Richard Lloyd Jones: Try looking up synonyms for love, arguably one of the most important words in the English language. As a verb, it has 40. Money, our topic today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, has 56. But whatever you call it, bucks, green, or bread, money today is so revered there's really only one appropriate synonym. The almighty dollar. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, money and power.
First of all, thanks to all of you who've subscribed to Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. We're trying on this program to offer a new perspective on many old patterns of thought and scientific evidence, and I'm very gratified that you're listening. Our topic today is an important one, and we're going to try to look at money in ways you may not have considered before.
I'll be talking once again with Dr.
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco, a psychoanalyst and vice president of the International Society of Analytical Trilogy here in São Paulo. Our discussions are based today on Dr. Norberto Kebbe's extraordinary book, Liberation of the People, The Pathology of Power. This book is an in-depth psychoanalytical critique of money and power that reaches to the very root cause of our inverted and seriously pathological society and power structures.
It's essential reading, actually. And you know what? I have some copies in English I would like to give away to the first 25 people who send me emails. Just send them to rich at richjonesvoice.com. That's rich at richjonesvoice.com. It'd be great to hear from you. Just drop me a line with your mailing address and I'll send out a copy of this very elemental book.
Now, money. A couple of weeks ago, we began the exploration of money in our program about Adam Smith.
Today, let's go deeper into this area that impacts us all deeply. Our society is dominated by it. Dr. Cláudia Pacheco, if I ask you to talk about money from your perspective in Analytical Trilogy, what would you say?
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco: I can't speak about the wrong idea that all of us have that mankind only work for money. The situation, the pressure that we live to have to pay for house, food, clothing, basic expenses, is so strong.
It's so stressful that we don't have even time to think how we can produce better things, better quality and more useful for humanity, to develop science, arts, any area of endeavor. It's very much stopped by this concept of money, the importance of money. This is the biggest inversion in society. But what
Richard: leads you to say this, Cláudia? I mean, many people are speaking about this idea that money is too important in society, and I think many of us recognize that the drive for profit above all else is killing us.
How can you deepen our understanding of this
Cláudia: essential issue? Money is not the motivation for people to produce a work of quality. It's this is more linked to to the essence of man, which is pure action. And if we cannot accomplish what we would like to, our ideals cannot be put in practice, we really get physically, mentally, spiritually sick. Our society is sick because it's impeded to develop its real path, which is to live a balanced, prosperous, aesthetical, beautiful, healthy, ethical kind of life.
To develop a decent work, a beautiful work. What are we doing here? Just working to give profits for small groups of people, either communist parties or capitalistic parties. People are always left to the end, the last place in the bottom, crushed by the sick powerful.
Richard: Keppe's book, Liberation of the People, which we're giving away to the first 25 people who email me at rich at richjonesvoice.com, explores the pathology of power.
He says in this book, "have you ever wondered where so many people go each morning, crowded into the buses, trains, and cars? Men, women, and even teenagers are heading for thousands of public and private businesses, helping these to exploit humanity. And to exploit themselves as well, since they, too, are consumers." I'm not referring only to businesses which exploit the people because they make products which are harmful, like cigarettes or alcohol.
I'm saying that businesses exploit with everything they produce, because the profits go only to the proprietors. What do we need to begin to correct this, Cláudia?
Cláudia: "The conscientization that the economic financial power is destroying all endeavors of humanity. Our very life is being destroyed by the economic system, which is now very sick. Not because it's capitalistic or socialistic, but because it's inverted."
What we see is that economic power took control of the executive, judicial, and legislative powers. And the threefold form of government is very balanced if they were not corrupted and controlled by the economic powerful corporations and individuals and families. They took the control of the money. And they created a kind of living that money is put much above life, decency, ethics, dignity, happiness, health, anything.
Richard: Cláudia, I think the idea that defenders of capitalism would use to argue against your point of view is that the system works by having the most talented people making the money and then passing those profits down to society. It's a sort of trickle-down effect. Adam Smith, for sure, believed that. But because you're a psychoanalyst and you're working with Dr. Keppe on the psychoanalysis of society, you would see this in quite a different way.
