Common Good Podcast

Dr. Olivia Saunders: Sovereignty & Abundance

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The Common Good Podcast is a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation and the structure of belonging.  Today’s conversation is between Dr. Olivia Saunders, Peter Block, Greg Jarrell and our producer, Joey Taylor. We talk to Olivia about her book. You can find the transcript here. 
 
https://commongoodpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1735634/10178787-dr-olivia-saunders-sovereignty-abundance

Dr. Olivia Saunders is a professor at the University of the Bahamas. She is also the former director of the Bahamas Entrepreneurial Venture Capital Fund and the Small Business Development Centre of The Bahamas.

Greg Jarrell is a founder of QC Family Tree, a community of hospitality in Charlotte, NC, where he shares life with his wife, Helms, their two kids, and a host of other neighbors who have become kin. He was also a fellow with the Common Good Collective and assists with the Common Good reader.

You can find more information about the Common Good Collective and the reader here. Common Good Podcast is a production of Bespoken Live and Common Change - Eliminating Personal Economic Isolation. This episode was produced by Joey Taylor with music from Jeff Gorman.

Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp:

Welcome to the common good podcast a conversation about the significance of place, eliminating economic isolation, and the structure of belonging. My name is Rabbi Miriam thrillin champ, and I'm the host for today's conversation between Dr. Olivia Saunders, Peter block, Greg Terrell and our producer Joey Taylor. We talked to Olivia about her book, tomato economics and the concepts of sovereignty, scarcity and abundance.

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

And so long as the motivation has anything to do with money yesterday, has to prevail, until we think in terms of benefiting individuals and the communities that they're in. The economic system can change. And that's part of the peeling away is when you're thinking for the benefit of individuals and communities, that we start to rethink and restructure. What we build and how we do what

Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp:

we recognize the audio quality for Olivia isn't quite as good as we'd like. But because the content is still so important, we decided to still release this episode. In case you have issues with understanding we've also provided a link to the transcript in the show notes. We begin with Peter framing the conversation by sharing a story about Olivia and one of their mutual friends, Roosevelt Finlayson.

Peter Block:

Olivia introduced me along with a friend to a world. That's been 20 years ago, I didn't know what community was until I went out to dinner with Roosevelt. And it took us 30 minutes to get to our table, because he hadn't say hello to everybody along the way. For lonely boy like me, I got my attention. And so I think what Olivia taught me was about colonialism. And she gave me an insight that before Mass on the Bahamas, when they were colonized and ruled by England, the black economy was much stronger. And she lived in a place where they took care of each other's children. They fed each other, they cared for each other. And as soon as the island was, you know, free, people decided they wanted to go to work in the white culture, the tourist culture, and it kind of hurt the black economy a lot. And I've heard that in many other places that thought it never ended in my mind. That's when she interested me in economics. That's why we're here, among other things.

Joey Taylor:

As I read through your book, Olivia, the thing that struck me was this word, sovereignty. But could you talk just a little bit about what does being sovereign have to do with believing in abundance? Seeing abundance cultivating abundance?

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

Oh, I never, I was never asked that question. I have to say, it has me thinking about what I really mean about it and linking it to abundance. Sovereignty and I'm talking about my sovereignty, you as a sovereign being, we are all individually as sovereign beings. And for me, you can't be abundance unless we are granted allowed to be sovereign, because otherwise somebody is deciding for me, what I should and should not have, what I should be and what I should not be. We talk about colonialism and even possible colonialism a lot. And a major part of colonialism is denying, not just countries their sovereignty, but individuals their sovereignty. We are told we are a sovereign nation, and especially those countries that were once formerly colonized, that you are now ready to get independence, you're now a sovereign nation. But the reality in the world is that we are not. We are still controlled by powers outside of us either on the political front and on the economic front and all the social front and back and side. Because countries outside of the head your mom's handled sovereignty because if you cannot act on your own accord, no matter how respectful or healthcare you may be, unless it is sanctioned, and given the okay by a world power as individuals similarly, We are so often told, Well, you belong in this space or that space, you're allowed to have this thing or that thing. You're allowed to go to this kind of school or the next title, or whatever. But seldom Are we really allowed the software

