Book Review: Charles Eisenstein’s “Sacred Economics”
by Miles Raymer
Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics is a radical book penned with a lot of passion and the best of intentions. This treatise on alternative economics serves up some very worthy ideas that are compromised by a handful of the author’s less rigorous tendencies and intellectually insupportable positions. As a whole, the book had a decidedly divisive effect on my psyche.
Even for someone reticent to call anything “sacred,” there is a lot to love about Sacred Economics. Eisenstein is one of many early 21st-century thinkers trying to respond to the negative effects of climate change and globalization, and at many points throughout the book he is spot on with his critiques and possible solutions. He rightly argues that we need a new kind of materialism, one more reflective of our embeddedness in and dependence on Earth’s ecosystems. Attempting to show how the modern world has failed to meet certain human needs even as it has blown others way out of proportion, Eisenstein laments the widespread monetization of human goods and relationships, convincingly linking this phenomenon to the myth of infinite economic growth. He envisions a new future of revitalized gift culture, one that emphasizes degrowth, corporate internalization of environmental costs, peer-to-peer distribution networks, legal protection for “the commons,” and a resurgence of communities that can provide a plurality of meaningful ways for people to spend their precious time on Earth.
In an economy that deserves to be called “sacred,” work will no longer be an injury to one’s time or life; it will no longer be a matter of pain and suffering. A sacred economy recognizes that human beings desire to work: they desire to apply their life energy toward the expression of their gifts. (402)
A key component of this vision is decaying currency, an economic concept I am not capable of critiquing properly. Eisenstein claims that usury (interest) is a foundational problem in our financial system because it ensures that those with the most money will always have the most earning potential and that those who need loans will be condemned to forever pay back more than they borrow.
Is it possible to treat money as a commons in the same way as the land or the atmosphere? Is it possible to reverse the mechanism of interest, which, like the expropriation of the commons, allows those who own it to profit by its mere ownership? (201)
In an interest-based economy, people are rewarded for hoarding; with the advent of decaying currency, the emphasis will be on giving. A currency that loses value when not in circulation, Eisenstein argues, would stimulate flow of capital and put more money, goods and services into the hands of the most needy. He also champions the rise of variegated local and regional currencies that might eventually replace international ones. These currencies could be backed by natural resources rather than trust in governmental bodies, thus encouraging societies to enrich their ecosystems, which would lead to greater wealth for all. These propositions seem promising in a lot of ways, but I’d want to hear a rebuttal from an educated dissenter before jumping on board.
While Eisenstein excels at the art of sincere and heartfelt cultural critique, he also lacks restraint and intellectual rigor; the unfortunate result is that many of his best ideas become needlessly mixed up in redundant rants and occasional descents into pseudoscientific thinking. The biggest and most obvious problem with Sacred Economics is that it is at least two hundred pages too long. I’ve rarely read a book that repeats itself so often, and never one in which the author quotes one of his own previous works (The Ascent of Humanity, in this case) with such frustrating frequency. Someone urging people toward a new way of thinking about their place in the world, economic or otherwise, should value the time of his readers enough to edit his work down to its most accessible, pointed, and concise form.
Another problem is that Eisenstein is surprisingly sanguine about how easy it will be to transition to this radically new gift-based economy.
Environmentalists often state that we can ill afford to maintain our resource-intensive lifestyles, implying that we would like to if only we could afford it. I disagree. I think we will move toward a more ecological way of life by positive choice. Instead of saying, “Too bad we have to leave our gigantic suburban homes behind because they use too much energy,” we will no longer want those homes because we will recognize and respond to our need for personal, connected, sacred dwellings in tight communities. The same goes for the rest of the modern consumer lifestyle…By choice, that is where we will direct our energy. (426)
This is a lovely sentiment, and no doubt descriptive of a small (and growing) number of people alive right now. But it is far from a majority (or even significant minority) opinion. Institutional and personal habits of frivolous materialism, privatization, and socioeconomic rewards for those willing to embrace infinite growth are profoundly entrenched in Western society and proliferating rapidly in other parts of the world; it seems almost laughable that we could arrive at anything close to Eisenstein’s vision without serious violence, environmental catastrophe, or (most likely) a deadly combination of both. I sincerely hope I’m wrong about this, and for a lucky few early adopters that might be the case, but I think our transition toward more sustainable, responsible human communities will be driven primarily by necessity and force rather than choice. Eisenstein’s lack of urgency here undercuts his overall message, allowing the reader to feel like the gifting economy will “just happen” because people will decide to “do the right thing.”
