January 24, 2022 • 33 mins
For Woody Tasch, founder of Slow Money Institute, it’s all about balance. Every moonshot needs an Earthshot; diversity and efficiency; simplicity and complexity. That’s where the “deceptively simple” concept of Beetcoin comes in. Providing crowdfunded, 0% loans to organic and local food projects, Beetcoin is a challenge not just to the food system but the growth economy at large. Hear Woody and Brian dig into the details on this week’s Steady Stater.
Beetcoin: https://beetcoin.org/
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Pat Choate (00:06):
From the Center for the Advancement of the Steady
State Economy, this is TheSteady Stater, a podcast
dedicated to discussing limitsto growth and the steady state
economy.
Brian Czech (00:16):
Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Brian
Czech, and our guest today isWoody Tasch, a pioneer of
mission-related investing. Woodyis the founder and Chair of Slow
Money Institute, a nonprofitheadquartered in Boulder,
Colorado, that has channeledtens of millions of dollars to
small, local, and organic foodenterprises around the world.
(00:39):
He's the author of such books asInquiries into the Nature of
Slow Money, and most recently,AHA! Fake Trillions, Real
Billions, Beetcoin and the GreatAmerican Do-Over. Beetcoin is a
new crowdfunding initiative fromthe Slow Money Institute; we'll
talk about that in a fewminutes. In 2010, Woody was
(01:00):
recognized by UTNE Reader as oneof the "25 Visionaries Who Are
Changing Your World." WoodyTasch, welcome to The Steady
Stater.
Woody Tasch (01:09):
Thanks, Brian, appreciate it.
Brian Czech (01:11):
Well, first off, Woody, I understand you recently
left Colorado for Providence,Rhode Island, and are currently
going through the process ofunloading 70 boxes of books. I
wonder if old Jeff Bezosapproves!
Woody Tasch (01:25):
Oh, man, like you're airing all my dirty book
laundry in public. But you know,I've been around a while, and
I've collected a bit of alibrary and certainly glad I did
because over the course ofwriting the three books I wrote,
I heavily leaned on many of thebooks that I'm looking at right
now on my bookshelves. But yes,I just moved to Providence to be
(01:47):
grandpa, be near my daughter andmy new grandson, and I grew up
on the East Coast. So I neverlived right in Providence, but I
lived all around here for manydecades.
Brian Czech (01:57):
Okay, well, nice to be home for you, then. Well,
let's start with the concept ofslow money. People might have a
good instinctive idea of what ismeant by slow food, in contrast
with the term fast food. ButWoody what differentiates fast
and slow money?
Woody Tasch (02:14):
Well, you ask the question in exactly the right
way, because I had been writingabout -- a little, I hadn't
written my first book yet -- butI'd been writing essays, and
letters, and different thingsabout patient capital for a
while in my capacity astreasurer of the Jessie Smith
Noyes Foundation in New York.
And also, after that, I becamechairman and CEO of Investor's
Circle, which is an impactinvestment angel group. And I'd
(02:37):
been talking about patientcapital, that perhaps the most
important thing we as impactinvestors could do would be to
truly think long term, and thenwork backwards from what that
would mean to us. That soundsvery simple. And it is. But it's
also extremely tricky for mostinvestors to actually do because
of all the pushes and pulls ofmarkets and whatnot. And so
(02:58):
there was patient capital, andthen I had the good fortune to
visit Italy in 2000 and meetCarlo Petrini, the founder of
Slow Food and oh my god, patientcapital, it's really slow money.
When Carlo started Slow Food,people knew what fast food was.
When I wrote the book on slowmoney, no one was really
complaining about fast money.
But hopefully we are shining alight on that.
Brian Czech (03:20):
Yeah, and it's kind of a parallel complaint with our
complaint about the bloatingGDP. Because, you know, the old
formula, velocity of moneyequals GDP divided by the money
supply. So I think in rootingfor slow money, we're rooting
toward a steady state economy atleast.
Woody Tasch (03:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
Brian Czech (03:39):
Tell me if I have this right, Woody. Beetcoin is a
new crowdfunding platform, wheresmall donations are bundled as
grants for local communityfarming groups. And these groups
are called SOIL groups, thatstands for Slow Opportunities
for Investing Locally. And thesegroups dole out 0% loans to
(04:00):
local farmers and foodenterprises in general. Is that
the gist of it?
Woody Tasch (04:05):
That's it. Sounds good to me. So we've got, yeah,
basically, there are twocomponents. There's one on the
ground, the local component,where groups are making 0% loans
locally, and that's made withdonated capital. So the members
of these local groups chip somemoney in, and then they get
together -- pre-COVID in person,now, mostly virtually even
(04:27):
locally. And they vote on making0% loans to local farmers and
local food entrepreneurs andwhatnot. When that money gets
repaid, it stays in andrecirculates in the community.
So it's like a permanentrevolving loan, grassroots
revolving loan. There's a lot ofwords you could put on it:
microlending, revolving loanthing... but we just call them
SOIL groups -- as you describedit -- they're just 0% loan
(04:48):
groups. And now we're adding thelayer of the Beetcoin platform.
We want to see if we cangenerate a large number of small
donations online and use thatcapital as matching grants and
seed capital to grow the SOILgroups. We'd like to see the
SOIL groups go from five --which there are now -- to
hundreds, which is a ratherdaunting prospect, but given the
(05:08):
state of things, we feel weshould -- that's what we need to
do.
Brian Czech (05:12):
Yeah, well, the time is right, for sure. And
let's talk a little bit aboutthe etymology of that word
Beetcoin. You know, what comesto mind to me is "beat it
Bitcoin, we want Beetcoin!" Youguys on the website describe it
as both a "non-crypto,non-currency," and a
(05:33):
"deceptively simple" idea, whichwould be opposed, I guess, to
the deceptively complex world ofcryptocurrencies, NFTs now, and
blackchains in general. So, didyou have any more in mind behind
the choice of that name?
Woody Tasch (05:49):
No, I mean, you're making this interview too easy,
because you're kind of gettingit all. I don't really have to
explain anything. Which, ofcourse, is very heartening to
me, because we worked hard athow to put this out in the
world. Yeah, the basic, theplayfulness of the Beetcoin
brand, if you will, or the name,is important, you know. There's
such a, there's a pall over allof us now, you know, there's a
(06:11):
shroud of confusion and, let'ssay, thinly veiled despair. I
don't know why I'm picking thesewords right now. But you know,
we're dealing with a lot of veryhorrible stuff. Some of it is,
well, a lot of it isenvironmental, obviously, at all
layers, and a lot of it ispolitical and social, and that's
also at all layers. And thenwe've kind of got that extra
thing of fake versus true,versus, you know, what's -- We
(06:35):
don't know what to believeanymore. And those are all tied
together, obviously. To me, thepower of the Beetcoin brand is
that it touches on all that in asecond. It's not for me to
explain the power of the brand,per se. But I'm just saying, in
my interactions with lots ofpeople, as we were developing
it, we could see that it kind ofhit on a lot of things. And yes,
it is deceptively simple. Justlike everything we're talking
about -- what's simpler thanpeople getting together and
(06:56):
making 0% loans to farmers downthe street, that should be the
simplest thing. But because ofthe 0%, and because of the world
we're in, it's perceived asbeing not that easy to do. It
should be the easiest thing ofall to do. It's the most
concrete. It brings us togetherwith our neighbors, our friends,
connects us to the place welive. But thank you for, I mean,
(07:17):
you called it out in the rightway, when you were kind of
playing with the word Beetcoin.
So that's very heartening to me.
Brian Czech (07:22):
Yeah. Well, you guys are really good at
communicating. We found in yourAHA! book this quote: "What I've
come to hear when people say, 'Idon't know much about finance'
is, 'I don't like the financialjargon and all that represents.
I don't completely trust eventhe best investment products. I
(07:43):
don't completely trust my owncommon sense, either. I want to
have an authentic conversationabout money, but I'm afraid to
do so because I know deep downthat economic growth is doing
long-term harm.'" Woody, do youreally think that the
understanding of the ills ofgrowth is really that
(08:04):
widespread?