Peter Block:

is half being allowed to be sovereign, to colonialism or sovereign means somebody thinks they know what's best for you. So in modern times, we're not so much ordered around, it's just that we decide what measures count, we decided that the gross domestic product may include tourism as being good for your country. But it's also then claiming sovereignty for ourselves. That's the voice you've been calling out in your garden as a model, that when will we and claim sovereignty for ourselves? And it's powerful to me, because you, you're president of a university for years, right? You're honored person in the university system, you have a doctor in front of your name, all right. And yet you see this. So clearly, you have not been seduced or distracted, even though you've participated, none of us are innocent.

Greg Jarrell:

So you've resisted, as, as Peter is alluding to give us a sense of your practice, like how have you not fallen into the gravity of those institutions? What's kept you able to resist?

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

In a way I resisted, but at the same time, if you don't have some level of cooperation, you're gonna get pulverize? Sure. So the resistance comes for us within myself, to try to be able to understand and see what's going on. And then to try to figure out well, if I go this way, how am I likely to influence? Or what can I say that will influence persons to think about what they're thinking to think how they're thinking, because to me? I've been talking against, for example, our economic system, not just domestically, but internationally, there's a reality, I can't change it. For the middle that I do, while I'm cooperating in the system, for example, going what I can grow in my yard, not being seduced by the black Friday's, and that sort of thing, approaching politics in a different way, how I vote or decide not to vote, let my point of view be known. Because the fact is, that head on collisions with the powers that be is just self destruction. So I would say it's a passive this, and it's going back to the word sovereignty is I tried to claim my own sovereignty within myself. But at the same time, I know I'm in and on. So even as I'm in university, I'm there for my voice to be heard. Not to cause construction, not to cause confusion, not to try to say that what you're doing is absolutely stupid, or insult or, you know, to have my voice from the perspective of abundance. You heard, as I understand it, to be, you take it, or you don't take it. Some people take it some times, versus two years after hearing it, they come to me and say, Now I understand what you say. And they start to ask a lot of things that I was saying 1520 years ago, I don't have to say anymore because others are saying

Peter Block:

that's compelling. Can you name two things that 15 years ago, you gave voice to that now you don't have to any longer

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

for direct investment. Of course you won't be caught me because persons are one one of the things that's going around memes, etc. Going around now is that we should all hate China. Because China's buying up Africa, China's buying up the Caribbean, China's buying up this stuff in the next, I guess responded to One of them just this morning, I my response was something to the effect that apparently only Europeans and Americans are allowed to buy up. What they do do is conquer and destroy. Now, we're conscious about the kind of investment people are now speaking up the destruction of the environment, to get a few names in the jobs, one of the things that people are talking about. And the next thing is what comes with that is diminishing the value of behaviors. Because in a colonial system, our role is simply to make other people rich, then we are simply workers. But now, very few politicians, they have to really hold on sugar it up, when they go, in a way and foreign investors now because more and more people are seeing it just in the newspapers today, actually, it's a big story about it. So yeah, those are at the local level that I've been talking about

Peter Block:

what you said, it's so powerful, I almost want you to say it again, that our role in a colonial world called labor that what you want, is to help other people get rich. And what's so powerful is that, as that's happening, so few people understand it, they call it a service economy sometime. And now in the United States, nobody wants to go back to work, you helped me understand that. And one of the reasons is given a few months off, they realize all they were doing was helping other people get rich.

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

And this is a way to reclaim their sovereignty in a measure. Not totally, because they'll still be working a wage slave as I am as well. But they're beginning to understand better how the economic system works, and they're placed in this economic system. So in the Bahamas, and other countries, you know, they always talk about, you know, we don't have resources, one of the mantras you always hear is that we have nothing. Yet people come here and make zillions of dollars. Out of this nothingness. People are seeing the economic system is designed, it's scarcity based, because it's making so many persons, so called valueless that your value only comes to the extent that you show up nine, get off at five or eight get off of school, your value is well beyond that, in our society. On any US, you saw the value of what we say, low skilled, low wage, you know those on the low end of the totem pole, because it was they were keeping people alive.

Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp:

At this point, we invite you to take a breath and consider the words of William Stafford. The poem is called you reading this? Be ready. Starting here, what do you want to remember? How sunlight creeps along the shining floor? What scent of old wood hovers. What soften sound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry? Wherever you go right now? Are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts? When you turn around, starting here, live this new glimpse that you found carry into evening, all that you want from this day. This interval you spent reading or hearing this, keep it for life. What can anyone give you greater than now? Starting here? Right in this room, when you turn around? Now is returned to the conversation. Greg asked Olivia question.

Greg Jarrell:

One of the ways that the scarcity economy has done such a disservice is but by stealing our imaginations from us. So when we're reading your book, it's hard for me to imagine what a system that's built on abundance would even look like right. So the way that we've been trained to think is that we have a system based on scarcity and we resolve the problems of that system by individual acts of service. to not buy a systemic method. So help us to walk into your imagination here, how are we going to systematize abundance so that we have something different than what we have today?

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

I'm always reluctant to come up with a solution. Because one of my things about this case anything is probably me, there's only one economic system is called capitalism, or it's called socialism was called this is called the Bahamas has 700 islands keys. Less than half a million people, we need an economic system that's different from Canada, from Chile, from Peru, going back to Poland to Joey, read the beginning, starting now. Where are we now? What do we have an Oscar a house that we can share that we can be generous with? And others can be generous with us? Actually, I never come up with a solution for what is abundant economies, right? Because if I do and just being another colonizer saying, that Olivia system is what it should be, I call it tomato economics. But you could call it whatever you want to call it, you could call it you know, greenfoot. If you like, what is the economic system? What is the social construct that is going to work in your space?

Peter Block:

The things that matter most to us call it sovereignty. No program can serve, because as soon as you have a program or solution, including affordable housing, all right, the person delivering the program is engaged in a marketing and sales effort, rather than what you say is that is why don't we talk about an economy of generosity. And when we do that, there's enough you know, it's a in the crypto currency world. They're selling the notion of self sovereignty. And what they're saying is that I can get wealthy and I don't work for anybody. But it's a mythical world that there is no place in the cryptocurrency world, Bitcoin, I can't even hold. And to me, it's interesting that these words of, you know, floating in different domains. But what you're saying it's not an argument against money is it's an excess consciousness as to what is it good for, it's more than just repeating and growing itself, which is the crypto promise I bought 10,000. Now it's 14,000. I pay $30 million for a pain I can't even hang on my wall.

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

Your brother Peter, because I've been reviewing this crypto world for the last couple of weeks. It's fascinating to me. But one thing that I really noticed. And what I like about it, is the fact that it's a totally mythical world. But really no different from the mythical world we already operated. Because money is a myth. Money is a made up thing. The shares in a company is a made up thing as the prices go up just by what people think or feel, or what somebody tweet all this data on the net, it's all based on nothingness. The difference now is that more people can participate in the nothingness more to their economic benefit than they had before could not have. So it is an indicator of a more that can be available to more people. But if you look at that world in our world, let me call the real world and the crypto world. They're really the same except in oneness in cyberspace, and one is on the New York Stock Exchange on the London Stock Exchange. Another difference is that governments have control over pound sterling, or the euro, or the US dollar, the Canadian dollar, to some degree. Now it's in private hands. The Crypto world is in private hands.

Peter Block:

And just as our tomato gardens

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

Yes.

Joey Taylor:

Olivia, I loved how, how you ended this book, you basically said so now it's up to you to figure out what this means for you. You asked this series of questions, and I thought maybe you could answer one or both of these for yourself. How can I peel away or how can you peel away one layer of scarcity from your life and community? How can you bring another aspect of abundance to your life and community?

