Enoughism
David Kranz – November 2015
Rev John Hughes takes his job seriously. He ponders outside the theological box.
Here’s a for instance:
‘Give us this day our daily bread’. Familiar words from the Lord’s Prayer. Economically speaking we often think of Capitalism vs Communism. But these words evoke a third option: Enoughism
John’s radical proposal could trigger global economic disequilibrium—even chaos!
Here’s a possible fiction.
King pins on Wall St get twitchy at the very sound of ‘Enoughism’. A quick request to the CIA and Hughes is black-booked as a threat to the American way of life. They’ll ‘watch’ him next time he hits the US.
The yanks cover all bases, so they call ASIO in the middle of the night. (They’re not so hot on ‘times’—let alone International date lines.) ASIO alert agents to sniff out any splinter-groups in Adelaide that might peddle a kind of generous frugality that could upset retailers of stuff that most people want— but few need.
The CIA’s love for global surveillance pulled in MI5. The poms listened courteously, then down-played the threat. In 2009, they had received a similar kind of allegation from the London Stock Exchange that a crazy Oxford Don went all funny with his money in ways that could threaten the London Market. It hasn’t done so to date!
The yanks asked for a detailed report.
So much for speculative fantasy.
Here’s a short summary of the real story.
In 2009, Dr Toby Ord, Australian philosopher, and Post Doctoral Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford was inspired to help alleviate poverty. He decided he could live well on £20,000 annually, created an organisation called ‘Giving What We Can’, and donated the balance of his salary to it. Colleagues liked the idea. Within a year, 64 people had pledged £21M. By May 2015, over 1000 members together pledged more than £400M. Over his career, Toby has pledged in excess of £1,000,000. Some research colleagues ranked global needs and identified the most effective agencies to meet them. Funds are disbursed in the light of these findings.
It is noteworthy that in 2010 Toby revised his original ‘cap’ down to £18,000. This suggests a conservative approach. Presumably in 2009 he built in safeguards against contingencies that later proved to be excessive. Enough is often less than one might judge initially. The bar is set where one is comfortable to set it. Surf ‘Toby Ord’ for more.
It’s a bit of an anomaly to live comfortably on less when salaries increase with inflation?
—ooOoo—
Another expression of enoughism was trigged by a study published by the University of Princeton. It found that increases in income above US $70,000 did not have a significant positive impact on a person’s happiness.
Dan Price, 30, the CEO of Seattle-based tech company Gravity Payments, liked happiness, including in the work place, so he reviewed his pay sheets and did his sums.
He employed 120 people. Their average salary was $48,000. ‘Not enough’ he thought!
My salary is ‘way out of whack’, he thought, ‘$1,000,000 is way more than enough’!
He decided that, ideally, all hands including his own, should be paid $70,000 annually.
A quick burst on the calculator!
His ‘surplus’ $930,000 could fund an immediate increase of $5,000 p.a. (or a minimum of $50,000 whichever is the greater, for the lowest paid 70 staff members.
He set a target that, by December 2017, all hands would be on $70,000.
Imagine the gasps and the smiles at announcement at the next staff meeting.
—ooOoo—
Rev John invites a bit of soul searching— quite a lot if you fancy it!
Enoughism has implications across all aspects of human activity— not just the economy!
Decisions about when ‘enough is enough’ are determined by the values that drive us.
The values that drive us are shaped by the beliefs that we hold.
Belief systems are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves to define what is ‘real’ for us. It’s how we individually ‘make sense’ of the world.
Belief systems derive from two sources—faith-based and evidence-based.
There are important differences between them. One such relates to ‘verification’.
Faith-based belief systems are mental constructs that are solely subject to interpretation. Differences of opinion are never resolved except by consensus. Agreement solidifies a reaffirmation of a ‘truth’. Strong disagreement invites attack based on a different ‘truth’. The ‘stories’ clash. It spawns the destructive ‘them and us’ syndrome.
The challenge is to test the ‘realness’ and the ‘rightness’ of diverse perceptions of ‘truth’.
Evidence-based data has much to offer in our understanding of ‘reality’ and hypotheses about ‘rightness’.
That claim is ‘enough’ for now.
Vicky and I spent private, two-week retreat in September comparing a faith-based belief text ‘A Course in Miracles’[1] and an evidenced-based text ‘Music of the Mind’[2].
The outcome was exciting, compelling, illuminating, enriching, and expanding, and far too complex to simply ‘report on’.
We have decided to invite other ‘explorers’ to meet, on a date yet to be set, to consider ways of experiencing the wonder and the one-ness of the uni-verse (one songline), our role in it, our impact on it, and our collegiate responsibility for it.
That won’t be enough. There is always more. What a glorious paradox!
[1] A Course in Miracles was scribed by Helen Schueman, Professor of Medical Psychology, Columbia University,US, between 1965–72, ‘as a kind of dictation from a voice who identified himself as Jesus’.
[2] Music of the mind, was authored by Darryl Reanney, Microbiologist and Biochemist, Lecturer at University of Canterbury, NZ, and La Trobe University , Aust., in 1994. He writes about deep issues that can be communicated beyond the boundaries if the scientific community. His passion is to reunite the insights of contemporary science with those of the sacred traditions.
2 Responses to “Enoughism”
A good read is the biography of David Bussau, ‘Don’t Look Back’. David was a successful entrepreneur who found that, at a certain stage of building his business, he was caught in a trap of having to prioritise his business over his family time, and he decided ‘enough is enough’. His business was going well enough for him and his family to live modestly on the proceeds, and so he gave it up to spend the rest of his life helping people in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines to set up viable businesses. I have a copy of the book if anyone would like to borrow it.
Lyn Bray
PS Geoff and I are indeed explorers who might be interested in joining a discussion group on Enoughism if others want to join in.
I revisited ‘enoughism’ today and pondered its merits and relevance in the reshaping of a post pandemic economy.
Lyn’s comment adds to the notion