By the end of our lifetimes, my generation will live in a world unimaginably more beautiful than the one we were born into. And it will be a world that is palpably improving year after year…Fantastical? The mind is afraid to hope for anything too good. If this description evokes anger, despair, or grief, then is has touched our common wound, the wound of separation. (445)
Eisenstein’s assurance of the inevitable amelioration of current woes within our lifetimes is both galling and naive. His repudiation of the skepticism that such claims should rightly bring out in readers is in bad taste, especially when clothed in the language of “oneness”––a common trope in the alternative medicine/New Age world. “If you can’t see the light, you’re just not opening yourself up to it. You are cut off by the illusion of your own individuality.” There is a small kernel of truth in this outlook, but too often it is a tool for legitimizing claims that just don’t hold water. There is no guarantee whatsoever that people will wake up to the reality of our direst problems before it’s too late, and to pretend otherwise is folly.
Frustrating as it is, Eisenstein’s adoption of this stance isn’t surprising in light of his readiness to embrace pseudoscientific ideas and treat them as legitimate references. For example:
As the age of ingratitude has reached its peak over the past thirty years, the sun’s radiation has apparently changed, and the strength of the heliosphere has decreased significantly. It might be my imagination, but I remember the sun being more yellow when I was a child. And from 2008 to 2010, sunspot activity diminished to unprecedented levels…Could it be that the sun, the epitome of generosity, is entering a turbulent phase mirroring the financial crisis on earth, which is after all a crisis of giving and receiving? (183, footnote)
Actually, no, it can’t be that at all. There is no evidence whatsoever that human activity exerts any influence on the sun’s radiation, and to suggest otherwise is charlatanism. This kind of idiotic transgression, even minor as it may seem compared to Eisenstein’s overall project, seriously compromises his intellectual integrity.
Today there are at least five or ten different energy technologies that seem to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If you research the field, you will find a sordid history of confiscated research, destroyed careers, and even mysterious deaths of researchers. Whether or not there ever was, or still is, an active conspiracy to maintain energy scarcity, on some level humanity has not been ready for the gift of energy abundance, and probably won’t be ready for some decades to come, until we have entered deeply and thoroughly into the spirit of the gift. (443)
As a matter of fact, if you “research the field” of energy technologies, you will find that every claim of overcoming entropy is compete folderol, and that the real “sordid history” is that of conspiracy wonks trying to convince the world that we could all be living in utopia if the evil men in the corner office would just loosen the global thumbscrews. A real technology that could overcome the Second Law of Thermodynamics would be one of the most lucrative and environmentally significant inventions of all time, making it the precise opposite of a reasonable candidate for suppression by the “powers that be.” Eisenstein’s failure to cull such tripe from Sacred Economics does him no favors, except perhaps to ingratiate him to a wacky minority of readers unwilling to familiarize themselves with even the most elementary and unbending (as far as current evidences goes) principles of physics.
The book includes many other references to pseudoscientific ideas, most notably a variety of alternative medicine practices, which Eisenstein is happy to refer to as if they were the same as any other medical practice (with the possible exception of being more in tune with the “spirit of the gift’). To be fair, Eisenstein isn’t nearly as bad as many other New Agey types, and he even drops the occasional criticism of such views. However, the host of nonsensical ideas that made it into his final draft hurt the book significantly. This is especially tragic given how often Eisenstein is right on the money, so to speak, especially when it comes to the importance of reciprocity and gratitude in flourishing human communities. I’d like to give him a pass with the woo stuff, but I just can’t.
