Introduction

We at ACO believe that in order to truly thrive we must bring awareness and connection to every level of our existence, from the planet, down to each society on the planet, down to each household in that society, down to each member of that household. Even that individual person will only thrive if they are aware and connected to all the parts of their minds, bodies, and lives. The concepts on this page represent some characteristics of healthy thriving highly functional systems.

List of Central Concepts

1. Systems Within Systems
2. 5 Steps for Change
3. What is “Enough”?
4. Enough But Not Too Much
5. Buddy System More Effective
6. Balance of Giving & Receiving
7. Awareness of All The Parts
8. Use the Resources Well
9. Acting on First Symptoms
10. Transparency & Authenticity
11. The Wisest Leader Is The Nexus
12. Everything Is Conditioning
13. Self Aware Systems
14. Mimic Natural Life for High Fxn
15. Use It or Lose It
16. Testable & Provable
17. Adaptable to be Sustainable
18. Summary: People First, Not Money

One year after coming up with our list, we found another awesome list of healthy living sustainable systems (including cells, bodies, ecosystems, the entire planet Earth, and even healthy sustainable businesses), see Principles of Healthy Living Systems by Elisabet Sahtouris and this article on Emergent Systems by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze that talks about how the large changes happen quickly throughout an entire large system, the kind of change that would make the whole human population thrive instead of just survive.

All the Parts of a Living System Are Also Systems Themselves

They’re all teams. They’re all networks. They’re all relationships. They’re all systems.
They’re actually systems within systems within systems, or teams within teams within teams.
Example: The electrons make up a team around a nucleus, collectively making up a molecule, which makes up an element, which makes up a compound, which makes up a cell. Then the cells are teams making up organs, which are teams making up a body, which are collectively with other bodies making up a family, which is part of a town, which is part of a state, which is part of a country, which is part of a species, which is part of a planet, which is part of a solar system, which is part of a galaxy, which is part of a universe. It’s not a hierarchy. No part is better or more important. Each successive system is just bigger and includes the other systems. Everything is inclusive and needs the other parts to function well for that part to also be optimally functional.

These systems within systems are not a hierarchy. For those interested in exploring this topic more, Ken Wilbur has written extensively about the concept of “holarchy,” namely that every individual thing, system, or idea, is a whole in itself and also is a part of another whole.

Five Steps for Sustainable Change in a Living System (ATAQT)

For change to happen and be maintained, the following are needed:

1. Awareness and Connection to all the parts in the system, including the ones which are working and the ones which are not working.
2. Tools and Structure in place to allow the change and maintain it.
3. Action.
4. Quantity. Have I done “enough” of 1, 2, & 3.
5. Timing. Are 1, 2, & 3 happening quickly “enough” (the speed necessary to be effective and optimal).

If acronyms are useful, think “The problem has been attacked -> ATAQT”.
Here are some examples of dysfunction due to having action without awareness or awareness without action.
Click here for examples of actions for connecting to mind, body, life, and society.

What Is “Enough”?

Remember steps 4 & 5 from Five Steps to Change (ATAQT):
Am I doing “enough” of something but not too much? (quantity)
Am I doing it quickly “enough”? (timing)
So what is “enough”?
Is it what my friends think is enough? My family? My society? Maybe, maybe not.
In the end, it’s really what all of the parts of my committee of self think and feel is enough, which includes considering my thoughts and feelings about my friends’, family’s, and society’s opinions.

Enough But Not Too Much

Are all the parts of the system being taken care of “enough” and yet not too much?
When all parts are in balance and getting enough of what they need, without getting too much, then each part thrives and the system thrives as a whole. If there is an imbalance with one or more parts, ALL the parts suffer.
(Here are some examples from the WIIFM Section.)

Using a Buddy System Is Almost Always More Effective Than Doing It by Myself

As we become aware of the patterns in our mind and life, nearly all of us need someone else to help us quickly and effectively see those patterns. For very deep patterns, it may be hard to see them ourselves, and it can be immensely helpful to have someone else who can help us to see them. This is almost always true even for a very highly aware person. We have also found it is much easier to stay in a right brain state when two or more people are doing it and/or reminding each other to do so. We have been conditioned in our society to believe we have to do things by ourselves and be “independent.” This could in some cases prevent us from creating support systems amongst our friends and family to mutually help each other. When we use the buddy system daily instead, we may gain awareness of our patterns more quickly and stay in a right brain state more of the time.

