Creating a Natural Economy: An Open Letter to Wage Slaves

The following is an open letter from Dave Pollard to the readers of his book, Finding the Sweet Spot: The Natural Entrepreneur's Guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work. It has been adapted for the web.

In our modern society, we rely on the education system to teach us what we need to know to live and make a living.

That system has let us down badly. It is in the interest of those who control the current economic system, those with the established wealth and power, that we not know that there is a better way to make a living than working for them, doing meaningless work as wage slaves, just to buy ourselves some leisure time to do what has meaning for us.

We each need, personally, to rediscover the joy and meaning of natural work, of Natural Entrepreneurship. Finding the Sweet Spot is an attempt to get you started on that journey.

We need a blossoming of millions of Natural Enterprises, connected and collaborating and supporting each other as part of a dynamic Natural Economy.

But what we also need, collectively, as a society, is a blossoming of thousands, millions of Natural Enterprises, connected and collaborating and supporting each other generously as part of a dynamic new Natural Economy. Is such a thing possible?

Buckminster Fuller, who accomplished some pretty amazing things in his areas of expertise, said:

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

And Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, chimed in:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

This is where you come in.

I'm asking you to do more than just freeing yourself from a life of grinding, miserable, meaningless work by creating your own Natural Enterprise.

I'm asking you to join me in being a part of a model “that makes the existing model obsolete.”

A model of a million Natural Enterprises, all communities within their own physical communities, the places they live and call home, and all communities within a new community of Natural Economy.

It's not enough that I show you, dear readers, the way to create a Natural Enterprise, and start you on this journey. We owe it to our larger community, our fragile planet struggling under the oppressive weight of an industrial economy that is destroying it, the larger community of all-life-on-Earth, that we take heart from Bucky Fuller and courage from Margaret Mead and create, together, a model that will show the world that there is a better way to make a living, and a better way to live.

We can do this. This Natural Economy could come about as quickly and miraculously as the Industrial Economy was ushered in by the steam engine and the division of labor, and could transform the way we make a living just as dramatically.

This Natural Economy is nothing more than a huge Natural Enterprise in which we will all be, must all be, partners. Its collective Purpose is nothing less than to save the world. Between us, we have the collective Gifts and collective Passions and the capacities and knowledge that are “on Purpose” to make it happen.

When you first go to the Natural Enterprise Web site you will find a Pledge. This Pledge is to join in equal partnership with others creating Natural Enterprises, to be a model, to help show the whole world a better way to make a living, responsibly, sustainably, joyfully.

Please join me in taking that Pledge, and becoming part of what might be, through the power of people, knowledge, innovation, partnership, collaboration, and generosity, the most important enterprise the world has ever known.