Economics and Community
This morning I caught an interesting interview on NPR’s “To the Best of Our Knowledge”, produced by Wisconsin Public Radio. It was with Harvard economics professor Stephen Marglin, who wrote a book: The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community.
He talked about how modern economics and market relationships erode community and individuals’ interdependence on one another. He used a great example of insurance industry as the faceless economic entity that disconnected people form each other. It resonated for me as something for us to think about as a community acupuncturists, as we try to resurrect that connectedness through the work that we do.
The interview is only about 10 minutes long, it starts about 11 minutes into the 12 noon 2/1/2009 segment, here: https://wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=bok&CFID=34765961&CFTOKEN=96329050
Author: Tatyana Ryevzina
<p> I grew up in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States as a teen, living in New York and Chicago before moving to the Bay Area in 1998. I began as a Yoga instructor and as a practitioner of Ohashiatsu bodywork and have been practicing Acupuncture/Chinese Medicine since 2003. Before switching to community acupuncture practice model I had a sporadic and struggling private practice, worked as an herbal pharmacist, as an instructor and clinical supervisor at an acupuncture school, plus did a two-year stint doing acupuncture at a public health clinic, working with mostly HIV/HCV+ populations in San Francisco. </p> <p> My discovery of Community Acupuncture practice model (via Lisa Rohleder's Acupuncture Today columns) profoundly transformed my life -- not just my work life but many other aspects of it. I gained a vocation, a community of friends and the most stable and rewarding job I have ever had. I see community acupuncture practice model as the most sustainable and most fitting to my values. It makes sense to me from the point of view of healthcare access, social justice, spirituality, and as an antidote to isolation. In 2008, together with another stellar acupunk Pam Chang I...
I have to get that book.
Tatyana, thanks for linking to this – this fellow has so much to say that is of direct relevance to CAN, and to the question of “economic recovery.”
Here’s an in-depth pdf interview with him that I found, in which he talks about some of the same things he does in the audio version (in case folks don’t have realplayer, etc.):
https://www.challengemagazine.com/extra/013_026.pdf