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THE RIVER Growing Flowing down to THE SEA
Page 9 by Elizabeth Abraham

In the COUNTING house the fruits of work were no longer just the fruits of living, that can be measured directly in the creation of an abundant, beautiful and tranquil life, where people are at one with nature and one another; and in the satisfaction and ease of a job well done, where people are at ease with themselves.

These fruits had to be measured in quantities of money and goods. So the primary values became secondary. And the more people in their control of work were alienated from their primary matrix in Nature and personal relationship, losing that primary satisfaction, the more good and reasonable it has seemed to work for the reward of money instead, and to make money and goods a justification and an alibi for that alienation.

For this was not just a question of moving from a 'subsistence economy' to a 'market economy' because there was now a 'surplus' available for trading (as the economic text books tell you).

Real markets are friendly, humane and communitarian places, where human motives interact. The ruthless calculations of advantage are not done in the marketplace at all, but hidden in the very different environment of the carpeted office block. Real markets retain still the atmosphere of the personal way of life; they are more a haven for artists and tourists than for ECONOMIC man.

It is rather a question of moving from human values, the values of ease and of the home, to the values of the COUNTING house.

There is no was you can translate into money terms the cooperative transactions of home, family and community, whether or not home

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