Overall, this is a book that needs to be flensed carefully in order to harvest the interesting and useful elements without getting tied up in unnecessary repetition or downright poppycock. Not something I can recommend in its entirety, but definitely home to a few ideas I will integrate into my personal worldview.
Rating: 5/10
yes. this. almost done with it and growing increasingly frustrated. you nailed it.
Thanks! Glad someone out there agrees with me.
Good review that captures my feelings on CE’s writing. You need to review more of his books. There is not nearly enough of this sort of critique of his work. He and his circle think very highly of these books – sadly, I think he has never been exposed to a real intellectual review of his writing.
Thanks for reading my review and for this appreciative comment! Glad you found my critiques useful.
As far as reading/reviewing more of his work, I have a rule that I don’t continue to read writers if they don’t prove to be intellectually serious/honest. Eisenstein fit that bill after I finished this book, so I abandoned the idea of reading more of his work. Too many actually useful other books to get to!
“(…) should value the time of his readers enough to edit his work down to its most accessible, pointed, and concise form.”
Yes. As should reviewers.
Point taken. Thanks for reading! 🙂
>> There is no guarantee whatsoever that people will wake up to the reality of our direst problems before it’s too late, and to pretend otherwise is folly.
It depends upon what one’s version of a “more beautiful world” actually looks like. If we are hanging on to the existence of humans beyond a certain point, I see your point. But if humanity has to perish, perhaps the world becomes more beautiful as a result. I’m not saying this is a desired outcome, only that it is highly human-centric to consider the only positive outcome one where humans exist/thrive.
>> This kind of idiotic transgression, even minor as it may seem compared to Eisenstein’s overall project, seriously compromises his intellectual integrity.
Asking hypotheticals like this simply beckons the reader to think outside of the materialist paradigm. Eisenstein is no intellectual slouch. He has a background in mathematics from Yale. His work centered on hypotheses/theories that show the fundamental limits of science to explain the world. He’s making a pretty clear distinction of curiosity and what he’s acknowledging as fact (in a footnote no less). This hardly calls his intellect or argument into question, IMO.
I don’t take any of his “what if… could it be…” scenarios as facts. There is no evidence that it does exist and there is likely never a chance it will be studied as such (who benefits from such research?)
Hi Mansal! Thanks for this comment.
Your first point is well taken, although I would add that the question of the world being “more beautiful” without humans is complicated by the fact that beauty, at least as we understand it, is a human concept that would cease to exist if humans became extinct.
To your second point, I’ll have to double down on my original position. In my view, trying to “beckon readers to think outside of the materialist paradigm” is a euphemism for unscientific nonsense. Pointing out that Eisenstein has a math background from Yale is an appeal to authority, not an argument that should convince anyone to take seriously his implication that a wane in human generosity is somehow connected to sunspot activity or the sun seeming “less yellow” than when he was a child. That is honestly one of the silliest, most intellectually irresponsible things I’ve ever heard and makes Eisenstein seem like a fool. As I say in the review, this is too bad because it strips credibility from some of his better, less absurd ideas.
If humanity has to perish before the more beautiful world can manifest, then the optimist’s view is really no different from the pessimist’s. They’re both saying the same thing: the human race is doomed and catastrophe is certain.
I think this review is mostly spot on about the strengths and weaknesses of the book, but I disagree strongly with one point. Alternative medicine has a lot to recommend it. I can’t remember what Eisenstein discussed as I read the book a while ago, but mainstream medicine isn’t necessarily right about everything, and not all alternative medical practices are bunk and quackery. But again, I can’t recall what specifically he discussed in this book. Maybe I’d agree with you about whatever practices he mentions.
