14:40

aesthetic. Much of it is

14:40

available freely on the

14:43

beetcoin.org website too. What's

14:43

your favorite part of the book?

14:47

Woody?

14:49

Wow, there's a

14:49

question I haven't had yet. I

14:52

don't know if I can pick a part.

14:52

I'm just gonna respond to the

14:54

way you said it. I took the

14:54

liberty -- I guess you'd say --

14:59

of formatting it, because

14:59

anybody who knows publishing

15:03

will know that we self-published

15:03

this, because no publishing

15:06

house would have let us do it

15:06

this way. Their first reason

15:09

would have been cost. The second

15:09

reason would have been the very

15:13

interdisciplinary. I use the

15:13

word irreverent once before, I

15:17

don't know why I'm thinking on

15:17

that word today, I don't usually

15:19

use it. But there's a

15:19

playfulness to it, that could be

15:23

off-putting to a professional

15:23

editor. And that's on purpose.

15:27

Because -- you know, as we've

15:27

touched on a little bit already

15:29

in this discussion -- I think

15:29

part of the project that we're

15:32

all engaged in is reconnecting

15:32

to all the parts of ourselves

15:36

and in our community. That's

15:36

relationships. So left brain,

15:40

right brain, heart, soul, our

15:40

lives as local citizens,

15:44

community members, the way we

15:44

interact with other living

15:47

things in the places where we

15:47

live. And it can get a little

15:49

more esoteric from there. But

15:49

putting all these pieces back

15:52

together is kind of a process of

15:52

weaving, of imagining, of giving

15:56

yourself permission, much of

15:56

things. And so that's what

15:59

you've commented on the format

15:59

of the book -- it's got lots of

16:01

visuals, it's broken into small

16:01

pieces, it moves back and forth

16:04

between anecdote and history,

16:04

and, you know, bits of

16:10

theoretical analysis woven

16:10

through, but not at the level

16:13

that would rise to, let's say, a

16:13

professional thesis on something

16:17

or a manifesto of any kind. It's

16:17

much more humanistic than that.

16:21

So you asked me my favorite

16:21

thing. My favorite part of the

16:23

book is that you just described

16:23

it that way. I'm not being

16:26

facetious. It means a lot.

16:28

Nice. Yeah, it's,

16:28

and I could have said, what's

16:31

your favorite aspect of it? And

16:31

I think that's a great answer,

16:34

then. That does stand out. Well,

16:34

when folks, when they visit your

16:39

website -- that's beetcoin.org

16:39

-- the first thing they see is

16:43

the message, "Funding organic

16:43

farms and local food systems is

16:48

as important as going to Mars."

16:48

And then elsewhere, we see the

16:52

case that rather than moonshot,

16:52

we need an earthshot. So another

16:56

nice shot across the bow buddy

16:56

Bezos.

17:00

Well, just to name

17:00

a name. Sure.

17:04

Yeah, why not?

17:05

Yeah I mean. Yeah,

17:05

there are some others. And what

17:10

can we say about that? I mean,

17:10

if you take space, if you take

17:13

space travel and cryptocurrency

17:13

as -- and what I'm going to say

17:17

now will seem pathetically

17:17

incomplete or inappropriate,

17:21

even -- if you just take them as

17:21

the latest shiny objects. Now,

17:25

there are a lot, they are much

17:25

more than just shiny objects.

