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In
the
COUNTING house the fruits of work were no longer just the fruits
of living, that can be measured directly in the creation of an abundant,
beautiful and tranquil life, where people are at one with nature
and one another; and in the satisfaction and ease of a job well
done, where people are at ease with themselves.
These fruits
had to be measured in quantities of money and goods. So the primary
values became secondary. And the more people in their control of
work were alienated from their primary matrix in Nature and personal
relationship, losing that primary satisfaction, the more good and
reasonable it has seemed to work for the reward of money instead,
and to make money and goods a justification and an alibi for that
alienation.
For this
was not just a question of moving from a 'subsistence economy' to
a 'market economy' because there was now a 'surplus' available for
trading (as the economic text books tell you).
Real markets
are friendly, humane and communitarian places, where human motives
interact. The ruthless calculations of advantage are not done in
the marketplace at all, but hidden in the very different environment
of the carpeted office block. Real markets retain still the atmosphere
of the personal way of life; they are more a haven for artists and
tourists than for ECONOMIC man.
It is rather
a question of moving from human values, the values of ease and of
the home, to the values of the COUNTING house.
There is
no was you can translate into money terms the cooperative transactions
of home, family and community, whether or not home
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