But for example, here is one example of “alternative medicine” that squares far more with my own experience than conventional theories of disease causation. This model needs to be openly debated and discussed publicly and not just be known to a few people on the fringe:
https://www.learninggnm.com/home.html
Note the “verification” page listing numerous testimonials claiming the theory has been empirically verified. Why hasn’t this theory been vetted hundreds of times in the mainstream, so we can see if it holds up or not? But I know the reason why. Because this theory clashes directly with one of the pillars of modern medicine: Germ Theory: germs as the cause of disease. It’s always a battle to get ideas heard in science when they threaten to topple a dominant paradigm.
“Pointing out that Eisenstein has a math background from Yale is an appeal to authority, not an argument that should convince anyone to take seriously his implication that a wane in human generosity is somehow connected to sunspot activity or the sun seeming “less yellow” than when he was a child.”
I agree, but again, a lot of what is accepted as true in mainstream medicine is nothing but appeal to authority. Look at how the “chemical imbalance theory of mental illness” came and went on the basis of fashion, bias, and market profitability, and NOT on the basis of dispassionate observation nor genuinely scientific testing of any sort:
http://brucelevine.net/10-reasons-why-psychiatry-lives-on-obvious-dark-and-darkest-2/
MUCH of alternative medicine is genuinely scientific, and MUCH of mainstream medicine – especially psychiatry – is nothing but appeal to authority fallacies.
Hi Chris and thanks for your comment!
I don’t find your arguments about “alternative” medicine very convincing, but I appreciate you taking the time to lay them out. I also really appreciate the respectful way that you disagree with my point of view. Very encouraging and refreshing!
A few points:
––The Germ Theory of Disease is one of the most groundbreaking, impactful, and well-established components of modern medicine. While it’s certainly possible that there are aspects of illness that our current version of Germ Theory doesn’t comprehensively explain, I wouldn’t accept any theory that ran contrary to its basic fundamentals. Germ Theory is a dominant paradigm because it works, because it has healed millions of people and produced medicines that would have been considered miracles by previous generations. Antibiotics are a perfect example of this, despite the fact that they’ve been overused/misused in recent decades.
––I am sympathetic to your argument about everything in medicine being some sort of appeal to authority. Unless one happens to be an expert on any given medical topic, one will pragmatically have to appeal to some kind of authority when forming health-related opinions and/or making medical decisions for oneself or one’s family. Given this reality, I think a responsible approach should be twofold: first, to seek out and heed the very best possible authoritative opinions, and second, to leave open the possibility that even the best authorities make mistakes or get things wrong. I don’t think either of these perspectives should cause us to reject modern medicine outright, or to treat it as some kind of perfect system. It is evolving and changing––hopefully bettering itself but sometimes failing––like every other realm of human knowledge. But I still think, all things considered, traditional medicine is our best route toward healing the most people in the most effective way.
––The whole label of “alternative” medicine doesn’t make any logical sense to me. If something works as a treatment for illness, then it’s medicine. If it doesn’t, then it’s not medicine. So, in my view, “alternative” medicine is just a way of describing a large, extremely profitable network of industries that leverage people’s personal insecurities and distrust of traditional authority in order to sell them snake oil. I’d say this is especially relevant at the moment, given that plenty of charlatans will be lining up to offer “alternative” treatments for Coronavirus, which will confuse the public and impede the critical work of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals during the current pandemic.
––If you’re interested in one of the main “authorities” to which I’ve chosen to appeal when it comes to my medical views, I recommend the work of Dr. Steven Novella, founder of the New England Skeptical Society (NESS). I think he is one of the smartest people on the planet and he taught me a lot about why “alternative” medicine and other forms of pseudoscience aren’t just wrong but also incredibly harmful in ways we don’t always expect. His podcast “The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe” is a great one! Links here:
NESS: https://theness.com/
Skeptics’ Guide: https://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Finally, even if we don’t agree about these issues, I’d like to reiterate that I dig your style of online communication and completely respect your right to believe whatever you want.
Take care out there!
“While Eisenstein excels at the art of sincere and heartfelt cultural critique, he also lacks restraint and intellectual rigor; the unfortunate result is that many of his best ideas become needlessly mixed up in redundant rants and occasional descents into pseudoscientific thinking.”