Woody Tasch (08:06):
I don't think I said in that passage that it was
widespread. But I'm being alittle coy in that reply, I
think it's very deep. I thinkthat's how I'll answer you. I
think there are a lot of peoplethat, at a very deep level, have
some awareness of this. How manypeople it rises to conscious
level where they would talkabout it at a dinner party or
(08:27):
have an open conversation aboutit -- I can't say that. I can
report based on my career, butmore importantly, the last dozen
years of doing of talking topeople all over the country
about slow money. And this iseverybody from farmers to
financiers, you know, a fewbillionaires here and there. The
reason slow money has happened.
The reason I'm on this podcastwith you and I've gotten we've
gotten to the point ofdeveloping Beetcoin and whatnot,
(08:47):
is because I've been on thesending and the receiving end of
lots of energy about this forquite a number of years now with
many thousands of people, bothdirectly and indirectly. And
that means something. I feellike I've learned something from
that. And it has to do withwhat, you know, your question
about how many people use theword "illth", which I believe
came from Ruskin -- at leastthat's who I attribute it to --
(09:10):
who, you know, was veryinfluential in Gandhi's thinking
and whatnot. So it's not a newidea. In other words, I mean,
Thoreau was talking about partsof this too. In my reading or
thinking whatever it goes backto Thoreau, and through Thoreau
to Ruskin, and Gandhi andTolstoy, then jumps foward to E.
F. Schumacher, and Herman Daly,and Wendell Berry. So this is a
thread that's been going on fora while, as people, as a few
(09:31):
people, were seeing thelong-term consequences of
industrialization andglobalization, and whatnot, you
know, it's just seeing it alittle sooner than the general
public. And now, I think we'reat a point where that the depth
of that is, you know, it's downthere at the root level for lots
of people, but it's very scary.
It's complicated. You know,money's always been a hard thing
(09:53):
to talk about. But now in aworld where things are so fast
and so volatile, and socomplicated. So I guess what you
just heard is I can't reallyanswer your question. I'm
delighted that you found thatpassage. And I'm not surprised
you did, given your work onsteady state economics.
Brian Czech (10:09):
Now, that's a great answer, actually very
insightful. And when we reviewbooks like yours, that'll be one
of the first things we look for.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit more about the book and how
easy it is to read and stuff --which is saying, it's a big
compliment, you know. It'ssomething that we all have more
of in this kind, in this genre,if you will. But the 0% loans
(10:30):
are the part of the model that'smost likely to catch the
attention of steady-staters. Soyou guys at Beetcoin describe
the 0% loans as an [quote]"unequivocal statement of intent
to shift radically andconstructively from an ethos of
'how much can we make, howfast,' to an ethos of patience
(10:52):
and care." I'm wondering, didyou have the steady state
economy in the back of your mindwhen you devised that element to
Beetcoin?
Woody Tasch (11:04):
Well, it's really interesting. I'm, how would I
say this? I'm kind of anirreverent. Irreverence, you
know, can be the highest form ofcompliment. I think I just
poorly paraphrase Jefferson orsomebody, anyway. It's very hard
-- so I'm not a trainedeconomist. I didn't stay in
academics. It had nothing to dowith. I mean, if I probably
(11:26):
would have been an Englishteacher, if I'd stayed in
academics, you know, in 1973.
And the reason I went there toyour question is because when I
hear the word steady stateeconomics, I kind of think about
the word "economics." And itmakes me think about the
profession of economics. Itmakes me think about
specialization in general, andall the reductionism and
problems that have come fromoverspecialization. And it also
makes me think aboutinstitutions and institutional
(11:47):
approaches. I know everythingI'm saying could be a hot button
for somebody listening to --many they are. So I'm not trying
to piss people off, per se. I'mjust being honest about where I
come from. And I think it's okayto say that because you wanna to
talk about the book, which Ilove -- because the book is
obviously a very personalsummation for me of a lot of,
let's say, work on-the-groundactivism-- doing
(12:09):
entrepreneurship, making smallventure capital investments,
being a foundation treasurer,working on mission-related
investing in the early days --and those were all very
entrepreneur, they were actions-- they weren't, there wasn't --
I didn't have a theory. I mean,people ask me if I have a theory
of social change, and I stilldon't, for better or worse, I'm
not saying it's a good thing.
(12:29):
But I'm just being honest that Idon't. So yes, of course, the
ethos of steady state economics,but it wasn't not at a
theoretical level, per se. So inother words, when I get, when I
hear discussions of degrowth andsteady state economics, you
know, it's probably as hard forme as it is for any other
non-economists to grok to allthe complexity of that. So I
prefer just to go down to thegrassroots level and say, what
(12:49):
needs doing in my town, in myplace, that I understand. And
then from an investmentstandpoint, you confront it,
which is how much money do Ineed to make, how fast, that's a
very personal -- that's about aspersonal as you can get. And as
we talk about the book, I thinkwhat will become very obvious is
how humanistic it is. It's not,it's interdisciplinary. Whatever
words you want to put on it, butit's not theoretical -- there's
(13:11):
not a theoretical construct thatI really put out. That's, let's
say, pro-growth or againstgrowth per se. It's just obvious
if you take all this to heart,that you're gonna be moving that
fastly away from maximizinggrowth.
Brian Czech (13:25):
Okay, well, that's that'll be a good thing to
follow up on. But first, we needto take a short, non-commercial
break with James Lamont. Take itaway, James.
James Lamont (13:42):
Hello, listeners.
We hope you're enjoying theshow. You might be interested to
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Brian Czech (14:16):
Welcome back. We're talking with Woody Tasch,
founder and Chair of Slow MoneyInstitute and the initiator of
Beetcoin. Woody, as literallygrounded and serious as much of
your work may appear, you alsoplace an importance on poetry
and graphic design too. Your newbook is almost more like a
pamphlet with small digestiblesections and a pleasing
(14:40):
aesthetic. Much of it isavailable freely on the
beetcoin.org website too. What'syour favorite part of the book?
Woody?
Woody Tasch (14:49):
Wow, there's a question I haven't had yet. I
don't know if I can pick a part.
I'm just gonna respond to theway you said it. I took the
liberty -- I guess you'd say --of formatting it, because
anybody who knows publishingwill know that we self-published
this, because no publishinghouse would have let us do it
this way. Their first reasonwould have been cost. The second
(15:09):
reason would have been the veryinterdisciplinary. I use the
word irreverent once before, Idon't know why I'm thinking on
that word today, I don't usuallyuse it. But there's a
playfulness to it, that could beoff-putting to a professional
editor. And that's on purpose.
Because -- you know, as we'vetouched on a little bit already
(15:29):
in this discussion -- I thinkpart of the project that we're
all engaged in is reconnectingto all the parts of ourselves
and in our community. That'srelationships. So left brain,
right brain, heart, soul, ourlives as local citizens,
community members, the way weinteract with other living
things in the places where welive. And it can get a little
more esoteric from there. Butputting all these pieces back
(15:52):
together is kind of a process ofweaving, of imagining, of giving
yourself permission, much ofthings. And so that's what
you've commented on the formatof the book -- it's got lots of
visuals, it's broken into smallpieces, it moves back and forth
between anecdote and history,and, you know, bits of
theoretical analysis woventhrough, but not at the level
(16:13):
that would rise to, let's say, aprofessional thesis on something
or a manifesto of any kind. It'smuch more humanistic than that.
So you asked me my favoritething. My favorite part of the
book is that you just describedit that way. I'm not being
facetious. It means a lot.
Brian Czech (16:28):
Nice. Yeah, it's, and I could have said, what's
your favorite aspect of it? AndI think that's a great answer,
then. That does stand out. Well,when folks, when they visit your
website -- that's beetcoin.org-- the first thing they see is
the message, "Funding organicfarms and local food systems is
as important as going to Mars."And then elsewhere, we see the
(16:52):
case that rather than moonshot,we need an earthshot. So another
nice shot across the bow buddyBezos.
Woody Tasch (17:00):
Well, just to name a name. Sure.
Brian Czech (17:04):
Yeah, why not?