The idea of the buddy system can also be applied to our physical health. Maybe I’m getting increasing fatigue in the afternoons, and then I notice that I need to adjust some things in my bedroom so I get better sleep. It would be even better if I also ask myself how I can begin to better support my immune system. And then I can ask how I can get my other body systems working better, so that they all support each other. All of these things will probably have an effect on sleep, not just the things in my bedroom.

The symbiotic relationships in nature are also examples of a supportive “buddy” system. Whether we believe they are aware of it or not, it is easy to see many types of different species cooperate with one another. Small fish travel with large fish and help clean off their skin, while also receiving benefits to themselves, such as food and protection.

The Universe Likes a Balance Between Giving and Receiving

See Gift Economy, a concept from Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics. It seems like the profit-centeredness of Western culture focuses on receiving/asking/taking and the idea of scarcity, not enough to go around. It also focuses on how we have to deserve everything by working extremely hard… or by being related to someone else who at one point worked extremely hard.

What if I could notice, if I am receiving and asking for things all the time, the universe tends to give me less, which then reinforces the stuck pattern of thinking I never have enough and need to ask for more? What if I could notice, if I am giving all the time and there is not enough receiving, it can’t be long before there is nothing to sustain me and nothing left to give anymore? What if I could notice everything I do receive and everything I do give, and ask my whole committee of self what is the best thing for me to do right now for the whole universe including all the parts of me? Should I notice that I just received two things and should give something to someone else, even if I feel like I don’t have enough? Should I notice that I just gave two things and should receive or ask for something from someone else, even if I feel like I don’t deserve anything? Should I notice in each one of my relationships, if the person I am giving a lot to is also giving just as much to others or myself in some form and if not, maybe I should ask a little more from them? Should I notice in each one of my relationships, if the person I am receiving a lot from is also receiving just as much from others or myself in some form and if not, maybe I should help them more or ask others to help them more? Should I notice if I’m not good enough if I don’t pay the tab or if I don’t help the other people? Should I notice if I need to ask for 5 things when I enter the room before offering anything to anyone else? Should I notice my patterns whatever they are?

Do many of us in society focus too much on getting “enough” stuff for ourselves and stockpiling or saving it “enough” before giving to anyone else? What if instead of that, we could focus on giving a lot to ourselves and to others? What if we could notice all the parts of the system believing and feeling they are not getting enough, connect with all the patterns and see/feel all the truth and not truth of it, and ask for more resources to flow toward the parts of self not getting enough of something, the parts of the household not getting enough of something, the parts of the group or office or organization not getting enough of something, and the parts of society not getting enough of something?

In a highly functional system, all of the parts of the system get all the data about all the other parts of the system. In a highly functional system, parts of the system that are getting more of a needed resource than all the other parts just naturally redistribute the resources to balance it out. If this is not happening, it is probably a dysfunctional pattern in part of the system that feels it is not getting enough no matter what the balance with all the other parts. A highly functional system would also notice the timing and priority of which part should get the certain amount of resources first.

If this is happening everywhere in the system, connecting to all the patterns, every part of the system can see/feel that it is getting enough.

Is there really a scarcity? Do I really need to do what other people think is working hard enough to deserve things? Why is it that so many people in the population do seem to work very hard, perhaps at more than one job, and yet don’t seem to have enough time and/or resources to take care of themselves and their families? (See Lester Brown’s book Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization written in 2009 for many statistics on resources and scarcity. It is a veritable encyclopedia of statistics, data, references and scientific studies. For even more quantity and newness of data, see their website. For a more brief version without all the statistics, see the PBS Documentary “Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization” which is part of their Journey to Earth series which you can also buy on the same website. On YouTube it is split up into 6 parts on this playlist.

Are human beings really selfish by nature? Are animals really selfish by nature, operating according to the principle of survival of the fittest? See the movie I Am by (director?) for peer reviewed science showing animals and humans actually cooperate more by nature than they compete.

Awareness of ALL the Parts Is Important to Solve the Problem

Notice that to fully understand or solve problems in any one part of a living system, we need awareness of the other parts, and the parts of the parts. Basically we need awareness of the whole system at many levels, possibly all levels.

Get enough of the data:

• data from the other people and from all the different parts of the system
• different kinds of data – wants, needs, goals, dreams if there was an infinite amount of time and money, what was liked, as well as what could be improved
• intuitive data from inside yourself, how you feel
• ask for intuitive guidance to get more intuitive data
• remember the historical data from the things you’ve already tried

(Try not to assume that data that was true in the past is definitely true in the present or future. Try to see the data from the past as a possibility, but try not to have attachment that it must be 100% “the truth”.)
(Also see How Do I Make Change? How Do I Make Time?)