I don’t have a copy of the book with me right now, but what I found frustrating was the way he would introduce a really interesting topic, like local and alternative currencies, then drop it to go on some New Agey tangent that felt pointless. I guess I can’t blame him for following his own hobbyhorses rather than mine, but it was still frustrating the way he would open up a promising line of inquiry but then just drop it when it was getting interesting.
I also have some disagreements with him about a range of topics. I just think he thinks this “we are all one” attitude (“all you need is love”) is going to solve more than it can. Having read a few of his other books, they all have interesting, compelling ideas strewn through them, but they also have some curious blind spots. I’ve tried to email him and leave questions on his website seeking clarification about a few things, but he doesn’t respond.
He’s also very gung ho in favour of the hippies and feminists. He buys into the whole “toxic masculinity” narrative and offers a course online for teaching men how to leave their toxic masculinity behind. I find that insulting. There are plenty of “toxic” females out there too, Charles. He completely overlooks how lopsided and hateful modern mainstream feminism has become. It promotes division, distrust, and animosity between the sexes, not the reconciliation and harmony Eisenstein wants.
I also can’t stand his New Age relentless overpraise of the 60s hippies. A lot of those hippies actually tossed their guitars away, cut their hair, and became the yuppies of the 80s. They were the same people – either that, or they gave birth to a generation of materialistic kids. Much of their music, art, and literature was trash too, even as they arrogantly dismissed as reactionary the far greater artistic achievements of prior generations. If a degree in the humanities or literature is often worthless and meaningless today (studying pop culture pap or simplistic left wing agitprop instead of great art and philosophy), the hippie generation is to blame for much of that decline. But Eisenstein clearly wears rose coloured glasses about certain things.
I agree with all of this. Thanks Chris for this lengthy, thoughtful, and well-articulated comment!
A very nice, well-intentioned person, gave me an Eisenstein article to read. I couldn’t quite find the right words to express my opinions/reservations about E’s strange mixture of truth and trash. Thanks Miles Rayner for doing it for me. A clear and entirely fair appraisal and exactly what I was struggling to express.
Hi Patricia! Thanks very much for reading my review and leaving this nice comment. I’m glad that my critique of Eisenstein’s well-intentioned but problematic perspectives resonated with you. 🙂
Miles,
A friend sent me an hour-long Eisenstein rant about covid-19, which almost caused me to loose the will to live, but which I felt obliged to listen to. Stumbling across this review was the perfect antidote. Thank you for thinking clearly. It’s going out of fashion.
Chris Fawcett
Haha, thanks so much Chris for this kind comment! Wishing you the best in this weird moment we’re all living through, and I will do my best to keep my thinking as clear as possible. 🙂
Is this the piece you’re talking about? “The Coronation”? Did he read this in a podcast?
https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/
I wouldn’t describe this as a “rant,” exactly. He doesn’t seem angry or hostile, more like adopting the tone of the seer and serene prophet and visionary who sees more deeply into the nature of reality than anyone else. This is a role Eisenstein often plays, as New Age thinkers tend to do (but that serious novelists, philosophers, and scientists of the first rank generally do not).
Unfortunately, despite the endless praise his fans heaped on this essay in the comment section, I found the essay mostly confused, muddled, intellectually incoherent, and not very illuminating, about covid-19 or anything else. As usual, he seems not interested in mundane factual truths, like what are the actual numbers of dead, how accurate are the PCR tests, how full are the hospitals, what exactly is really going on on a ground level, etc., and is more interested in his Higher Truths, like how the Coronavirus can usher in the New Age of Belonging and Oneness where all people will Come Together in Love and Harmony.
As far as I can tell, he seems to be suggesting Mother Nature / God / Gaia / Take Your Pick sent the Coronavirus to shatter the Old, Wrong Ways of Life as Separation and force us to embrace the New Story of Love and Harmony (i.e. when everyone will think, feel and behave exactly like Charles Eisenstein from here on). Covid happened because it needed to happen, so that Humanity can now ascend to a higher plane of consciousness.