Woody Tasch (17:05):
Yeah I mean. Yeah, there are some others. And what
can we say about that? I mean,if you take space, if you take
space travel and cryptocurrencyas -- and what I'm going to say
now will seem patheticallyincomplete or inappropriate,
even -- if you just take them asthe latest shiny objects. Now,
there are a lot, they are muchmore than just shiny objects.
(17:27):
But if you take a broad look athistory, and look at the way
we've chased new technologies,consistently, just pick a point
to start, like start with a car,just pick one. And then look at
the arc of the car over 100years. And look at the problem
the car was developed to solve,which was manure in city streets
wasn't the problem of going tooslowly, initially, and then
(17:50):
speed came later. So you look westarted to get rid of manure in
city streets. And a centurylater, we have whatever how many
cars are there on the planet now-- I'm not sure 1,000,000,003 or
something, or 1,000,000,005, orsome number. But that's not the
point. The point is the 420parts per million of carbon in
the atmosphere. So we got themanure off the city streets. And
now we have carbon in theatmosphere. And that was a very
(18:11):
[quote] "astonishinglysuccessful technological
innovation." Now we're talkingabout going to the next
astonishing technologicalinnovation, which is going to
Mars. I think a certain degreeof Luddism is called for without
being pejorative, and withoutcriticizing people for making
too much money or any, or theiregos being too big or anything
like that. You don't need to gothere really, you just need to
(18:32):
say that our history as aspecies chasing technological
solutions is quite checkered.
You know, it has produced someamazing things. And it has made
some people amazing amounts ofmoney, and it has pulled a slug
of humanity up the economicladder. So there are a lot of
things to say about it. But youcan't just stop there you have
to go. And there's so many otherthings that we've diminished in
(18:52):
the process and so manylong-term problems that were
created, that -- I think it'svery fair to remind ourselves --
that, in a sense -- put it thisway -- for every moonshot, there
should be an earthshot, just sayit like that. To that point,
Brian, many people who saw my,who see the website for the
first, for the Beetcoin website,who are very deeply into organic
when they see that it says"funding small organic farms,
(19:14):
local food is important to goingto Mars," they immediately email
me going (19:17):
"oh, it's more important." And I'm going "well,
that's more important. It's moreimportant to you." But for most
people, just to say it's asimportant as a radical
statement.
Brian Czech (19:27):
Yeah, not to pick on Bezos either. But, you know,
in addition to the technologyaspect, if there's any symbol of
fast money out there, and thereal economy, I suppose Bezos
should be as good of a symbol ofthat as any, so.
Woody Tasch (19:41):
I'll tell you. It's so confusing, though. I mean,
here I am. I just moved toProvidence, and I'm getting
settled and whatnot. And I'vehad, you know, probably a dozen
stops at my house over the lastcouple of months from the Amazon
Prime delivery truck. So I'm notgoing to sit here and be a
hypocrite and say, "you know,blah, blah, blah," and then on
the back, I'm still -- you know,we're all in it. You know, we're
(20:02):
all complicit. We're allinvolved in this thing. And I'd
rather go back to just what Isaid before: for every moonshot,
there should be an earthshot.
Brian Czech (20:09):
Well put that on a bumper sticker, and then sneak
it down on that Amazon truck.
Woody Tasch (20:14):
Yah there you go.
Great idea. I'll leave that toyou. Come on, I gave you the
idea. But you can go do it.
Brian Czech (20:21):
Okay. All right. So now you've spoken of what you
describe as the schizophrenictension in organizations working
for social change. You see "theimperative to generate
competitive returns" casts along shadow. And that's
something you're trying to avoidwith the Beetcoin model by
crowdfunding rather thaninstitutional grants. Do you
(20:44):
have any other thoughts, Woody,on how such groups can sidestep
the financial systems that aresome of the very things in need
of change?
Woody Tasch (20:54):
That's such a -- I mean, to me, that's the heart of
what I'm doing, and what I findso vexing at times, inspiring it
other times. You used the word"intention" earlier -- I can't
remember exactly what contextyou used it in. But I, I have a
section in the book that talksabout nutrient-dense food, and I
kind of suggest the term"intention-dense enterprises."
(21:15):
And then I say a small farm isthe most intention-dense
enterprises. It's kind of amouthful. But the point is
people's intent, theirintention, the people have good
intentions. They want to begreen, they want to buy green,
they want to get some badplayers out of their investment
portfolio -- this is noteveryone -- I'm saying there's a
whole bunch of people who arekind of thinking like that. But
(21:36):
there is a huge drop-off betweentheir intention and what they
actually do, for a whole bunchof different reasons. If I were
trying to simplify, summarizethose reasons, I'd say they have
to do with scale,intermediation, institutional
complexity, and traditionalinertia, groupthink that happens
in institutions, just a wholebunch of things like that. And
(21:58):
it just makes it very hard foran individual to kind of
translate their intention into adirect action. And so the way
you frame that question, youkind of made it either/or, you
said, You're either going to beinside the financial markets
fixie, or you gonna have to gooutside. And I think that's true
in some ways, and in other ways,it's not true. I mean, look slow
money, if you change tracks herea little bit, approach it a
(22:20):
different way. I often quip inSlow Money meetings. I quote
Oscar Wilde, who said that thewhole trouble with socialism is
it requires too many eveningmeetings -- which I think is a
very funny thing. Yeah. So, andthen I always add "slow money is
not a form of -- it's notsocialism. It's a highly
sociable form of capitalism."And I'm saying that now because
we're both inside and outside offinancial markets. You know, a
(22:43):
local food system is amarketplace. A farmer's market
is a marketplace. A CSA is amarket of some kinds of very
small, hyper local market. But Ido think, for people's
intentions to be expressed, theydo have to be as direct, and
local, and small as possible toallow those intentions to flow
because as soon as they getabstracted, pooled into larger
pools of capital, made moreanonymous, all these other
(23:05):
things happen that kind of spoilthe contaminate, or corrupt the
intention.
Brian Czech (23:11):
Well, to quote your book AHA! again
disruptive, next-economy techentrepreneurs has given way to
an elite of T-shirt-wearingrobber barons." And you also
call these tech CEOs and venturecapitalists a modern incarnation
of old-fashioned royalty.
Beetcoin may be trying to takeus back to the low-tech land,
but, of course, you guys arepretty dependent on the
(23:33):
internet, too so. You got anythoughts on the picking and
choosing among the technologicaloptions? Any rules of thumb you
might impart?
Woody Tasch (23:45):
Drink a lot?
Brian Czech (23:47):
No. Coffee, you mean, right?
Woody Tasch (23:51):
No, but that counts too. So this goes back to my --
I'm glad I said -- what I saidabout Amazon and getting stuff
from the Amazon Prime truck. Andit's funny, that's probably the
most negative passage taken outof context, not in a bad way.
But I'm just saying, there'svery little in my book that is
vilifying individuals. It's butin that passage, it does sound
(24:11):
like I'm making fun of thevilifying high tech CEOs. But I
think a fair reading of the bookwould see that there's a very
broad -- I just had a friend ofmine just read the book. I
hadn't talked to her for quite afew years. The specific thing
she said in her first email tome about the book is, it casts a
very broad "we." In other words-- it's not -- we're all in it
together. And so, you know, partof my psyche is a tech psyche.
(24:35):
Part of my psyche is acomposting psyche. In my case,
it's more of the latter than theformer, but I've got all parts
in there. And I really, it'sreally about balance. It's
really about balance and aboutthe fact that because of the
gravitational force of money --it's particularly fast money --
our money gets sucked into in acertain direction, and therefore
(24:55):
our financial intention goeswith it, and so we lose balance.
And that's why -- I think I'mgoing to come back to this "for
every moon shot, we need anearthshot" thing -- I haven't, I
just kind of landed on itbefore, and I think I'm gonna
stay there, because it's justabout balance. Everything is
about balance. And so for oneperson to have $50 billion, is
pretty ridiculous. I mean, comeon people. I'll say more about
(25:18):
it. So I don't, I don't knowanybody who has $50 billion. I
do know a few people who have abillion dollars. And it's not
about them, or, and I know, afew more people who have
hundreds of millions of dollars.