Use the Resources Well

Notice the resources I/we have available and whether I/we am/are using them well (including the people, talents, time, money, and all other resources). "Use" people available for their talents and other people’s talents. Notice what resources I have now for a limited time and so I should put them to wise use since I may not always have them in the future. Notice what resources I need and ask for them, both asking internally (intuition, committee of self) and asking externally (other people).

If I don't have a lot of skills, I could consider learning one that I’m interested in. Use all parts of the system efficiently. Have awareness of what each part is good at and use the part for that until it no longer makes sense (i.e. because that part has improved or learned a new skill and could now be doing something of higher level). Learn what I can learn to do now. Teach what I can now. Duplicate but not like a carbon copy. Everyone can teach & everyone can learn.

Don't do everything for the kids. Kids should learn to do all housework all education, all financial, all management of household, even decision making. Should do enough housework that parents can do less so can bring in money better and take better care of kids but kids should also be taking time to learn new stuff, not just crap but new specialization skills for family unit, and should keep helping original family unit but also allowed to help new family unit as well.

And similar to kids, if adults most capable of data entry than should need to contribute to system by doing data entry but also should be allowed to spend some time 50%? learning a new skill if want to, and if don't want to, should be thanked and appreciated and made to feel special for being awesome data entry people because system also needs them and needs them to be good at what they do. Same with garbage collectors, teachers, secretaries and any other job we used to think was unimportant just because more of us can do it. Instead we should help them realize what they like and how to be really good at it and also to have any opportunity they want to excel at that and/or to learn a new skill.

A Healthy Thriving System Notices & Acts on the First Signs and Symptoms of a Problem

One characteristic of a healthy thriving system is noticing and acting on the first signs and symptoms of a problem, thus allowing us to maintain full 100% function, awareness, and communication all the time.

Often we do not act on the early symptoms/signs of a problem in our society. Instead of noticing subtlety, it often takes an extreme event covered by the media for us to even begin discussing issues that are problematic much less implementing solutions at all the vr. One example is the media covering a flashy story on rescuing human trafficking victims, and movies like “Taken” where a girl is kidnapped and rescued, yet we rarely if ever see reports covering the statistics on human trafficking, the root causes of the problem, or the fact that it is happening once every minute of each day on average. And we do not routinely examine the multitude of factors within our system that are creating human trafficking. See the Information/Data section of Society-Connect.

Likewise, our healthcare system is often only able to diagnose people once their disease is fairly advanced. In the Ayurvedic system of diagnosis there are six stages of disease. Most allopathic diagnoses occur at what Ayurveda would call the fifth stage of disease. We are not used to seeing the subtle cues that something may be amiss in our bodies. If we had seen the subtle cues, we may have been able to halt and reverse the disease and not gotten it.

The special education system in Finland is a system that seems to do a better job of acting on the first symptoms. “Testing usually takes place before kids come to school and is usually done by family doctors. Many learning disabilities are also discovered by day care workers, all of whom are licensed and college-educated. If teachers feel a child needs help, they meet right away with the parent and get the child help. The parents can request extra tutoring and it will be provided. It turns out that most students need some special assistance at some time during their years in school. It is actually uncommon for students to never utilize any of these services at some point.” (See more.)

All the Parts of a Healthy Thriving System Have Transparency and Authenticity

In a well functioning human body, all parts easily communicate with all other parts. Similarly, that will create a higher functioning society as well. What if all people had all access to all the data (well organized and not suppressed)? What if we all had access to all the points of view, with none more emphasized or more valid than any other? A healthy system encourages all parts of itself to be transparent and authentic with all the other parts.

Notice if I find myself in a family or group that tells me how to think or discourages me from getting data from other sources. If that group can’t allow transparency and sharing of data openly, I should probably question how authentic and honest it is being with its members. Notice if I find myself only watching news from one media station. It would help my awareness and connectedness to get news from several media sources including ones of opposite points of view. Notice if I’m being fully transparent and authentic with myself first. Am I admitting how I really feel to myself? Am I noticing/feeling/allowing all the different parts of myself that play different roles and may not even agree with each other. (see Committee of Self) And then notice if I’m being fully transparent and authentic with other people? Or do I instead hide things, avoid certain subjects, and not share the data?