A couple friends have shared articles and books by CE with me. I’ll be honest – my reaction was revulsion. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but eventually realized it was the mixture of appropriation of indigenous and Eastern philosophies repackaged as if he originated it (and for profit), and the lack of rigor in his arguments. And the demand that we accept him as the authority on a topic or the arbiter of whom we should listen to.
I find people who follow him have an almost cult-like devotion and that alone makes me run in the opposite direction. Someone above stated that all medicine is an appeal to authority, but I disagree – as someone currently under medical care, I find that doctors are not demanding that I submit to their authority, but are constantly referring to data and studies and pursuing the most viable option for my health. There’s never an implied “because I say so” (as I’ve seen in CE’s articles) with my doctors, instead they share with me the studies and information about pursuing the most viable treatment for my condition. I’ve had more demands of submitting to authority from so-called alternative practitioners than “conventional” doctors.
Hi Elena and thanks for sharing your experience! 🙂
“I find people who follow him have an almost cult-like devotion and that alone makes me run in the opposite direction. Someone above stated that all medicine is an appeal to authority, but I disagree”
That was me – but I didn’t ever claim ALL mainstream medicine was an appeal to authority, only that a significant percentage of it was. I stand by that contention. Take the experimental COVID vaccines (which were rushed into the marketplace): it is far from scientifically proven that they are “safe and effective,” which you can discover by reading the literature, but we are being coerced into taking them under the premise they are this miracle cure thanks to an unprecedentedly aggressive and ubiquitous media campaign: the Pfizer tail wagging the media dog.
I definitely agree, however, that Eisenstein is a cult leader and I share the “revulsion” you feel towards him and his writing, which you rightly note has little ”rigor.” His writing is absolutely terrible in many respects. One of the most repellent features of his writing, I find, is his mask of humility and false modesty he perpetually wears – this mask invariably drops in a nanosecond whene er anyone challenges his opinions on any topic at all. He steadfastly refuses to accept ANY kind of criticism whatsoever, no matter how mild, and his default tactic when someone criticizes an essay of his is to write another follow-up essay that answers these criticisms only in the most generalized way without addressing any of the specific details of those criticisms, and without quoting what the person even said. His replies are not like one academic replying to another; his replies are obfuscations and deceptions.
He’s now busy flogging his new book, based on his essay “The Coronation” mentioned upthread, and he tells us:
https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/my-new-book-the-coronation?s=r
“My essays in 2020 and 2021 went beyond articulating a contrary position on the issues of the day. Yes, I critically engaged current issues, but always with the aim of embedding them in a bigger picture. Therefore, none of the essays are dated; if anything they are more relevant today than ever, as the passions and allegiances of the Covid era subside. Unfortunately, much of the nuance and complexity of what I was saying was drowned out at the time by a storm of primal social and psychological forces: hysteria and counter-hysteria, mindless conformity and reflexive defiance, mob morality and mass psychosis, unprocessed death fears and latent social resentments.”
In other words, if you didn’t admire his essays and think them rich in “nuance and complexity,” the fault lies with you. And please remember: none of his essays are the least bit dated! If you think otherwise, you must not be as enlightened as the infallible genius Charles Eisenstein is!
The most breathtaking aspect of his extraordinary egotism and narcissistic self-regard is in that phrase: “mindless conformity and reflexive defiance.” In summing up the COVID era in that way, he gets to say, in effect, like Mercutio, “a plague on both your houses.” If you enforced or complied with lockdowns, that’s probably just “mindless conformity.” If you resisted them, like the Canadian trucker convoy for instance, that’s probably not remotely admirable either: that’s probably just “reflexive defiance.”
Only if your response was to bask in the light of pure sagacity and timeless wisdom by reading and eagerly e-mailing friends about this brilliant essay published by this incredible genius named Charles Eisenstein can you be said to have attained a state of maturity as a human being.
The sheer arrogance and pomposity of this man, his inflated sense of importance, is just breathtaking. If only his decidedly mediocre intellect could keep pace with his hypertrophic ego!