Dr. Olivia Saunders:

As I was saying before, I it is about peeling away because like I said, we're in a in a world and I don't think When the motivational speakers and all that say you we're in control, yeah, to some extent, but still, we're in somebody else's world. And we have to peel away, inch by inch, day by day, minute by minute, whenever we have the opportunity to move away the idea of scarcity. And I think that's one of the reasons I stayed in education at the University, and the disputants, we still have a very much in my mind, a colonial education system. Our paradigm is one where we are discouraged from really taking on our sovereignty. So one of the messages for me and peeling away this is with my students, and how I teach them, how I interact with them, to let them know that they are a lot more than what they've been told they are, and that they are not bound by the limitations that are set with them. And in my community, I tried to be generous. I have avocado trees, passion, food, and I share I my neighbors share with me, this is who we are as a people. And I think if you go back to all traditional societies, the capacity to survive came from sharing, not from competition, not from taking away as much as I can from the next person. If not, you would not have survived. But somehow, somebody decided, the best way to move forward is for us to think only about ourselves, and the world is going to be a lot better as I take from you as much as I can, and leave you to the dogs. Because the most important thing is for me to become wealthy, for myself. To me, it's just the little acts of generosity of kindness is just, and to me, it's just being human. Because if, if I'm in my way, demonstrating abundance, it's amazing how other people feel it, connect with it, I want to interrupt with it. So that's just my my way of peeling away.

Joey Taylor:

Peter, is there a way that you're peeling away one layer of scarcity from your life and communities.

Peter Block:

I'm making the case against scale, and how I live and how I write the things I support in the world. I'm making the case against speed, against convenience, I feel place is what I'm trying to celebrate part of what I learned from Bolivian. So I participate in my neighbor could among the local council, so I haven't given up. But we don't really do anything that's useful. Except that Saturday night, we had a holidays on London, which is the main street of my Clifton neighborhood, I volunteered that surprised me how many people I knew and what generosity you feel in this thing called place. It's a real alternative. To me, it's a political stance, you can create the alternative, anyplace you are, it becomes a source of meaning. And that's why we're trying to start projects that have to do with land and owning land and controlling land. Because land was the beginning. Olivia said, you know, at some point somebody decided on capitalism making. It wasn't some point. And someone it was John Locke and Northern Europeans decided that every piece of land it was God's will to maximize economic gain from every piece of land. And that's why the Native Americans in the United States were so easily pushed aside is they weren't maximizing profit from the land. They love to all of us have a way into this. And then you say, Well, how do I organize my being in my life to support that knowing that I cooperate like crazy, you know, nobody claims innocence. But we do control what we pay attention to. And I think what Olivia represents is us paying attention to the alternative economy. And in our case, call it the common good. Which gets out of the argument of private versus public. I don't want to be in those conversations. I don't want to argue for and against capitalism. But we can say, well, there's a commons within walking distance that we're trying to treat as if it matters,

Greg Jarrell:

the doctrine legally and theologically. They call it the doctrine of discovery that Peters referring to. And the doctrine of discovery was basically whatever European found it got to claim it as theirs not only land but also people right and so not just extracting value from a place but also from the people that inhabited a place. So Olivia early on in the book, you say that these ideas some people considered as dangerous The things that you're writing about, and I think that's right, I think I think those people are right. These are dangerous ideas because they threatened to up in a system that's been built on exploitation. So I think they're the right kind of danger. And danger also brings with it possibility that something new could be born. And I think that what you're calling us to is, is new in some sense, but it's also just very old. It just calls us back to that time before the Doctrine of Discovery when communities already functioned in this way. You know, that's been really encouraging to me to remember that somewhere back in there, we've got what we need already that ancient wisdom already exists. We have to remember it.

Peter Block:

We never lost it. I remember being in Hawaii, the friend, and she said, you know, the colonizers came and took everything, but we never lost it. Yeah. We've always known whose land this is. And I think Olivia, what you represent is the fact that you don't have to go anywhere to know that this is your land. This is your culture. This is your world.

Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp:

Thanks for listening. Check out the shownotes to learn more about Dr. Lydia Saunders pro book, tomato economics, the common good, collective, and all of the voices you heard on this episode. This episode has been hosted by me, Rabbi Miriam Carolyn champ, and it's produced by the amazing Joey Taylor and the music is from Jeff Corbin.