The Wisest Leader is the Nexus Between All the Parts

The wisest leader of any group encourages transparency and authenticity, communicates with all the parts, asks for ALL the data and takes guidance/suggestions from all the parts, and from all the parts of all the parts. The wisest leader is also making sure all the parts get summaries of all the data too. The wisest leader is like the communication system between all the parts, like the nervous system in a human body.

What We Thought was “Truth” is Really Just Conditioning

What if societal “norms,” “natural” behaviors, and even “reality” itself are actually all just conditioning? What if everything is conditioning? What if none of these things are “genetic” or “natural,” and what if those things are just the behaviors we learned to survive in our external environment, the behaviors we are taught in order to be considered acceptable by society? What if there is no “reality”, just the environments we’ve experienced so far? What if someone who has experienced enough different environments actually begins to see there is no one “right” way to do things and so they have less attachment to particular ways of doing things? We might call that person wise or worldly.

Whether we learned to listen to authority or to rebel against authority, both are learned behaviors. Neither one is the “right” way that we “should” be. We may have learned to be on time, or to always be late because part of us didn’t really want to be on time. Now this has become the “way we are”, but it’s not really just natural. It’s learned behavior known as “conditioning”.

Is it possible that our media has taught us to be highly critical of some things and not others? Notice that even what we are taught to criticize changes over time as the societal viewpoints change. For example, in the 1940s or 50s, interracial marriage would have been highly rebellious and ostracized, when today most of society would laugh or be critical of someone who had a problem with it.

Is it possible that our society has also taught us to be very skeptical of some things and not others? For example, we have been taught to be skeptical of conspiracy theories and UFOs. Yet fewer of us were taught to question how important it is to fit in by wearing the appropriate clothes or having the better cellphone. Notice that even clothing, something we take for granted as being “normal”, while being a very convenient invention with many advantages (insulation, pockets, keeping surfaces more clean, etc.), is also a form of societal conditioning and people in certain societies might not consider clothing necessary to function, at least not our idea of clothing in American culture. Did we learn to care more about what football team is winning than about we care war and systemic violence? What other conditioning can I identify in myself that I wasn’t even aware of? See I Can’t Be Racist Because.

Notice that conditioning is NOT all bad. The point is not to necessarily try and have no conditioning because we can’t really perfectly get rid of all of it, even if we try. It is useful to notice how we’ve been conditioned and to notice that many of our beliefs of how the world “should” be are actually attachments. Using clothing or eating certain kinds of food or having particular viewpoints are not problems in and of themselves. The question to consider is: Am I using my conditioning for a benefit? Or is my conditioning using me to my detriment and/or society’s detriment? At times, as I learn to use intuitive guidance, it might tell me to follow a conditioning habit that’s helpful, and other times it might tell me to do something very much outside of conditioning which may be the most appropriate thing to do for the greatest benefit of everyone. Notice that a more highly aware person uses conditioning when it is helpful, and may do something “abnormal” when they get intuitive guidance to do so.

With More Self Awareness, the System Asks Different Questions, & So Can Adapt & Improve Itself More Easily

When a client comes into an NSA office, they may be in various states of awareness about their health situation. A less aware person might ask, “How long will it take to fix this back pain and how much will it cost?” A moderately aware person might ask, “What patterns do I need to see in myself? How can I make my healing process even faster and more efficient and avoid repeating this situation?” Notice that the second person does not assume that any healthcare practitioner could even know exactly how long it could take to heal. They might recognize that every human body is different and that what actions they take or don’t take could influence the speed and cost of the recovery process. They might recognize they are already having various benefits to their life by having the back pain as well as costs, and so they may shift away from seeing it as a “problem.” A person who is in even higher awareness might ask, “Wow, I notice that my health situation is already giving me gifts and that feels happy and awesome even though I’m also having pain. Even the words the health practitioner is using are helping me to learn and connect with my own body better. How could I use the whole situation to pass on this benefit to others?” Notice the questions, dialogue, and even the definition of what is a “problem”, and how we have invited the problem into our life are completely different for a more aware person.

