Guest commentary by Riane Eisler, Copyright 2009

The winds of change are blowing! For the very first time, a Nobel Prize in Economics was just awarded to a woman, Elinor Ostrom – and not just any woman, but a woman who understands that partnership is the key to a better future.

This is not only good news for women but for the work that lies ahead of building economic systems that support caring for people and our natural environment. Ostrom’s work challenges the notion that only privatization is effective. She even argues that people working on the ground together can successfully manage resources without government regulations.

Ostrom’s emphasis on people and nature is a departure from conventional economics. In my recent book The Real Wealth of Nations I write extensively about a “caring economics” where the main investment is in caring for people and nature. This is essential if we are to move to a more sustainable and equitable future.

Rather than trying to just patch up a system that isn’t working, let’s use our present economic crisis to work for a system that really meets human needs. And let’s go deeper, to issues that are not generally considered by economists – such as gender.

Yes, traditions devaluing women and the “feminine” are a major factor in dysfunctional and anti-human economics. Policy-makers have been in the habit of giving less value to the caring and caregiving stereotypically associated with women than to the conquest and domination stereotypically associated with “real men.”

In reality, investing in caring for people and nature is the most cost-effective investment we can make. This is true of businesses that care for their people and are more successful, and it’s true for nations as well – for example, Sweden, Finland, and Norway moved from extreme poverty to very low levels of poverty, the highest levels of life expectancy, and economic success – through caring policies enacted by legislatures that are now about 40 percent female.

Every one of us – women and men — can be a partnership leader. We can start with something simple: changing the conversation about economics to include the word “caring.” Every one of us can talk about “caring economics” at home, at work, at parties, at meetings, in schools and universities, and in public spaces. At PTA meetings and other places where parents congregate, you can talk about how policies that support parenting are not only good for families but for the economy. You can write letters to the editor about caring economics. You can put up blogs about it on the Internet. You can make presentations about caring economics at meetings and conferences. You can use the information in The Real Wealth of Nations to show friends, colleagues, and policy-makers that government programs that invest in people, starting in childhood, are not “giveaways” but foundations for a safer, saner, more prosperous and just world for us all.

You can support the caring economics initiatives of the Center for Partnership Studies. Go to http://www.partnershipway.org/ to find out about our “Caring Economics Internet Campaign” and our “Real Wealth of Nations Public Policy Initiative.” If you hurry, you can also apply for enrollment in our exciting “Real Wealth Community Presenters” training, which will be launched on November 6 to 8 in Seattle, Washington. Designed by nationally recognized trainers to help create a grassroots “mind shift” in how Americans think about economics, it’s modeled on the highly successful Al Gore climate change program. Each presenter commits to give at least ten presentations in their communities in the 12 months following the training. For information please go to http://www.partnershipway.org/programs/community-presenters.

In these ways, we can together build momentum for a real cultural transformation – a caring revolution not only in economics, but in all aspects of our lives.
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RIANE EISLER is an eminent social scientist, attorney, and social activist best known as author of the international bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future. Her newest book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics has been hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking,” by Peter Senge as “desperately needed,” and by Jane Goodall as “a call for action.” Dr. Eisler is president of the Center for Partnership Studies (www.partnershipway.org), keynotes conferences worldwide, and is a consultant to business and government on applications of the partnership model introduced in her work. She has been a powerful advocate for the human rights of women and children, has received many honors, and is included in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.