Chapter 1.3 – The zero-sum dogma and the concept of negativity

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater ILLUSION than the world of dream.«

–  Salvador Dali

Spanish painter, writer and sculptor

Living nature, as we experience it, is always positive. Negative figures are a mathematical concept which enable us to describe complex procedures simply. However, they do not exist in the nature we are able to experience. Or have you ever seen an apple tree on which minus 100 apples were hanging? Definitely not. Everything material that we know exists in a positive amount. Either a positive number of apples is hanging on the tree or no apples at all.

When nature makes new products, for example apples, no negative apples are created on the other side. The apple tree does not have to take out a loan first in order to be able to produce apples. And it does not have to pay any taxes for it. It simply lives intrinsically in harmony with the surrounding nature – that is how creation takes place.

On the other hand, our money is created through debt, as already described. One person’s assets are another’s debts. One person’s credit balance is another’s debit balance or - expressed in mathematical terms – one person’s plus is another’s minus. Assets and debts are balanced overall and together they amount to »zero«. In economics this is known as the law of balance. In gaming theory this is a so-called »zero-sum game«. Behind this is the view of the world that humans themselves have no creative abilities and thus cannot create anything. According to the zero-sum dogma, you have to take away something on one side when you want to add something to another side.

Therefore we take it as a complete matter of course that we have to rob nature to obtain comfort for ourselves, that we have to exploit the Third World countries to obtain prosperity for ourselves – in short, that others have to lose when we want to win.

You will probably not have noticed the zero-sum dogma at all up to now. We meet with it all the time and everywhere in life so that we take it absolutely for granted. The human mind is used to thinking in opposites: right and left, top and bottom, poor and rich, light and dark, dead and alive. The negative numbers were invented for quantifying these opposites, with the number »zero« representing the middle or »normal« state.

Examples of supposed negativity or opposites

For measuring the temperature the zero point was arbitrarily set at the freezing point of water. Positive and negative temperatures were defined in this way. Although this is practical for us in daily life, for we thus mark an important difference for us – »water v. ice« –, in reality the absolute zero point is not reached anywhere. It can only be approached with great effort. The actual freezing point of water is (plus) 273° Kelvin.

The charge of electrons has been arbitrarily defined as negative. The minus pole in electricity in reality describes a surplus of electrons which is striving for equilibrium.

Day and night are felt to be opposites. However, they are only the two sides of our earth. Neither is shadow the opposite of light. Shadows are places with less light than the surroundings.

It is suggested to us that we live in a world of opposites. However, thinking in opposites is only a method for our mind to establish differences. 

What is the biological difference between an African and a European? The main point is only the colour of their skin. These two human races must be 99.99 % the same. But the human mind picks out the small difference of 0.01%  to construct an opposite and – even worse – to educe racial conflicts from it.

How great is the difference between the two Christian confessions in reality? Probably not greater than 0.01% either. Nevertheless religious wars were waged because of it and countless people burnt alive.

People of different religions, convictions and political views are still human beings. The difference between them will not even approximate the 0.01% mark.

Our mind is an extremely precise instrument when it comes to recognising the finest differences. However, we recognise commonalities better with our hearts. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”, as Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince says.

Could it be that we need to bring more heart into our economy if we want to promote the common interests of human beings and nature in a sustainable way?

• The zero-sum dogma is contrary to nature. It leads to robbing, exploiting and fighting.
• Living nature as we experience it is always positive.
• The mind perceives differences, the heart commonalities.
• We need a monetary and economic system in which heart and mind complement each other symbiotically.

Advantage 5 – Positive account balances

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»If you have achieved true wholeness, everything will flow to you.«  

– Laotse, Tao Te Ching

There are only positive figures in the living nature visible to us, as we have already mentioned. Just as there are no apple trees on which minus 100 apples are hanging, there are only positive account balances with the gradido. Nobody has a debt unless they have explicitly made a loan agreement with another person. And even then they do not have a negative balance on their account but an agreement to repay the money.

What impact does this have alone on health? The words »positive« and »negative« do not just designate a sign before a figure; they also have a deep psychological meaning. We like being together with positive people as their pleasant nature uplifts us. As our self-confidence is also connected to the balance on our account, we can assume that positive balances influence our self-confidence positively. In a country in which everybody has a positive balance on their account people will energise each other with their positive self-confidence.

The national budget is also positive and government debt is a thing of the past. A debt-free nation also radiates a positive feeling to its citizens and the mood goes on improving. In addition, there is the positive Equalisation and Environment Fund which does not punish environmental sinners but rewards eco-friendly business activities.

We perhaps still lack the imagination to envisage the full scope of the chain reaction of these positive influences. However, we know that positive emotions stimulate the body’s production of endorphins. These are natural happiness hormones which decisively improve our health. And it has long been known that positive motivation can dramatically increase productivity and quality of work.

Thus, positive account balances are not just a mathematical gimmick. They are a crucial factor for the health, productivity and quality of life of a nation and hence of the whole of humankind.

Advantage 93 – Reinforce what is positive

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Attention brings reinforcement – lack of attention brings liberation«

– Nikolaus B. Enkelmann:

the 11th law of thinking

Once when we were refurbishing our house the architect asked us what colour the rainwater pipe from the roof gutter should be painted. At that time I did not know what this pipe was and so I will explain that it is the pipe that leads down the wall of the house and disappears into the earth, ending up in the drainage system. At that time I was not even aware of the existence of rainwater pipes, let alone what they looked like. So we decided to have a look at the rainwater pipes on houses on our next walk.

And indeed we saw at least one, if not more, on every house. Some of them had a golden sheen because they were made of copper and were still quite new. Old copper pipes were a dark reddish brown. Pipes made of tinplate were sometimes painted in the colour of the roof tiles and sometimes in the colour of the house wall. One particular specimen was even painted in three colours because the wall of the house was painted in a different colour on each floor.

During the following few weeks we almost exclusively saw rainwater pipes in many different colours and models. We now encountered them constantly merely because of our attention to them, although I had not even known of their existence before. They had always been there but they did not enter our lives until we paid attention to them.

The law of attention works with everything: when we primarily pay attention to negative things, actions, circumstances, etc., we will discover more and more of them in our lives. Conversely, when we focus on positive things, actions and circumstances, we will become aware of how many of these are already part of our lives. Both the positive and negative categories were already there before; only our attention to them makes us perceive our lives as having either a negative or a positive tendency.

But unlike the rainwater pipes, which do not really care if we pay attention to them or not, people react very strongly to attention. People who are criticised for their negative qualities in general reinforce these, thus becoming »worse«. Conversely, people become »better« when we praise their positive qualities and actions.

In the present times people mostly pay attention to negative things. They try to fight undesirable things or at least protect themselves from them. We wage wars against terror; we fight unemployment, demographic change, poverty and hunger; we protect ourselves from flower pollen, the sun, rain, insects and body odour. The results are more terrorism, unemployment, poverty and hunger and more allergies to pollen, sun and insect bites. Oh yes, I’d almost forgotten: we try to fight the state debts but they are increasing all the time worldwide.

Now you will certainly understand why the gradido system only provides for positive account balances; why we do not propose punishments for environmental sinners but the Equalisation and Environment to subsidise protection and decontamination of the environment; why the government does not burden citizens with taxes but encourages them to develop their full potential through unconditional participation.

By paying attention to the positive we reinforce it. What works with the individual functions even better in the community because the effects are exponential. By introducing the Natural Economy of Life we can transmit a positive basic attitude to the whole of humanity. The positive effects even exponentiate many times over. A swarm intelligence develops, giving us common abilities we had never even dared dream of before.