And now -- what I'm going to saywould get, they'll get me in
trouble if any of them hear this-- I don't pity them. I'm going
to say I pity us. I'm gonna makeit about us. I pity us as --
let's make it on a societallevel, we are wealthier than
(25:41):
we've ever been here -- let'squote E. F. Schumacher on this,
I'm going to butcher it a littlebit. Schumacher said, "the
wealthier society, the moredifficult it becomes to do
things that lack an immediatepayoff." That is a friggin,
profound insight, in my opinion.
And so we're all in it together,the wealth has been created, and
(26:01):
it's corrupting everything. Whenit gets concentrated to that
level, it's much bigger than aperson or an ego. It's the
society, it's just a reflectionof things being out of whack at
a societal level. An example ofthis is philanthropy. When you
have pools of capital, youreferred to -- in the intro to
my work in mission-relatedinvesting. And all
mission-related investing wasthis very simple realization
(26:23):
that we have these pools ofcapital, that are surplus
capital, that are put aside todo good. And then they are all
invested to maximize return inthe very marketplace that
created the problems thatphilanthropy is set up to try to
solve, which means to be moreconcrete, in our case, we had
investments in Monsanto, whowere giving grants to
sustainable agr groups. And I,on the board, said, come on, we
(26:44):
can't keep doing that. That isschizophrenia.
Brian Czech (26:47):
Well, you know, you've written that diversity
and efficiency are two sides ofa coin. Can you explain what you
mean by that?
Woody Tasch (26:54):
Sure. This is the concept of balance, Earthshot,
moonshot, just stated adifferent way. So a simpletons
view of economic history, Isuppose, would conclude that all
of the theories, and then all ofthe industrial systems that
come, that are based on thosetheories are all about
increasing throughput, makingmore things cheaper, making
(27:17):
things faster, making morethings, making people buy more
things. And all of that isdescribed as efficiency. And
again, I mean, at the risk ofover quoting E. F. Schumacher,
one of the chapters of Small IsBeautiful starts with a sentence
that says something like this --the modern economy is the most
inefficient system everdeveloped by mankind. And he's
(27:43):
talking about -- Wendell Berrydoes a lot of this also, of
course, so does Herman Dale, Imean, they're all circling
around the same thing -- whichis all these micro --
efficiencies of, let's say, atthe enterprise level, you create
all these efficiencies, and youexport all of these, the
externalities, or the long-termcosts, that result from those
micro-efficiencies get exportedout into the air, in the soil,
(28:06):
and in the community andwhatnot. And eventually, they
build up the whole system as awhole is extremely inefficient
in the sense that it createsproblems that can't be solved.
So that's all about the questfor what happens with the
multiage century-long quest forefficiency. And if you translate
that into the food system, justfor a second, just to get closer
to the diversity, thebiodiversity part of diversity,
(28:27):
but it works on the social side,too. You know, there were
something like 100 -- This isone of many examples -- of
something like 100 varieties ofpotatoes in commercial
cultivation in 1900. And by2004, varieties accounted for
95% of the potatoes grown andconsumed in the United States.
So the global supply chain infood is driving biodiversity out
(28:50):
of the food system.
Brian Czech (28:51):
Sure.
Woody Tasch (28:52):
And I had the occasion to be on a panel at a
food investment conference once,and we had to, at the end of the
panel, make a concluding remark.
And I looked at the audience --and I'm not a provocateur, I'm
really not -- but sometimes youjust have to, just have to push
a little bit. And I looked atit, and the audience was full of
venture capitalists and foodentrepreneurs. And so I said, if
(29:13):
we're going to make moneygrowing, and then manufacturing
food products, and marketingfood products, growing food,
manufacturing food products, weshould do it in a way that does
not diminish biodiversity. Andfor one second, everyone in the
room felt bad, because everybodywho knows anything about food
products knows that in order tomake, you know, 10,000 pallets
(29:34):
of a uniform food product andget it every day to Walmart or
wherever it is you're doing, youare not paying attention to
biodiversity. You're payingattention to efficiency, and
uniformity, and, you know,commodities and whatnot. Say the
same thing can be said at alllevels of the economy.
Brian Czech (29:51):
Yeah, well I think one of the things that comes out
of this is we have to broadenour perspectives when it comes
to that concept of efficiency.
And so what do you -- if peoplehave enjoyed what they've heard
here today, and I thinkeverybody would -- how can they
get involved or connected withBeetcoin and with Slow Money?
Woody Tasch (30:09):
So the way people can get involved is in a way
that we never had before. If allof this sounds pretty good,
let's go back to for everymoonshot there needs to be an
earthshot, you want there to bemore earthshots of this kind.
And you, let's say, you can'tmake this a life activity for
yourself. You just want to findsome way to chip in some money.
We hope you'll, people will doit through Beetcoin. No amount
is too small, we hope we'll beaggregating lots of small
(30:31):
donations, and then that moneywill go through us to local
groups that are doing 0% loans,and then stay local. Once it
goes through us to the localgroup just stays local
recirculates in perpetuity. Sothat's our answer to your
question. Now, if this soundsgood -- I mean, of course, I'd
love people to buy the book,more importantly, read the book,
it's available free on thebeetcoin.org website. But if you
want a hard copy, then you canpurchase one from Slow Money
(30:54):
Institute as well. I'm prettysure it was T. S. Eliot who said
that we have to beware of tryingto create systems so perfect
that men do not need to be good.
Brian Czech (31:02):
Alright.
Woody Tasch (31:03):
Which is an amazing thing for a poet to have said.
So same thing to me applies withmoney -- the idea of coming up
with new kinds of money, or newtheories about money. I know
that sounds a little crazy,because I'm talking about slow
money. But slow money, it'sslowing down the money we have.
What's that mean? It's taking,you know, good, old, fashioned
fiat currency -- there's alittle, I have this little video
if you poke around the website,you'll see at the bottom of one
(31:24):
of the pages, there's a littlevideo of me saying some stuff
about this. Just taking ourgood, old-fashioned fiat
currency that came fromplantation capitalism and fossil
fuels all that stuff, and doingsomething that is directly good
with it that we understand, andthat is not about our own
personal remuneration. It'sabout creating good for the
community. That's what slowmoney is. It's a very simple and
direct utilization of the moneywe have to do something good.
Brian Czech (31:48):
Fantastic. Woody, it's been great talking with
you, and we wish you all thebest with Beetcoin. We are
certainly going to be moreinterested in Beetcoin over
time, and we'll be, we'll comeback around to you probably
later in the year for afollow-up, and thanks so much
for challenging some of thefundamental assumptions about
(32:08):
growth too.
Woody Tasch (32:10):
Well, if we just you know, we can blame Herman
Daly, and E. F. Schumacher, andWendell Berry if we want. I
sometimes joke that these guysall ruined my life, because I,
you know, I read their bookswhen I got out of school, and I
believed that they were right.
And then I thought, okay, ifthey're right, what do I, how do
I live in a way that manifeststhose ideas? And that's a bit of
a challenge, but, so that's myway of saying thank you for
(32:32):
having me. It was a privilege toassociate myself however briefly
with steady state economics andthe work you guys are doing. So
thank you.
Brian Czech (32:55):
Well, folks, that about wraps 're up. We've been
talking with Woody Tasch,founder and Chair of Slow Money
Institute and author of AHA!Fake Trillions, Real Billions,
Beetcoin and the Great AmericanDo-Over. Beetcoin is drawing
attention to the fundamentallinks between our food system
and the broader economy,unsustainable links at this
(33:17):
point. And it's not just avanity project for rich hippies,
or even -- should I say --beatniks. When people ask how
farming or business would workin a steady state economy,
Beetcoin makes for a greatexample, especially with those
0% interest loans. We encouragelisteners to take a look at
beetcoin.org for great food forthought, and to consider a
(33:41):
donation to a Beetcoin projectas well. I'm Brian Czech, and
you've been listening to TheSteady Stater podcast. See you
next time!
The following transcript has been formatted
(00:00):
for both accuracy and clarity.