17:27

But if you take a broad look at

17:27

history, and look at the way

17:31

we've chased new technologies,

17:31

consistently, just pick a point

17:36

to start, like start with a car,

17:36

just pick one. And then look at

17:39

the arc of the car over 100

17:39

years. And look at the problem

17:43

the car was developed to solve,

17:43

which was manure in city streets

17:47

wasn't the problem of going too

17:47

slowly, initially, and then

17:50

speed came later. So you look we

17:50

started to get rid of manure in

17:54

city streets. And a century

17:54

later, we have whatever how many

17:56

cars are there on the planet now

17:56

-- I'm not sure 1,000,000,003 or

17:59

something, or 1,000,000,005, or

17:59

some number. But that's not the

18:02

point. The point is the 420

18:02

parts per million of carbon in

18:05

the atmosphere. So we got the

18:05

manure off the city streets. And

18:08

now we have carbon in the

18:08

atmosphere. And that was a very

18:11

[quote] "astonishingly

18:11

successful technological

18:14

innovation." Now we're talking

18:14

about going to the next

18:16

astonishing technological

18:16

innovation, which is going to

18:19

Mars. I think a certain degree

18:19

of Luddism is called for without

18:23

being pejorative, and without

18:23

criticizing people for making

18:26

too much money or any, or their

18:26

egos being too big or anything

18:29

like that. You don't need to go

18:29

there really, you just need to

18:32

say that our history as a

18:32

species chasing technological

18:35

solutions is quite checkered.

18:35

You know, it has produced some

18:39

amazing things. And it has made

18:39

some people amazing amounts of

18:42

money, and it has pulled a slug

18:42

of humanity up the economic

18:46

ladder. So there are a lot of

18:46

things to say about it. But you

18:49

can't just stop there you have

18:49

to go. And there's so many other

18:52

things that we've diminished in

18:52

the process and so many

18:55

long-term problems that were

18:55

created, that -- I think it's

18:58

very fair to remind ourselves --

18:58

that, in a sense -- put it this

19:03

way -- for every moonshot, there

19:03

should be an earthshot, just say

19:06

it like that. To that point,

19:06

Brian, many people who saw my,

19:09

who see the website for the

19:09

first, for the Beetcoin website,

19:11

who are very deeply into organic

19:11

when they see that it says

19:14

"funding small organic farms,

19:14

local food is important to going

19:17

to Mars," they immediately email

19:17

me going: "oh, it's more

19:19

important." And I'm going "well, that's more important. It's more important to you." But for most

19:21

people, just to say it's as

19:23

important as a radical statement.

19:27

Yeah, not to pick

19:27

on Bezos either. But, you know,

19:29

in addition to the technology

19:29

aspect, if there's any symbol of

19:33

fast money out there, and the

19:33

real economy, I suppose Bezos

19:38

should be as good of a symbol of

19:38

that as any, so.

19:41

I'll tell you. It's

19:41

so confusing, though. I mean,

19:43

here I am. I just moved to

19:43

Providence, and I'm getting

19:46

settled and whatnot. And I've

19:46

had, you know, probably a dozen

19:49

stops at my house over the last

19:49

couple of months from the Amazon

19:52

Prime delivery truck. So I'm not

19:52

going to sit here and be a

19:55

hypocrite and say, "you know,

19:55

blah, blah, blah," and then on

19:58

the back, I'm still -- you know,

19:58

we're all in it. You know, we're

20:02

all complicit. We're all

20:02

involved in this thing. And I'd

20:06

rather go back to just what I

20:06

said before: for every moonshot,

20:08

there should be an earthshot.

20:09

Well put that on a

20:09

bumper sticker, and then sneak

20:12

it down on that Amazon truck.

20:14

Yah there you go.

20:14

Great idea. I'll leave that to

20:18

you. Come on, I gave you the

20:18

idea. But you can go do it.

20:21

Okay. All right. So

20:21

now you've spoken of what you

20:25

describe as the schizophrenic

20:25

tension in organizations working

20:29

for social change. You see "the

20:29

imperative to generate

20:33

competitive returns" casts a

20:33

long shadow. And that's

20:37

something you're trying to avoid

20:37

with the Beetcoin model by

20:40

crowdfunding rather than

20:40

institutional grants. Do you

20:44

have any other thoughts, Woody,

20:44

on how such groups can sidestep

20:48

the financial systems that are

20:48

some of the very things in need

20:52

of change?