This is equally true for societal issues. To quote Audre Lorde:
"When people of color are expected to educate white people as to their humanity, when women are expected to educate men, and when lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world, the oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”

Imagine that one person has a huge pile of pecans, while another person has only one pecan. The poor person points at the rich person and asks, “Why do you have so many pecans? Don’t you think it’s unfair? Shouldn’t each member of my family and I be worthy of an equal share of pecans as what you have?” Even if the pecan-rich individual is willing to hear the problems of the other person, even if they say “Okay educate me,” at the end of the day, they can walk away with their pecans and the one-pecan person remains in the same situation. That one-pecan person has wasted their energy and time talking instead of learning to grow more pecans or some other food, etc. What if that one-pecan person asked different questions instead? What if they asked how they could create networks with other people like themselves? What if they stopped asking for admission to a system that is by its very nature not functional for all members of the system? What if the one-pecan person stopped trying to change the paradigm that isn’t changing anyway and instead asked how they could create a new system around the old one? We have been conditioned to be distracted, to be separate, to not notice each other, to not care for one another, to not listen to one another, and to not join together. What if we could ask different questions like: how can we use our collective abilities to create something? How can we both gain something from the experience? How can we share in the joy of helping one another? How can we reduce or remove the mentality of separation and “us versus them”?

Mimic Natural Life to Enhance the Most Function

Functional natural systems are complex sets of multi-directional interactions that foster the health of the entire system. Those systems teach, and learn, and improve themselves. We can use this idea to benefit our man-made systems too, especially if we make efforts to mimic ALL the parts of that natural system and not just the end result. The scientific field of biomimicry studies the processes of nature and applies them to technology. Ecosystems create more opportunities for life, these organisms have figured out how to take care of themselves while also taking care of the place where their offspring will live. Click here for 12 fantastic examples of nature showing us how in this TED talk by Janine Benyus on biomimicry.

Joel Salatin, who considers himself a “grass farmer,” emphasizes healthy grass on which animals can thrive in a symbiotic cycle of feeding. Cows are moved each day from one small pasture to another, where they eat the grass all the way down to the ground. A few days later at just the right timing, chickens in portable coops are moved in next, which proceed to dig through the cow dung to eat protein-rich fly larvae while further fertilizing the field with their chicken droppings. Joel is facilitating the function of a healthy ecosystem and by doing so, he gets healthier cows than normal and proves that grass fed cows can be done on a much larger scale. And there are few flies on the farm because the chickens are eating the larvae. Yay. Win win win for the cows, the chickens, the land, and the people. What if all our meat production could be like that?

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is another example. While the wolves were originally re-introduced to curb the elk population, the ecosystem is experiencing several other benefits. One study showed that “aspens, willows, and cottonwoods in the park’s northern range are thriving, in part because the increased wolf population has put a check on the number of elk in the park. And fewer elk and more diverse tree species have led to cleaner streams and rivers, with improved habitat for beaver and fish, which in turn provides more food sources for birds and bears. Even bison have benefited from the wolf reintroduction, because there’s less competition for food from elk, and bison aren’t a common target for wolves.”
(See more.

Another example is from a group of scientists who were trying to increase the population of an endangered songbird that was particularly difficult to breed successfully for many years. Finally, some people developed an innovative new method that attempted to do a much better job of mimicking the birds’ natural habitat and they had unprecedented success. (See more.)

On a smaller scale, we could notice that when we buy celery from the grocery store, it keeps longer when attached to the root base than if it is divided up into stalks called “celery hearts”. This is because it is an intact plant which is fighting for life, even if it doesn’t have leaves left. If you break up the stalks but don’t cut the root base off of each individual stalk, it’s not as good as the whole bunch together but it’s better than with the root base missing. As soon as you cut off the root base to make “celery hearts”, now it is a dead plant and is no longer fighting for life the same way. See Making Vegetables Last Longer which is part of the section on Eating Healthy While On The Go within Body Connect.

Use it or Lose it

We hear this phrase sometimes in modern society to mean that if we don’t keep using something regularly, we might lose the use of it. If we don’t keep exercising, we might lose some physical fitness so it becomes less easy to exercise and so on. A bigger way of looking at this concept is: a thriving living system maintains multi-directional awareness and connectedness among all the parts. If any system doesn’t pay attention to all the parts, it may forget how to access them and become less functional. Notice that this can happen with mind, body, relationships, money/abundance, society, planet, and all other parts of life.

For example, if a vertebra in my spine goes out of place, nerve signal is disrupted and it becomes harder for me to feel that area. The area has less mobility. If I don’t notice the problem then it may get worse and lead to a big injury. Instead, if I stretch and move gently, I might notice the area is not moving well, and the brain begin to sends more nerve signal to the area. I may feel some pain as the area begins to heal, but I get to avoid a larger injury.