On occasion the text may differslightly from what was literally
spoken. If you wish to compareaudio to text each section has
timestamps that correspond tothe recording above. Please let
us know of any glaring errors.
Pat Choate (00:06):
From the Center for the Advancement of the Steady
State Economy, this is TheSteady Stater, a podcast
dedicated to discussing limitsto growth and the steady state
economy.
Brian Czech (00:16):
Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Brian
Czech, and our guest today isWoody Tasch, a pioneer of
mission-related investing. Woodyis the founder and Chair of Slow
Money Institute, a nonprofitheadquartered in Boulder,
Colorado, that has channeledtens of millions of dollars to
small, local, and organic foodenterprises around the world.
(00:39):
He's the author of such books asInquiries into the Nature of
Slow Money, and most recently,AHA! Fake Trillions, Real
Billions, Beetcoin and the GreatAmerican Do-Over. Beetcoin is a
new crowdfunding initiative fromthe Slow Money Institute; we'll
talk about that in a fewminutes. In 2010, Woody was
(01:00):
recognized by UTNE Reader as oneof the "25 Visionaries Who Are
Changing Your World." WoodyTasch, welcome to The Steady
Stater.
Woody Tasch (01:09):
Thanks, Brian, appreciate it.
Brian Czech (01:11):
Well, first off, Woody, I understand you recently
left Colorado for Providence,Rhode Island, and are currently
going through the process ofunloading 70 boxes of books. I
wonder if old Jeff Bezosapproves!
Woody Tasch (01:25):
Oh, man, like you're airing all my dirty book
laundry in public. But you know,I've been around a while, and
I've collected a bit of alibrary and certainly glad I did
because over the course ofwriting the three books I wrote,
I heavily leaned on many of thebooks that I'm looking at right
now on my bookshelves. But yes,I just moved to Providence to be
(01:47):
grandpa, be near my daughter andmy new grandson, and I grew up
on the East Coast. So I neverlived right in Providence, but I
lived all around here for manydecades.
Brian Czech (01:57):
Okay, well, nice to be home for you, then. Well,
let's start with the concept ofslow money. People might have a
good instinctive idea of what ismeant by slow food, in contrast
with the term fast food. ButWoody what differentiates fast
and slow money?
Woody Tasch (02:14):
Well, you ask the question in exactly the right
way, because I had been writingabout -- a little, I hadn't
written my first book yet -- butI'd been writing essays, and
letters, and different thingsabout patient capital for a
while in my capacity astreasurer of the Jessie Smith
Noyes Foundation in New York.
And also, after that, I becamechairman and CEO of Investor's
Circle, which is an impactinvestment angel group. And I'd
(02:37):
been talking about patientcapital, that perhaps the most
important thing we as impactinvestors could do would be to
truly think long term, and thenwork backwards from what that
would mean to us. That soundsvery simple. And it is. But it's
also extremely tricky for mostinvestors to actually do because
of all the pushes and pulls ofmarkets and whatnot. And so
(02:58):
there was patient capital, andthen I had the good fortune to
visit Italy in 2000 and meetCarlo Petrini, the founder of
Slow Food and oh my god, patientcapital, it's really slow money.
When Carlo started Slow Food,people knew what fast food was.
When I wrote the book on slowmoney, no one was really
complaining about fast money.
But hopefully we are shining alight on that.
Brian Czech (03:20):
Yeah, and it's kind of a parallel complaint with our
complaint about the bloatingGDP. Because, you know, the old
formula, velocity of moneyequals GDP divided by the money
supply. So I think in rootingfor slow money, we're rooting
toward a steady state economy atleast.
Woody Tasch (03:37):
Yeah, absolutely.
Brian Czech (03:39):
Tell me if I have this right, Woody. Beetcoin is a
new crowdfunding platform, wheresmall donations are bundled as
grants for local communityfarming groups. And these groups
are called SOIL groups, thatstands for Slow Opportunities
for Investing Locally. And thesegroups dole out 0% loans to
(04:00):
local farmers and foodenterprises in general. Is that
the gist of it?
Woody Tasch (04:05):
That's it. Sounds good to me. So we've got, yeah,
basically, there are twocomponents. There's one on the
ground, the local component,where groups are making 0% loans
locally, and that's made withdonated capital. So the members
of these local groups chip somemoney in, and then they get
together -- pre-COVID in person,now, mostly virtually even
(04:27):
locally. And they vote on making0% loans to local farmers and
local food entrepreneurs andwhatnot. When that money gets
repaid, it stays in andrecirculates in the community.
So it's like a permanentrevolving loan, grassroots
revolving loan. There's a lot ofwords you could put on it:
microlending, revolving loanthing... but we just call them
SOIL groups -- as you describedit -- they're just 0% loan
(04:48):
groups. And now we're adding thelayer of the Beetcoin platform.
We want to see if we cangenerate a large number of small
donations online and use thatcapital as matching grants and
seed capital to grow the SOILgroups. We'd like to see the
SOIL groups go from five --which there are now -- to
hundreds, which is a ratherdaunting prospect, but given the
(05:08):
state of things, we feel weshould -- that's what we need to
do.
Brian Czech (05:12):
Yeah, well, the time is right, for sure. And
let's talk a little bit aboutthe etymology of that word
Beetcoin. You know, what comesto mind to me is "beat it
Bitcoin, we want Beetcoin!" Youguys on the website describe it
as both a "non-crypto,non-currency," and a
(05:33):
"deceptively simple" idea, whichwould be opposed, I guess, to
the deceptively complex world ofcryptocurrencies, NFTs now, and
blackchains in general. So, didyou have any more in mind behind
the choice of that name?
Woody Tasch (05:49):
No, I mean, you're making this interview too easy,
because you're kind of gettingit all. I don't really have to
explain anything. Which, ofcourse, is very heartening to
me, because we worked hard athow to put this out in the
world. Yeah, the basic, theplayfulness of the Beetcoin
brand, if you will, or the name,is important, you know. There's
such a, there's a pall over allof us now, you know, there's a
(06:11):
shroud of confusion and, let'ssay, thinly veiled despair. I
don't know why I'm picking thesewords right now. But you know,
we're dealing with a lot of veryhorrible stuff. Some of it is,
well, a lot of it isenvironmental, obviously, at all
layers, and a lot of it ispolitical and social, and that's
also at all layers. And thenwe've kind of got that extra
thing of fake versus true,versus, you know, what's -- We
(06:35):
don't know what to believeanymore. And those are all tied
together, obviously. To me, thepower of the Beetcoin brand is
that it touches on all that in asecond. It's not for me to
explain the power of the brand,per se. But I'm just saying, in
my interactions with lots ofpeople, as we were developing
it, we could see that it kind ofhit on a lot of things. And yes,
it is deceptively simple. Justlike everything we're talking
about -- what's simpler thanpeople getting together and
(06:56):
making 0% loans to farmers downthe street, that should be the
simplest thing. But because ofthe 0%, and because of the world
we're in, it's perceived asbeing not that easy to do. It
should be the easiest thing ofall to do. It's the most
concrete. It brings us togetherwith our neighbors, our friends,
connects us to the place welive. But thank you for, I mean,
(07:17):
you called it out in the rightway, when you were kind of
playing with the word Beetcoin.
So that's very heartening to me.
Brian Czech (07:22):
Yeah. Well, you guys are really good at
communicating. We found in yourAHA! book this quote: "What I've
come to hear when people say, 'Idon't know much about finance'
is, 'I don't like the financialjargon and all that represents.
I don't completely trust eventhe best investment products. I
(07:43):
don't completely trust my owncommon sense, either. I want to
have an authentic conversationabout money, but I'm afraid to
do so because I know deep downthat economic growth is doing
long-term harm.'" Woody, do youreally think that the
understanding of the ills ofgrowth is really that
(08:04):
widespread?
Woody Tasch (08:06):
I don't think I said in that passage that it was
widespread. But I'm being alittle coy in that reply, I
think it's very deep. I thinkthat's how I'll answer you. I
think there are a lot of peoplethat, at a very deep level, have
some awareness of this. How manypeople it rises to conscious
level where they would talkabout it at a dinner party or
(08:27):
have an open conversation aboutit -- I can't say that. I can
report based on my career, butmore importantly, the last dozen
years of doing of talking topeople all over the country
about slow money. And this iseverybody from farmers to
financiers, you know, a fewbillionaires here and there. The
reason slow money has happened.
