Thank you for this very thought provoking piece. I think most of us would like to think of our giving as being motivated by Maslow’s top tier and it would be a worthwhile personal exercise to think about our individual motivations. I actually was doing that today during a walk on this gorgeous NJ day. My husband and I have a giving strategy that involves both giving in relationship to our means and distribution among categories of interest to us. But this morning I was struck by Pablo Eisenberg’s article in the Wall Street Journal – “What’s wrong with charitable giving & How to fix it.” One of the statistics he noted was that not more than 3% to 5% of all foundation money goes to organizations serving the poor and other needy groups. It made me think about my own distribution of giving and what motivates me and perhaps it needs dusting off and update. I think some of it may be motivated by something coming back to me. Ouch.

Your post will add to my own soul searching on this subject.

Marion
http://marionconwaynonprofitconsultant.blogspot.com

Another major influences on the concept of a people-centered system of economics, was Carl R Rogers who described the Person-Centered.approach to counselling.

The essence is in being honest, dropping the facade of an expert to allow a client to drop defensive behaviour and realise who he truly is. Under these conditions the human spirit might flourish.

“Carl Rogers describes how he soon started to realize one of the core beliefs of Person Centered Counseling, i.e. that the client has within themselves the ability to move towards wholeness (which is also referred to as the ability to achieve “self actualization”. He realised that the human spirit has a capacity to flourish when given the correct conditions.

“Now, at the opening of the 21st century, Rogers’ ideas are deeply embedded in all understanding of human behavior, and their revolutionary and fundamentally democratic implications have become part of our contemporary way of life. The faith that relationships built on honesty, mutual respect, empathy, and the unconditional affirmation of a person’s inherent tendency to move towards individual self-fulfillment and social harmony provide the essential substrate for all human growth and healing– once heresy within a mechanistic psychology, with no faith in the resources of the human spirit–can now be found in every arena of life.”

http://www.carlrogers.info/aboutCarlRogers.html

As person-centered counselliing had been a heresy to psychology, so was the concept of a people-centered model of economics until very recently. In its simplest interpretation of wealth measured in terms of human progress, rather than debt based on manipulating numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_capitalism

Jeff