20:54

That's such a -- I

20:54

mean, to me, that's the heart of

20:56

what I'm doing, and what I find

20:56

so vexing at times, inspiring it

21:01

other times. You used the word

21:01

"intention" earlier -- I can't

21:05

remember exactly what context

21:05

you used it in. But I, I have a

21:08

section in the book that talks

21:08

about nutrient-dense food, and I

21:12

kind of suggest the term

21:12

"intention-dense enterprises."

21:15

And then I say a small farm is

21:15

the most intention-dense

21:17

enterprises. It's kind of a

21:17

mouthful. But the point is

21:21

people's intent, their

21:21

intention, the people have good

21:24

intentions. They want to be

21:24

green, they want to buy green,

21:28

they want to get some bad

21:28

players out of their investment

21:31

portfolio -- this is not

21:31

everyone -- I'm saying there's a

21:34

whole bunch of people who are

21:34

kind of thinking like that. But

21:36

there is a huge drop-off between

21:36

their intention and what they

21:40

actually do, for a whole bunch

21:40

of different reasons. If I were

21:43

trying to simplify, summarize

21:43

those reasons, I'd say they have

21:47

to do with scale,

21:47

intermediation, institutional

21:50

complexity, and traditional

21:50

inertia, groupthink that happens

21:54

in institutions, just a whole

21:54

bunch of things like that. And

21:58

it just makes it very hard for

21:58

an individual to kind of

22:01

translate their intention into a

22:01

direct action. And so the way

22:05

you frame that question, you

22:05

kind of made it either/or, you

22:07

said, You're either going to be

22:07

inside the financial markets

22:10

fixie, or you gonna have to go

22:10

outside. And I think that's true

22:14

in some ways, and in other ways,

22:14

it's not true. I mean, look slow

22:17

money, if you change tracks here

22:17

a little bit, approach it a

22:20

different way. I often quip in

22:20

Slow Money meetings. I quote

22:23

Oscar Wilde, who said that the

22:23

whole trouble with socialism is

22:26

it requires too many evening

22:26

meetings -- which I think is a

22:30

very funny thing. Yeah. So, and

22:30

then I always add "slow money is

22:34

not a form of -- it's not

22:34

socialism. It's a highly

22:36

sociable form of capitalism."

22:36

And I'm saying that now because

22:39

we're both inside and outside of

22:39

financial markets. You know, a

22:43

local food system is a

22:43

marketplace. A farmer's market

22:46

is a marketplace. A CSA is a

22:46

market of some kinds of very

22:49

small, hyper local market. But I

22:49

do think, for people's

22:53

intentions to be expressed, they

22:53

do have to be as direct, and

22:56

local, and small as possible to

22:56

allow those intentions to flow

22:59

because as soon as they get

22:59

abstracted, pooled into larger

23:02

pools of capital, made more

23:02

anonymous, all these other

23:05

things happen that kind of spoil

23:05

the contaminate, or corrupt the

23:09

intention.

23:11

Well, to quote your

23:11

book AHA! again: "the promise of

23:15

disruptive, next-economy tech

23:15

entrepreneurs has given way to

23:19

an elite of T-shirt-wearing

23:19

robber barons." And you also

23:23

call these tech CEOs and venture

23:23

capitalists a modern incarnation

23:27

of old-fashioned royalty.

23:27

Beetcoin may be trying to take

23:30

us back to the low-tech land,

23:30

but, of course, you guys are

23:33

pretty dependent on the

23:33

internet, too so. You got any

23:36

thoughts on the picking and

23:36

choosing among the technological

23:41

options? Any rules of thumb you

23:41

might impart?

23:45

Drink a lot?

23:47

No. Coffee, you

23:47

mean, right?

23:51

No, but that counts

23:51

too. So this goes back to my --

23:55

I'm glad I said -- what I said

23:55

about Amazon and getting stuff

23:58

from the Amazon Prime truck. And

23:58

it's funny, that's probably the

24:01

most negative passage taken out

24:01

of context, not in a bad way.