The reason I'm on this podcastwith you and I've gotten we've
gotten to the point ofdeveloping Beetcoin and whatnot,
(08:47):
is because I've been on thesending and the receiving end of
lots of energy about this forquite a number of years now with
many thousands of people, bothdirectly and indirectly. And
that means something. I feellike I've learned something from
that. And it has to do withwhat, you know, your question
about how many people use theword "illth", which I believe
came from Ruskin -- at leastthat's who I attribute it to --
(09:10):
who, you know, was veryinfluential in Gandhi's thinking
and whatnot. So it's not a newidea. In other words, I mean,
Thoreau was talking about partsof this too. In my reading or
thinking whatever it goes backto Thoreau, and through Thoreau
to Ruskin, and Gandhi andTolstoy, then jumps foward to E.
F. Schumacher, and Herman Daly,and Wendell Berry. So this is a
thread that's been going on fora while, as people, as a few
(09:31):
people, were seeing thelong-term consequences of
industrialization andglobalization, and whatnot, you
know, it's just seeing it alittle sooner than the general
public. And now, I think we'reat a point where that the depth
of that is, you know, it's downthere at the root level for lots
of people, but it's very scary.
It's complicated. You know,money's always been a hard thing
(09:53):
to talk about. But now in aworld where things are so fast
and so volatile, and socomplicated. So I guess what you
just heard is I can't reallyanswer your question. I'm
delighted that you found thatpassage. And I'm not surprised
you did, given your work onsteady state economics.
Brian Czech (10:09):
Now, that's a great answer, actually very
insightful. And when we reviewbooks like yours, that'll be one
of the first things we look for.
And we're gonna talk a littlebit more about the book and how
easy it is to read and stuff --which is saying, it's a big
compliment, you know. It'ssomething that we all have more
of in this kind, in this genre,if you will. But the 0% loans
(10:30):
are the part of the model that'smost likely to catch the
attention of steady-staters. Soyou guys at Beetcoin describe
the 0% loans as an [quote]"unequivocal statement of intent
to shift radically andconstructively from an ethos of
'how much can we make, howfast,' to an ethos of patience
(10:52):
and care." I'm wondering, didyou have the steady state
economy in the back of your mindwhen you devised that element to
Beetcoin?
Woody Tasch (11:04):
Well, it's really interesting. I'm, how would I
say this? I'm kind of anirreverent. Irreverence, you
know, can be the highest form ofcompliment. I think I just
poorly paraphrase Jefferson orsomebody, anyway. It's very hard
-- so I'm not a trainedeconomist. I didn't stay in
academics. It had nothing to dowith. I mean, if I probably
(11:26):
would have been an Englishteacher, if I'd stayed in
academics, you know, in 1973.
And the reason I went there toyour question is because when I
hear the word steady stateeconomics, I kind of think about
the word "economics." And itmakes me think about the
profession of economics. Itmakes me think about
specialization in general, andall the reductionism and
problems that have come fromoverspecialization. And it also
makes me think aboutinstitutions and institutional
(11:47):
approaches. I know everythingI'm saying could be a hot button
for somebody listening to --many they are. So I'm not trying
to piss people off, per se. I'mjust being honest about where I
come from. And I think it's okayto say that because you wanna to
talk about the book, which Ilove -- because the book is
obviously a very personalsummation for me of a lot of,
let's say, work on-the-groundactivism-- doing
(12:09):
entrepreneurship, making smallventure capital investments,
being a foundation treasurer,working on mission-related
investing in the early days --and those were all very
entrepreneur, they were actions-- they weren't, there wasn't --
I didn't have a theory. I mean,people ask me if I have a theory
of social change, and I stilldon't, for better or worse, I'm
not saying it's a good thing.
(12:29):
But I'm just being honest that Idon't. So yes, of course, the
ethos of steady state economics,but it wasn't not at a
theoretical level, per se. So inother words, when I get, when I
hear discussions of degrowth andsteady state economics, you
know, it's probably as hard forme as it is for any other
non-economists to grok to allthe complexity of that. So I
prefer just to go down to thegrassroots level and say, what
(12:49):
needs doing in my town, in myplace, that I understand. And
then from an investmentstandpoint, you confront it,
which is how much money do Ineed to make, how fast, that's a
very personal -- that's about aspersonal as you can get. And as
we talk about the book, I thinkwhat will become very obvious is
how humanistic it is. It's not,it's interdisciplinary. Whatever
words you want to put on it, butit's not theoretical -- there's
(13:11):
not a theoretical construct thatI really put out. That's, let's
say, pro-growth or againstgrowth per se. It's just obvious
if you take all this to heart,that you're gonna be moving that
fastly away from maximizinggrowth.
Brian Czech (13:25):
Okay, well, that's that'll be a good thing to
follow up on. But first, we needto take a short, non-commercial
break with James Lamont. Take itaway, James.
James Lamont (13:42):
Hello, listeners.
We hope you're enjoying theshow. You might be interested to
learn and we recently sent outthe Winter edition of The Steady
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gives a roundup of CASSE variousactivities over the previous few
months and is really helpful forcatching up on any thought
provoking content that you mayhave missed. It's also an easy
way to introduce those steadystate curious friends in your
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(14:04):
You can sign up for the emaillist and read previous editions
of the newsletter by going tosteadystate.org and panning over
the "Follow" tab. Now, back tothe show.
Brian Czech (14:16):
Welcome back. We're talking with Woody Tasch,
founder and Chair of Slow MoneyInstitute and the initiator of
Beetcoin. Woody, as literallygrounded and serious as much of
your work may appear, you alsoplace an importance on poetry
and graphic design too. Your newbook is almost more like a
pamphlet with small digestiblesections and a pleasing
(14:40):
aesthetic. Much of it isavailable freely on the
beetcoin.org website too. What'syour favorite part of the book?
Woody?
Woody Tasch (14:49):
Wow, there's a question I haven't had yet. I
don't know if I can pick a part.
I'm just gonna respond to theway you said it. I took the
liberty -- I guess you'd say --of formatting it, because
anybody who knows publishingwill know that we self-published
this, because no publishinghouse would have let us do it
this way. Their first reasonwould have been cost. The second
(15:09):
reason would have been the veryinterdisciplinary. I use the
word irreverent once before, Idon't know why I'm thinking on
that word today, I don't usuallyuse it. But there's a
playfulness to it, that could beoff-putting to a professional
editor. And that's on purpose.
Because -- you know, as we'vetouched on a little bit already
(15:29):
in this discussion -- I thinkpart of the project that we're
all engaged in is reconnectingto all the parts of ourselves
and in our community. That'srelationships. So left brain,
right brain, heart, soul, ourlives as local citizens,
community members, the way weinteract with other living
things in the places where welive. And it can get a little
more esoteric from there. Butputting all these pieces back
(15:52):
together is kind of a process ofweaving, of imagining, of giving
yourself permission, much ofthings. And so that's what
you've commented on the formatof the book -- it's got lots of
visuals, it's broken into smallpieces, it moves back and forth
between anecdote and history,and, you know, bits of
theoretical analysis woventhrough, but not at the level
(16:13):
that would rise to, let's say, aprofessional thesis on something
or a manifesto of any kind. It'smuch more humanistic than that.
So you asked me my favoritething. My favorite part of the
book is that you just describedit that way. I'm not being
facetious. It means a lot.
Brian Czech (16:28):
Nice. Yeah, it's, and I could have said, what's
your favorite aspect of it? AndI think that's a great answer,
then. That does stand out. Well,when folks, when they visit your
website -- that's beetcoin.org-- the first thing they see is
the message, "Funding organicfarms and local food systems is
as important as going to Mars."And then elsewhere, we see the
(16:52):
case that rather than moonshot,we need an earthshot. So another
nice shot across the bow buddyBezos.
Woody Tasch (17:00):
Well, just to name a name. Sure.
