Reformation, Acrylic on paper, 24" x 18"
Buy Prints here: Michael Stancato Art
What's behind the title "The Reformation"?
Linchpin, Are You Indispensable?
by Seth Godin ©2010
(Martin Luther and the Beginning of the Money Culture)
The Protestant Reformation permitted the explosion of commerce that led to the world we live in now. Once the Reformation began to spread, Martin Luther was heavily lobbied by powerful local interests. In response, he gave princes and landlords the moral authority to take over the commons and rent the land back to the people who lived on it.
The new church was looking for political support, and its embrace or mercantilism guaranteed that it would get that support from power brokers that had chafed under the Catholic Church's opposition to the practice of charging interest and the commercialization of formerly common lands. (The Catholic Church wanted to keep local lords, princes, and kings weak, of course, because it was built around a strong universal leader, the pope.)
One of the factors in the growth of the Protestant Reformation was that commercial interests supported its spread because they needed the moral authority to lend and borrow money. It's hard to overestimate how large of a shift this led to in the world's culture and economics.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, it created a world where "the merchant has no homeland." If everyone is a stranger, it's a lot easier to do business. If everyone is a stranger, then we can charge for things that used to be gifts.
Martin Luther saw that embracing the needs of local power brokers could enhance the spread of Protestantism. With little alternative, the pope follow suit. The ban on usury was refined, double-talked, and eventually eliminated.
Suddenly, your tribe was profit center. If you knew a lot of people, you could make money from them. Social leadership magically translated into financial leadership.
158
Now we live in a world where corporate tribe members are likely to be as important to us as family.
Human beings have a need for tribe, but the makeup of that tribe has changed forever. Now, the tribe is composed of our coworkers or our best customers, not only your family or our village or religious group.
This double shift means that the best professional entanglements aren't with strangers; they are with the tribe.
But tribe members are family, and we shouldn't be charging them interest! Tighter bonds produce better results, and so the gift culture returns. Full circle, from gift to usury and back to gift.
A loan without interest is a gift. A gift brings tribe members closer together. A gift can make you indispensable.
The Forgotten Act of the Gift
For five hundred (500) years, since the legislation of usury and the institutionalization of money, almost every element of our lives has been about commerce.
Example: I'm going downtown by cab from the airport. There are forty fellow travelers in the cab line. If I call out, "Anyone want to share a cab to the Marriot?" people look at me funny. They don't want to owe me for the ride, don't want to interact, don't want to open themselves up to the connection that will occur from taking my gift of a ride. They'd rather pay for it, clean and square, and stay isolated. It's hard to imagine two Bedouin tribespeople isolating from each other with such enthusiasm.
159
The Difference Between Debt and Equity
When someone invests in your business and takes some founder's stock, he gets closer to you. He is on your side, because when you win, he wins.
When a bank loans you money for college, it becomes the Other. The bank is opposed to you, sapping your resources and taking money first, not last. College loans are the ones you can't discharge, even in bankruptcy. The bank that made the loan usually sells it, so there's no connection to you any longer. The bank doesn't offer counseling or peer support or even check in with you about your career choices. They just demand to be paid. No equity investor would act this way.
There are many forms of equity, and few of them involve cash. When you invest time or resources into someone's success or happiness, and your payment is a share of that outcome, you become partners.
If this section on gifts and debt and reciprocity feels strange, it's a symptom of how much humanity has been drummed out of you by a commercial imperative run amok...
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Linchpin, Are You Indispensable?
by Seth Godin ©2010
(Martin Luther and the Beginning of the Money Culture)
The Protestant Reformation permitted the explosion of commerce that led to the world we live in now. Once the Reformation began to spread, Martin Luther was heavily lobbied by powerful local interests. In response, he gave princes and landlords the moral authority to take over the commons and rent the land back to the people who lived on it.
The new church was looking for political support, and its embrace or mercantilism guaranteed that it would get that support from power brokers that had chafed under the Catholic Church's opposition to the practice of charging interest and the commercialization of formerly common lands. (The Catholic Church wanted to keep local lords, princes, and kings weak, of course, because it was built around a strong universal leader, the pope.)