Help us to understand this a bit better.
Cláudia: "What dominates life in this planet is the inversion, the psychological inversion. So we cannot see a man or a woman acting spontaneously for the good of other people. Selfishness dominates, envy dominates, and in terms of not wanting people to enjoy goods and richness and this beautiful paradise we have in our hands. So this competition is based on envy, is very destructive.
And if rich people are not conscious and controlled because of their psychopathology, which is envy, as I said, so we can expect that the richer the person, the more envious he will be. And this doesn't bring any benefit at all for the person himself or society."
Richard: Of course, this envy doesn't exist only in the rich people, does it? I mean, everywhere I travel, I see the same thing, that everyone in society sees powerful, arrogant, rich people as the best.
And so we all want our place at the top, too. And this causes us to support this exploitive and sick economic system. This is an inversion as well. Give us some more perspective on how this psychological inversion impacts us in terms of the economy and work, Cláudia?
Cláudia: Like you have thousands, millions of people with no work, like doing nothing. It's an enormous richness being held because the true richness comes from work.
So you have thousands of things to be done. You have millions of people with no work at all, and they can't work. Things to be fixed, to be restored, to be created, inventions to be put in practice to improve quality of life. So, humanity is getting poorer and poorer. So, this thing that the first world is growing and economic growth, this is pure illusion.
This is deception. Because in reality, what we see is that humanity is becoming poorer and poorer, quality of life poorer and poorer.
We see the weather, we see injustice, wars, everything is being put down and being destroyed. And money is the main tool which is being used to destroy humanity. So, we don't say money in itself is a wrong thing, but we say that money should be an instrument for humanity and not humanity being slaved just for the sake of money.
Richard: You know, if we look at the dominant philosophy around money today, Cláudia, it's very much based on a speculative idea.
Make money on your money. A smart person gets money to work for him. Make money while you're sleeping. You don't get rich working for money. This is how we see economic growth and developing financial independence in our society. How do you see all this?
Cláudia: If we don't stop this kind of growth, we for sure are going to die. Collectively die. We are dying.
Nature is dying.
Humanity is dying. Every five seconds a child is dead because of a hunger. They create wars to sell weapons. So if we don't stop this mentality of this false growth, this deception... Then, absolutely, we're going to see humanity eliminated. Now, we want to conscientize people that if humanity wants to survive, we need to stop now and see what are we working for.
Who's being benefited by this growth? When you say that a country had such a percentage of growth, do you see this being passed to the people? Very rarely. You see just numbers of big corporations growing. And this does not mean that the people is being benefited, that humanity is being benefited. So if those groups would stop now, it would be much more beneficial for humanity because then humanity could have a chance to reorganize itself in a more balanced way.
And we have already philosophical and economical concepts to organize a society in a much more balanced, healthier and prosperous way now in humanity. But those groups don't let this come to the surface.
Richard: It's a fascinating topic and there are many more things to say, but let me draw to a close with one final comment from you, Cláudia. You alluded that there is already a scientific methodology and some social structures that can be set up that would help us to change this faulty orientation of society.
You call these trilogical enterprises. How do you structure these? How does this work?
Cláudia: Well, the first premise of this trilogical company is that what is valuable is work and the quality of work and not the capital invested in the company. Of course, companies must have capital. This is good. Humanity should enjoy capital, should make it grow, but for all.
So a company is like a small planet where individuals work to make it more beautiful, healthier, more pleasant, secure, safe. So it's able to give to each individual means to have a very good life. And even people who you think they would not be useful in a company, they can be very much so. So in trilogical companies, you do the best of yourself to improve this organism, which is going to feed you and feed your family and give the means you need to be a life with dignity, a life with health and happiness.
Richard: Well, as expansive as the discussion was today, I'm impressed by how much of my interview with Dr. Pacheco had to leave out. The subject begs more discussion. Don't forget to drop me an email rich at richjonesvoice.com if you're interested in dr Keppe's book Liberation of the People this is Thinking with Somebody Else's Head i'm Richard Lloyd Jones