Brian Czech (17:04):
Yeah, why not?
Woody Tasch (17:05):
Yeah I mean. Yeah, there are some others. And what
can we say about that? I mean,if you take space, if you take
space travel and cryptocurrencyas -- and what I'm going to say
now will seem patheticallyincomplete or inappropriate,
even -- if you just take them asthe latest shiny objects. Now,
there are a lot, they are muchmore than just shiny objects.
(17:27):
But if you take a broad look athistory, and look at the way
we've chased new technologies,consistently, just pick a point
to start, like start with a car,just pick one. And then look at
the arc of the car over 100years. And look at the problem
the car was developed to solve,which was manure in city streets
wasn't the problem of going tooslowly, initially, and then
(17:50):
speed came later. So you look westarted to get rid of manure in
city streets. And a centurylater, we have whatever how many
cars are there on the planet now-- I'm not sure 1,000,000,003 or
something, or 1,000,000,005, orsome number. But that's not the
point. The point is the 420parts per million of carbon in
the atmosphere. So we got themanure off the city streets. And
now we have carbon in theatmosphere. And that was a very
(18:11):
[quote] "astonishinglysuccessful technological
innovation." Now we're talkingabout going to the next
astonishing technologicalinnovation, which is going to
Mars. I think a certain degreeof Luddism is called for without
being pejorative, and withoutcriticizing people for making
too much money or any, or theiregos being too big or anything
like that. You don't need to gothere really, you just need to
(18:32):
say that our history as aspecies chasing technological
solutions is quite checkered.
You know, it has produced someamazing things. And it has made
some people amazing amounts ofmoney, and it has pulled a slug
of humanity up the economicladder. So there are a lot of
things to say about it. But youcan't just stop there you have
to go. And there's so many otherthings that we've diminished in
(18:52):
the process and so manylong-term problems that were
created, that -- I think it'svery fair to remind ourselves --
that, in a sense -- put it thisway -- for every moonshot, there
should be an earthshot, just sayit like that. To that point,
Brian, many people who saw my,who see the website for the
first, for the Beetcoin website,who are very deeply into organic
when they see that it says"funding small organic farms,
(19:14):
local food is important to goingto Mars," they immediately email
me going (19:17):
"oh, it's more important." And I'm going "well,
that's more important. It's moreimportant to you." But for most
people, just to say it's asimportant as a radical
statement.
Brian Czech (19:27):
Yeah, not to pick on Bezos either. But, you know,
in addition to the technologyaspect, if there's any symbol of
fast money out there, and thereal economy, I suppose Bezos
should be as good of a symbol ofthat as any, so.
Woody Tasch (19:41):
I'll tell you. It's so confusing, though. I mean,
here I am. I just moved toProvidence, and I'm getting
settled and whatnot. And I'vehad, you know, probably a dozen
stops at my house over the lastcouple of months from the Amazon
Prime delivery truck. So I'm notgoing to sit here and be a
hypocrite and say, "you know,blah, blah, blah," and then on
the back, I'm still -- you know,we're all in it. You know, we're
(20:02):
all complicit. We're allinvolved in this thing. And I'd
rather go back to just what Isaid before: for every moonshot,
there should be an earthshot.
Brian Czech (20:09):
Well put that on a bumper sticker, and then sneak
it down on that Amazon truck.
Woody Tasch (20:14):
Yah there you go.
Great idea. I'll leave that toyou. Come on, I gave you the
idea. But you can go do it.
Brian Czech (20:21):
Okay. All right. So now you've spoken of what you
describe as the schizophrenictension in organizations working
for social change. You see "theimperative to generate
competitive returns" casts along shadow. And that's
something you're trying to avoidwith the Beetcoin model by
crowdfunding rather thaninstitutional grants. Do you
(20:44):
have any other thoughts, Woody,on how such groups can sidestep
the financial systems that aresome of the very things in need
of change?
Woody Tasch (20:54):
That's such a -- I mean, to me, that's the heart of
what I'm doing, and what I findso vexing at times, inspiring it
other times. You used the word"intention" earlier -- I can't
remember exactly what contextyou used it in. But I, I have a
section in the book that talksabout nutrient-dense food, and I
kind of suggest the term"intention-dense enterprises."
(21:15):
And then I say a small farm isthe most intention-dense
enterprises. It's kind of amouthful. But the point is
people's intent, theirintention, the people have good
intentions. They want to begreen, they want to buy green,
they want to get some badplayers out of their investment
portfolio -- this is noteveryone -- I'm saying there's a
whole bunch of people who arekind of thinking like that. But
(21:36):
there is a huge drop-off betweentheir intention and what they
actually do, for a whole bunchof different reasons. If I were
trying to simplify, summarizethose reasons, I'd say they have
to do with scale,intermediation, institutional
complexity, and traditionalinertia, groupthink that happens
in institutions, just a wholebunch of things like that. And
(21:58):
it just makes it very hard foran individual to kind of
translate their intention into adirect action. And so the way
you frame that question, youkind of made it either/or, you
said, You're either going to beinside the financial markets
fixie, or you gonna have to gooutside. And I think that's true
in some ways, and in other ways,it's not true. I mean, look slow
money, if you change tracks herea little bit, approach it a
(22:20):
different way. I often quip inSlow Money meetings. I quote
Oscar Wilde, who said that thewhole trouble with socialism is
it requires too many eveningmeetings -- which I think is a
very funny thing. Yeah. So, andthen I always add "slow money is
not a form of -- it's notsocialism. It's a highly
sociable form of capitalism."And I'm saying that now because
we're both inside and outside offinancial markets. You know, a
(22:43):
local food system is amarketplace. A farmer's market
is a marketplace. A CSA is amarket of some kinds of very
small, hyper local market. But Ido think, for people's
intentions to be expressed, theydo have to be as direct, and
local, and small as possible toallow those intentions to flow
because as soon as they getabstracted, pooled into larger
pools of capital, made moreanonymous, all these other
(23:05):
things happen that kind of spoilthe contaminate, or corrupt the
intention.
Brian Czech (23:11):
Well, to quote your book AHA! again
disruptive, next-economy techentrepreneurs has given way to
an elite of T-shirt-wearingrobber barons." And you also
call these tech CEOs and venturecapitalists a modern incarnation
of old-fashioned royalty.
Beetcoin may be trying to takeus back to the low-tech land,
but, of course, you guys arepretty dependent on the
(23:33):
internet, too so. You got anythoughts on the picking and
choosing among the technologicaloptions? Any rules of thumb you
might impart?
Woody Tasch (23:45):
Drink a lot?
Brian Czech (23:47):
No. Coffee, you mean, right?
Woody Tasch (23:51):
No, but that counts too. So this goes back to my --
I'm glad I said -- what I saidabout Amazon and getting stuff
from the Amazon Prime truck. Andit's funny, that's probably the
most negative passage taken outof context, not in a bad way.
But I'm just saying, there'svery little in my book that is
vilifying individuals. It's butin that passage, it does sound
(24:11):
like I'm making fun of thevilifying high tech CEOs. But I
think a fair reading of the bookwould see that there's a very
broad -- I just had a friend ofmine just read the book. I
hadn't talked to her for quite afew years. The specific thing
she said in her first email tome about the book is, it casts a
very broad "we." In other words-- it's not -- we're all in it
together. And so, you know, partof my psyche is a tech psyche.
(24:35):
Part of my psyche is acomposting psyche. In my case,
it's more of the latter than theformer, but I've got all parts
in there. And I really, it'sreally about balance. It's
really about balance and aboutthe fact that because of the
gravitational force of money --it's particularly fast money --
our money gets sucked into in acertain direction, and therefore
(24:55):
our financial intention goeswith it, and so we lose balance.
And that's why -- I think I'mgoing to come back to this "for
every moon shot, we need anearthshot" thing -- I haven't, I
just kind of landed on itbefore, and I think I'm gonna
stay there, because it's justabout balance. Everything is
about balance. And so for oneperson to have $50 billion, is
pretty ridiculous. I mean, comeon people. I'll say more about
(25:18):
it. So I don't, I don't knowanybody who has $50 billion. I
do know a few people who have abillion dollars. And it's not
about them, or, and I know, afew more people who have
hundreds of millions of dollars.