One of the factors in the growth of the Protestant Reformation was that commercial interests supported its spread because they needed the moral authority to lend and borrow money. It's hard to overestimate how large of a shift this led to in the world's culture and economics.
As Thomas Jefferson wrote, it created a world where "the merchant has no homeland." If everyone is a stranger, it's a lot easier to do business. If everyone is a stranger, then we can charge for things that used to be gifts.
Martin Luther saw that embracing the needs of local power brokers could enhance the spread of Protestantism. With little alternative, the pope follow suit. The ban on usury was refined, double-talked, and eventually eliminated.
Suddenly, your tribe was profit center. If you knew a lot of people, you could make money from them. Social leadership magically translated into financial leadership.
158
Now we live in a world where corporate tribe members are likely to be as important to us as family.
Human beings have a need for tribe, but the makeup of that tribe has changed forever. Now, the tribe is composed of our coworkers or our best customers, not only your family or our village or religious group.
This double shift means that the best professional entanglements aren't with strangers; they are with the tribe.
But tribe members are family, and we shouldn't be charging them interest! Tighter bonds produce better results, and so the gift culture returns. Full circle, from gift to usury and back to gift.
A loan without interest is a gift. A gift brings tribe members closer together. A gift can make you indispensable.
The Forgotten Act of the Gift
For five hundred (500) years, since the legislation of usury and the institutionalization of money, almost every element of our lives has been about commerce.
Example: I'm going downtown by cab from the airport. There are forty fellow travelers in the cab line. If I call out, "Anyone want to share a cab to the Marriot?" people look at me funny. They don't want to owe me for the ride, don't want to interact, don't want to open themselves up to the connection that will occur from taking my gift of a ride. They'd rather pay for it, clean and square, and stay isolated. It's hard to imagine two Bedouin tribespeople isolating from each other with such enthusiasm.
159
The Difference Between Debt and Equity
When someone invests in your business and takes some founder's stock, he gets closer to you. He is on your side, because when you win, he wins.
When a bank loans you money for college, it becomes the Other. The bank is opposed to you, sapping your resources and taking money first, not last. College loans are the ones you can't discharge, even in bankruptcy. The bank that made the loan usually sells it, so there's no connection to you any longer. The bank doesn't offer counseling or peer support or even check in with you about your career choices. They just demand to be paid. No equity investor would act this way.
There are many forms of equity, and few of them involve cash. When you invest time or resources into someone's success or happiness, and your payment is a share of that outcome, you become partners.
If this section on gifts and debt and reciprocity feels strange, it's a symptom of how much humanity has been drummed out of you by a commercial imperative run amok...
-----
Story inspired by Catherine Quillman’s recounting of her experience as a “Tree” in the West Chester Halloween Parade:
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The Halloween Parade Discrepancy
The West Chester Halloween parade has magically mushroomed into a multi-sensory extravaganza. But the real change has been how the paraders throw candy and trinkets to throngs of screaming children. The event directive has been redesigned for maximum consumptive uptake.
The West End/Uptown kids were all lined up, aggressively diving onto the pavement whenever candy was launched, and they had all kinds of various devices in which to get the maximum hi-fructose corn syrup; pumpkin shaped barrels, hollowed out skulls, a giant plastic hand with a hole in the middle, like a Jesus stigmata designed to grasp, hunt and gather maximum sugar.
One West End Boy was like a King Tut on a fire truck pulled by his blood-lined entourage. Dressed all up in full flame regalia complete with plastic boots, helmet, asbestos overcoat adorned in reflective stripes. His mask? No mask... instead a look of expectation to be pulled and pushed in the direction of maximum sugar.
But as soon as you leave the well lit main part of town the tone changes. There's a discrepancy. The East End little black kids didn’t even have candy bags. They’re all standing slumped over and somber with their little hands hanging straight down.
It’s like none of them got the special full color brochure leaving them with less than the will of a zombie.
