Creating Multidimensional Capital and Embodying Living Economies In Your Daily Life

How to start crafting financial flows to serve energetic flows of life.

Our Money-Focused Economy Destroys Life

Our economy acknowledges the value of one thing over all else — money. However, money doesn’t have any inherent value. It’s value lies in the ability to exchange it for other forms of value that enhance the functioning and experience of life.

Money is useful to buy land / a house, it’s useful to feed yourself, and to experience cool things with your friends. But when money is used to make more money, with no intention of growing capitals of other forms, it gets messy.

We’ve seen it get destructive as GDP worldwide has gone up exponentially over the last few decades while biodiversity rates have plummeted. So we need a framework to implement to help us channel the flow of money into the vitality of ecosystems, human and non-human, to create more genuine wealth for ourselves, our communities, and our world instead of extracting the life from things to turn it into money.

Hello, Multidimensional Capital Frameworks

Enter the multi-capital framework, or a way to envision our monetary flows in the context of other more foundational flows that need to be sustained for money or civilization to function. Some claim there are 8 forms of capital. Others say there are 10, or even 20! I like working with the following framework of 5 forms of capital, derived from Neva Goodwin’s work and introduced to me by Regenesis. Here’s how Neva defines the different forms of capital:

Financial capital facilitates economic production, though it is not itself productive, referring rather to a system of ownership or control of physical capital.

Examples: Fiat Currencies, Cryptocurrencies

Human capital refers to the productive capacities of an individual, both inherited and acquired through education and training.

Examples: My “human capital” gets increased when I work on self-awareness and develop skills like gardening, copywriting, or woodworking.