24:04

But I'm just saying, there's

24:04

very little in my book that is

24:08

vilifying individuals. It's but

24:08

in that passage, it does sound

24:11

like I'm making fun of the

24:11

vilifying high tech CEOs. But I

24:15

think a fair reading of the book

24:15

would see that there's a very

24:17

broad -- I just had a friend of

24:17

mine just read the book. I

24:19

hadn't talked to her for quite a

24:19

few years. The specific thing

24:23

she said in her first email to

24:23

me about the book is, it casts a

24:26

very broad "we." In other words

24:26

-- it's not -- we're all in it

24:30

together. And so, you know, part

24:30

of my psyche is a tech psyche.

24:35

Part of my psyche is a

24:35

composting psyche. In my case,

24:39

it's more of the latter than the

24:39

former, but I've got all parts

24:42

in there. And I really, it's

24:42

really about balance. It's

24:45

really about balance and about

24:45

the fact that because of the

24:50

gravitational force of money --

24:50

it's particularly fast money --

24:53

our money gets sucked into in a

24:53

certain direction, and therefore

24:55

our financial intention goes

24:55

with it, and so we lose balance.

24:58

And that's why -- I think I'm

24:58

going to come back to this "for

25:01

every moon shot, we need an

25:01

earthshot" thing -- I haven't, I

25:03

just kind of landed on it before, and I think I'm gonna stay there, because it's just

25:05

about balance. Everything is

25:09

about balance. And so for one

25:09

person to have $50 billion, is

25:15

pretty ridiculous. I mean, come

25:15

on people. I'll say more about

25:18

it. So I don't, I don't know

25:18

anybody who has $50 billion. I

25:22

do know a few people who have a

25:22

billion dollars. And it's not

25:25

about them, or, and I know, a

25:25

few more people who have

25:29

hundreds of millions of dollars.

25:29

And now -- what I'm going to say

25:32

would get, they'll get me in trouble if any of them hear this -- I don't pity them. I'm going

25:34

to say I pity us. I'm gonna make

25:38

it about us. I pity us as --

25:38

let's make it on a societal

25:41

level, we are wealthier than

25:41

we've ever been here -- let's

25:43

quote E. F. Schumacher on this,

25:43

I'm going to butcher it a little

25:46

bit. Schumacher said, "the

25:46

wealthier society, the more

25:49

difficult it becomes to do

25:49

things that lack an immediate

25:52

payoff." That is a friggin,

25:52

profound insight, in my opinion.

25:58

And so we're all in it together,

25:58

the wealth has been created, and

26:01

it's corrupting everything. When

26:01

it gets concentrated to that

26:05

level, it's much bigger than a

26:05

person or an ego. It's the

26:08

society, it's just a reflection

26:08

of things being out of whack at

26:11

a societal level. An example of

26:11

this is philanthropy. When you

26:14

have pools of capital, you

26:14

referred to -- in the intro to

26:17

my work in mission-related

26:17

investing. And all

26:20

mission-related investing was

26:20

this very simple realization

26:23

that we have these pools of

26:23

capital, that are surplus

26:26

capital, that are put aside to

26:26

do good. And then they are all

26:29

invested to maximize return in

26:29

the very marketplace that

26:33

created the problems that

26:33

philanthropy is set up to try to

26:35

solve, which means to be more

26:35

concrete, in our case, we had

26:38

investments in Monsanto, who

26:38

were giving grants to

26:41

sustainable agr groups. And I,

26:41

on the board, said, come on, we

26:44

can't keep doing that. That is

26:44

schizophrenia.

26:47

Well, you know,

26:47

you've written that diversity

26:49

and efficiency are two sides of

26:49

a coin. Can you explain what you

26:53

mean by that?