And now -- what I'm going to saywould get, they'll get me in
trouble if any of them hear this-- I don't pity them. I'm going
to say I pity us. I'm gonna makeit about us. I pity us as --
let's make it on a societallevel, we are wealthier than
(25:41):
we've ever been here -- let'squote E. F. Schumacher on this,
I'm going to butcher it a littlebit. Schumacher said, "the
wealthier society, the moredifficult it becomes to do
things that lack an immediatepayoff." That is a friggin,
profound insight, in my opinion.
And so we're all in it together,the wealth has been created, and
(26:01):
it's corrupting everything. Whenit gets concentrated to that
level, it's much bigger than aperson or an ego. It's the
society, it's just a reflectionof things being out of whack at
a societal level. An example ofthis is philanthropy. When you
have pools of capital, youreferred to -- in the intro to
my work in mission-relatedinvesting. And all
mission-related investing wasthis very simple realization
(26:23):
that we have these pools ofcapital, that are surplus
capital, that are put aside todo good. And then they are all
invested to maximize return inthe very marketplace that
created the problems thatphilanthropy is set up to try to
solve, which means to be moreconcrete, in our case, we had
investments in Monsanto, whowere giving grants to
sustainable agr groups. And I,on the board, said, come on, we
(26:44):
can't keep doing that. That isschizophrenia.
Brian Czech (26:47):
Well, you know, you've written that diversity
and efficiency are two sides ofa coin. Can you explain what you
mean by that?
Woody Tasch (26:54):
Sure. This is the concept of balance, Earthshot,
moonshot, just stated adifferent way. So a simpletons
view of economic history, Isuppose, would conclude that all
of the theories, and then all ofthe industrial systems that
come, that are based on thosetheories are all about
increasing throughput, makingmore things cheaper, making
(27:17):
things faster, making morethings, making people buy more
things. And all of that isdescribed as efficiency. And
again, I mean, at the risk ofover quoting E. F. Schumacher,
one of the chapters of Small IsBeautiful starts with a sentence
that says something like this --the modern economy is the most
inefficient system everdeveloped by mankind. And he's
(27:43):
talking about -- Wendell Berrydoes a lot of this also, of
course, so does Herman Dale, Imean, they're all circling
around the same thing -- whichis all these micro --
efficiencies of, let's say, atthe enterprise level, you create
all these efficiencies, and youexport all of these, the
externalities, or the long-termcosts, that result from those
micro-efficiencies get exportedout into the air, in the soil,
(28:06):
and in the community andwhatnot. And eventually, they
build up the whole system as awhole is extremely inefficient
in the sense that it createsproblems that can't be solved.
So that's all about the questfor what happens with the
multiage century-long quest forefficiency. And if you translate
that into the food system, justfor a second, just to get closer
to the diversity, thebiodiversity part of diversity,
(28:27):
but it works on the social side,too. You know, there were
something like 100 -- This isone of many examples -- of
something like 100 varieties ofpotatoes in commercial
cultivation in 1900. And by2004, varieties accounted for
95% of the potatoes grown andconsumed in the United States.
So the global supply chain infood is driving biodiversity out
(28:50):
of the food system.
Brian Czech (28:51):
Sure.
Woody Tasch (28:52):
And I had the occasion to be on a panel at a
food investment conference once,and we had to, at the end of the
panel, make a concluding remark.
And I looked at the audience --and I'm not a provocateur, I'm
really not -- but sometimes youjust have to, just have to push
a little bit. And I looked atit, and the audience was full of
venture capitalists and foodentrepreneurs. And so I said, if
(29:13):
we're going to make moneygrowing, and then manufacturing
food products, and marketingfood products, growing food,
manufacturing food products, weshould do it in a way that does
not diminish biodiversity. Andfor one second, everyone in the
room felt bad, because everybodywho knows anything about food
products knows that in order tomake, you know, 10,000 pallets
(29:34):
of a uniform food product andget it every day to Walmart or
wherever it is you're doing, youare not paying attention to
biodiversity. You're payingattention to efficiency, and
uniformity, and, you know,commodities and whatnot. Say the
same thing can be said at alllevels of the economy.
Brian Czech (29:51):
Yeah, well I think one of the things that comes out
of this is we have to broadenour perspectives when it comes
to that concept of efficiency.
And so what do you -- if peoplehave enjoyed what they've heard
here today, and I thinkeverybody would -- how can they
get involved or connected withBeetcoin and with Slow Money?
Woody Tasch (30:09):
So the way people can get involved is in a way
that we never had before. If allof this sounds pretty good,
let's go back to for everymoonshot there needs to be an
earthshot, you want there to bemore earthshots of this kind.
And you, let's say, you can'tmake this a life activity for
yourself. You just want to findsome way to chip in some money.
We hope you'll, people will doit through Beetcoin. No amount
is too small, we hope we'll beaggregating lots of small
(30:31):
donations, and then that moneywill go through us to local
groups that are doing 0% loans,and then stay local. Once it
goes through us to the localgroup just stays local
recirculates in perpetuity. Sothat's our answer to your
question. Now, if this soundsgood -- I mean, of course, I'd
love people to buy the book,more importantly, read the book,
it's available free on thebeetcoin.org website. But if you
want a hard copy, then you canpurchase one from Slow Money
(30:54):
Institute as well. I'm prettysure it was T. S. Eliot who said
that we have to beware of tryingto create systems so perfect
that men do not need to be good.
Brian Czech (31:02):
Alright.
Woody Tasch (31:03):
Which is an amazing thing for a poet to have said.
So same thing to me applies withmoney -- the idea of coming up
with new kinds of money, or newtheories about money. I know
that sounds a little crazy,because I'm talking about slow
money. But slow money, it'sslowing down the money we have.
What's that mean? It's taking,you know, good, old, fashioned
fiat currency -- there's alittle, I have this little video
if you poke around the website,you'll see at the bottom of one
(31:24):
of the pages, there's a littlevideo of me saying some stuff
about this. Just taking ourgood, old-fashioned fiat
currency that came fromplantation capitalism and fossil
fuels all that stuff, and doingsomething that is directly good
with it that we understand, andthat is not about our own
personal remuneration. It'sabout creating good for the
community. That's what slowmoney is. It's a very simple and
direct utilization of the moneywe have to do something good.
Brian Czech (31:48):
Fantastic. Woody, it's been great talking with
you, and we wish you all thebest with Beetcoin. We are
certainly going to be moreinterested in Beetcoin over
time, and we'll be, we'll comeback around to you probably
later in the year for afollow-up, and thanks so much
for challenging some of thefundamental assumptions about
(32:08):
growth too.
Woody Tasch (32:10):
Well, if we just you know, we can blame Herman
Daly, and E. F. Schumacher, andWendell Berry if we want. I
sometimes joke that these guysall ruined my life, because I,
you know, I read their bookswhen I got out of school, and I
believed that they were right.
And then I thought, okay, ifthey're right, what do I, how do
I live in a way that manifeststhose ideas? And that's a bit of
a challenge, but, so that's myway of saying thank you for
(32:32):
having me. It was a privilege toassociate myself however briefly
with steady state economics andthe work you guys are doing. So
thank you.
Brian Czech (32:55):
Well, folks, that about wraps 're up. We've been
talking with Woody Tasch,founder and Chair of Slow Money
Institute and author of AHA!Fake Trillions, Real Billions,
Beetcoin and the Great AmericanDo-Over. Beetcoin is drawing
attention to the fundamentallinks between our food system
and the broader economy,unsustainable links at this
(33:17):
point. And it's not just avanity project for rich hippies,
or even -- should I say --beatniks. When people ask how
farming or business would workin a steady state economy,
Beetcoin makes for a greatexample, especially with those
0% interest loans. We encouragelisteners to take a look at
beetcoin.org for great food forthought, and to consider a
(33:41):
donation to a Beetcoin projectas well. I'm Brian Czech, and
you've been listening to TheSteady Stater podcast. See you
next time!
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