If one member of a family is needy or selfish, the rest of the group is negatively impacted. If no one tells that person how she is impacting them in order to avoid conflict or be “nice,” they may begin to avoid her or stop relating to her. That person loses connection with the rest of the family, and may not even know why. Would it be better to effectively communicate to her the impact her behavior is having on others? The family might then be able to help her gain awareness of how her behavior is affecting them, and a more functional dialogue can begin.

This Is Testable and Provable

Instead of just believing what I read on this website, I could try some of the exercises and tools myself. If I don’t have results, I could contact ACO to help me tweak things. Instead of just believing what my friends, family, or group tell me, maybe it’s better to question every system and group, including ones I belong to. I don’t have to be harsh, but I could just ask questions and give feedback when data I’ve seen or heard in one place doesn’t seem to match data in another place. If I give all the systems direct feedback, both positive and constructively critical, it will help me fix my problem and will also help the entire system. We at ACO have seen our approach work for everyone thus far. If anyone can find an exception of something that is not working for them, we want to know about it. Our experience at ACO is that when someone is struggling with our tools, it’s probably just a misunderstanding and can be clarified or modified.

A Thriving System Is Adaptable in Order to Be Sustainable

The only thing I can really count on is change. Nothing stays the same forever. Everything is dynamic. I can adapt to it quickly and suffer less, or I can resist it and suffer more. Adaptation is required for any functional situation no matter what. We all adapt to our environment, whether we notice it or not. If someone grows up in a hostile environment, they may adapt by learning to be very docile to try not to evoke more hostility, or they may adapt by getting really tough in order to fight back. If someone grows up in a household where it’s hard to get a word in edgewise, they may adapt by never speaking up or they may adapt by being quite loud and jumping in to conversations without hesitation. If the spine goes out of alignment so the neck no longer turns as well, the person’s nervous system usually adapts to tilt the head every time they turn on that side so that they can still see behind them to back out of their driveway in their car. They might not even realize that they have lost some of their range of motion (ROM) in rotation and they now tilt their head a bunch automatically every time they go to turn it. Probably this person would also have been developing forward head carriage, a way that the body compensates for spinal cord tension that they hadn’t noticed, which had started before they lost part of their ability to turn their head. Left to continue, this will develop osteoarthritis in the neck vertebrae. If the person were to now develop more body awareness, especially of their neck ROM, their nervous system could get more connection with what is going on there and the arthritic process could be slowed down or even reversed.

Any system that is not adaptable to change of environment (including weather, culture, growth, decline, new people added to the system, etc.) will not be sustainable. Any part of the system that is not adaptable enough to changes in the environment will not be able to stay part of the system. If an employee cannot adapt to changes in their employer’s office, they will probably be asked to leave or told they need to begin adapting. If they are allowed to stay and yet are not adapting to the environment, they probably are not being as functional a part of the group as they started out.

Summary: A truly thriving system following the central concepts above would automatically put people first, not money, because it would realize for any of it to thrive, all of it would need to thrive.

Right now we live in a system that puts money first and people last. We believe that system does not allow anyone to truly be happy, healthy or thrive, not even the most wealthy members of society. Even members of the upper middle class often find themselves in debt, with huge mortgages and barely enough to pay their monthly expenses. At higher levels of income, there is often a pressure among the upper class to have a certain lifestyle, thus creating a scarcity mentality that keeps many people stressed out and overworked. And then the majority of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty with little hope of bettering their circumstances.

In the documentary Income Inequality for All, Nick Hanauer, one of the 1% wealthiest people in the world, talks about how without a thriving middle class, the whole economy suffers including the businesses of the most wealthy people because no one is buying anything except necessities. [Buy the documentary, or learn more] He talks about how the wealthiest households still only need a certain number of pairs of jeans or pillows and so when the middle class can’t afford to buy things, all businesses suffer because the wealthy are not going to make up for it with more spending. The documentary goes on to show how democracy itself is threatened because elections and political candidates become bought and are no longer unbiased working for the good of the public. If you don’t have a thriving middle class, the bulk of the population, you can’t have a thriving economy and democracy. Both the economy and democracy have to ultimately be unstable and fail.There are also other costs to EVERYONE, including the rich, that come from ignoring income inequality, as discussed here.

Notice that a truly thriving system, that follows the central concepts discussed above, could not and would not put money first and people last, nor would it make a hierarchy of people, nor any other type of true hierarchy. A truly thriving system following the central concepts above would automatically put people first because it would realize for any of the system to thrive, all of it would need to thrive.