26:54

Sure. This is the

26:54

concept of balance, Earthshot,

26:57

moonshot, just stated a

26:57

different way. So a simpletons

27:01

view of economic history, I

27:01

suppose, would conclude that all

27:05

of the theories, and then all of

27:05

the industrial systems that

27:10

come, that are based on those

27:10

theories are all about

27:13

increasing throughput, making

27:13

more things cheaper, making

27:17

things faster, making more

27:17

things, making people buy more

27:21

things. And all of that is

27:21

described as efficiency. And

27:25

again, I mean, at the risk of

27:25

over quoting E. F. Schumacher,

27:29

one of the chapters of Small Is

27:29

Beautiful starts with a sentence

27:33

that says something like this --

27:33

the modern economy is the most

27:37

inefficient system ever

27:37

developed by mankind. And he's

27:43

talking about -- Wendell Berry

27:43

does a lot of this also, of

27:46

course, so does Herman Dale, I

27:46

mean, they're all circling

27:49

around the same thing -- which

27:49

is all these micro --

27:52

efficiencies of, let's say, at

27:52

the enterprise level, you create

27:55

all these efficiencies, and you

27:55

export all of these, the

27:59

externalities, or the long-term

27:59

costs, that result from those

28:02

micro-efficiencies get exported

28:02

out into the air, in the soil,

28:06

and in the community and

28:06

whatnot. And eventually, they

28:09

build up the whole system as a

28:09

whole is extremely inefficient

28:12

in the sense that it creates

28:12

problems that can't be solved.

28:14

So that's all about the quest

28:14

for what happens with the

28:17

multiage century-long quest for

28:17

efficiency. And if you translate

28:22

that into the food system, just

28:22

for a second, just to get closer

28:24

to the diversity, the

28:24

biodiversity part of diversity,

28:27

but it works on the social side,

28:27

too. You know, there were

28:30

something like 100 -- This is

28:30

one of many examples -- of

28:33

something like 100 varieties of

28:33

potatoes in commercial

28:36

cultivation in 1900. And by

28:36

2004, varieties accounted for

28:42

95% of the potatoes grown and

28:42

consumed in the United States.

28:45

So the global supply chain in

28:45

food is driving biodiversity out

28:50

of the food system.

28:51

Sure.

28:52

And I had the

28:52

occasion to be on a panel at a

28:55

food investment conference once,

28:55

and we had to, at the end of the

28:58

panel, make a concluding remark.

28:58

And I looked at the audience --

29:01

and I'm not a provocateur, I'm

29:01

really not -- but sometimes you

29:06

just have to, just have to push

29:06

a little bit. And I looked at

29:10

it, and the audience was full of

29:10

venture capitalists and food

29:13

entrepreneurs. And so I said, if

29:13

we're going to make money

29:17

growing, and then manufacturing

29:17

food products, and marketing

29:21

food products, growing food,

29:21

manufacturing food products, we

29:24

should do it in a way that does

29:24

not diminish biodiversity. And

29:27

for one second, everyone in the

29:27

room felt bad, because everybody

29:30

who knows anything about food

29:30

products knows that in order to

29:34

make, you know, 10,000 pallets

29:34

of a uniform food product and

29:38

get it every day to Walmart or

29:38

wherever it is you're doing, you

29:40

are not paying attention to

29:40

biodiversity. You're paying

29:43

attention to efficiency, and

29:43

uniformity, and, you know,

29:46

commodities and whatnot. Say the

29:46

same thing can be said at all

29:49

levels of the economy.

29:51

Yeah, well I think

29:51

one of the things that comes out

29:54

of this is we have to broaden

29:54

our perspectives when it comes

29:58

to that concept of efficiency.

29:58

And so what do you -- if people

30:01

have enjoyed what they've heard

30:01

here today, and I think

30:04

everybody would -- how can they

30:04

get involved or connected with

30:07

Beetcoin and with Slow Money?

30:09

So the way people can get involved is in a way that we never had before. If all

30:11

of this sounds pretty good,

30:15

let's go back to for every

30:15

moonshot there needs to be an

30:17

earthshot, you want there to be

30:17

more earthshots of this kind.

30:20

And you, let's say, you can't

30:20

make this a life activity for

30:24

yourself. You just want to find

30:24

some way to chip in some money.

