The Path to Community Wealth

Step 2: Observe 2 Paths — Producing Well-Being or Consuming Well-Being

Community Wealth is all the monetary and non-monetary capital (relationships, respect, trust, environmental, energy, knowledge, attention, etc.) that create the basis of shared experiences leading to wisdom, empathy and community. It is these capital elements which transform a place from a collection of individual families sharing a ZIP code to a real community in which every member understands the purpose of Community is to produce the individual and mutual well-being of all the participants, in an ongoing way.

We have been acculturated to think of our well-being in solely economic terms, however, the true complexity of well-being is formed with a wide variety of capital forms involved, some of which are captured below:

The core driver of the community story is the household. Every decision made either produces or consumes the well-being of the household. Community stability starts at the household level and access to the tools of wealth production are essential to the sustainable future of those communities. Paraphrasing Mahatma Gandhi, if the household…