Right Livelihood

The current understanding of right livelihood is poor. I personally find discussion on the subject shallow. Most discussion ends at do what's not harmful to you and others, and avoid what's harmful. Obvious examples are slave trade, sex trade, military forces. To understand this subject more deeply - and to provide more careful advice to people who care - we need to look deeply into the bowels of societal operation - and propose a realistic program. The bottom line is how you are earning your living. The most fundamental response is: you must produce things. If you are a producer, and we further assume that post-consumerist society requires no advertising, then you are also marketing your own wares.

This discussion becomes deep if it is to address the issue. Such discussion would insinuate: (1), elimination of bureaucracy, (2) creation of small enterprise with you as boss, (3), elimination of most of the armed forces, (4), the end of sales (#1 job in America); among others. This is beyond the scope of this short note.

In my slanted view, the solution is small-scale production systems. Today's information economy enables small scale productive enterprise, that which is now done by centralized systems and a small portion of the population. In particular, open source flexible fabrication is a key to mass Jeffersonian democracy - where governance power lies in the hands of a large pool of productive economic stakeholders.

Some general links:

• Yes! magazine directory of right livelihood
• Mindfulness and Meaningful Work
• Cascadia Food Not Lawns article