30:26

We hope you'll, people will do

30:26

it through Beetcoin. No amount

30:29

is too small, we hope we'll be

30:29

aggregating lots of small

30:31

donations, and then that money

30:31

will go through us to local

30:35

groups that are doing 0% loans,

30:35

and then stay local. Once it

30:38

goes through us to the local group just stays local recirculates in perpetuity. So

30:40

that's our answer to your

30:43

question. Now, if this sounds

30:43

good -- I mean, of course, I'd

30:46

love people to buy the book,

30:46

more importantly, read the book,

30:48

it's available free on the

30:48

beetcoin.org website. But if you

30:51

want a hard copy, then you can

30:51

purchase one from Slow Money

30:54

Institute as well. I'm pretty

30:54

sure it was T. S. Eliot who said

30:57

that we have to beware of trying

30:57

to create systems so perfect

31:00

that men do not need to be good.

31:02

Alright.

31:03

Which is an amazing thing for a poet to have said. So same thing to me applies with

31:05

money -- the idea of coming up

31:08

with new kinds of money, or new

31:08

theories about money. I know

31:11

that sounds a little crazy,

31:11

because I'm talking about slow

31:14

money. But slow money, it's

31:14

slowing down the money we have.

31:17

What's that mean? It's taking,

31:17

you know, good, old, fashioned

31:20

fiat currency -- there's a

31:20

little, I have this little video

31:22

if you poke around the website, you'll see at the bottom of one of the pages, there's a little

31:24

video of me saying some stuff

31:26

about this. Just taking our

31:26

good, old-fashioned fiat

31:29

currency that came from

31:29

plantation capitalism and fossil

31:32

fuels all that stuff, and doing

31:32

something that is directly good

31:35

with it that we understand, and

31:35

that is not about our own

31:37

personal remuneration. It's

31:37

about creating good for the

31:39

community. That's what slow

31:39

money is. It's a very simple and

31:43

direct utilization of the money

31:43

we have to do something good.

31:48

Fantastic. Woody,

31:48

it's been great talking with

31:51

you, and we wish you all the

31:51

best with Beetcoin. We are

31:54

certainly going to be more

31:54

interested in Beetcoin over

31:58

time, and we'll be, we'll come

31:58

back around to you probably

32:02

later in the year for a

32:02

follow-up, and thanks so much

32:05

for challenging some of the

32:05

fundamental assumptions about

32:08

growth too.

32:10

Well, if we just you know, we can blame Herman Daly, and E. F. Schumacher, and

32:12

Wendell Berry if we want. I

32:15

sometimes joke that these guys

32:15

all ruined my life, because I,

32:19

you know, I read their books

32:19

when I got out of school, and I

32:21

believed that they were right.

32:21

And then I thought, okay, if

32:24

they're right, what do I, how do

32:24

I live in a way that manifests

32:27

those ideas? And that's a bit of

32:27

a challenge, but, so that's my

32:32

way of saying thank you for

32:32

having me. It was a privilege to

32:35

associate myself however briefly

32:35

with steady state economics and

32:38

the work you guys are doing. So thank you.

32:55

Well, folks, that

32:55

about wraps 're up. We've been

32:58

talking with Woody Tasch,

32:58

founder and Chair of Slow Money

33:02

Institute and author of AHA!

33:02

Fake Trillions, Real Billions,

33:06

Beetcoin and the Great American

33:06

Do-Over. Beetcoin is drawing

33:10

attention to the fundamental

33:10

links between our food system

33:14

and the broader economy,

33:14

unsustainable links at this

33:17

point. And it's not just a

33:17

vanity project for rich hippies,

33:21

or even -- should I say --

33:21

beatniks. When people ask how

33:26

farming or business would work

33:26

in a steady state economy,

33:29

Beetcoin makes for a great

33:29

example, especially with those

33:32

0% interest loans. We encourage

33:32

listeners to take a look at

33:37

beetcoin.org for great food for

33:37

thought, and to consider a

33:41

donation to a Beetcoin project

33:41

as well. I'm Brian Czech, and

33:46

you've been listening to The

33:46

Steady Stater podcast. See you

33:49

next time!