The first Associative Economics Café Sebastopol took place a few weeks ago at the Youth Annex. Philip Beard spoke about the Sonoma County GoLocal Cooperative and the subsequent article in Associate!, an economics journal from the Center for Associative Economics in England. Ed Baumheier, now in Forest Row England, sent his best to the new AE Café as he prepares to work in the near future with Arthur Edwards on financial literacy and associative economics education for students. Also in attendance, Community Center director Rob Cary expressed his enthusiasm for the Financial Drivers License program and welcomed the CfAE gift of years of back issues of Associate Economics journal that will be available for the Associative Economics Café room at the Youth Annex. The ae café and research group is part of a larger effort to develop and deliver a modular financial and economic literacy curriculum for middle and high school students. We also talked about inviting Arthur Edwards to the area for a Colors of Money weekend workshop in conjunction with an economics teaching and research seminar for teachers, parents and bookkeepers.

The idea of the Financial Drivers License is to give young adults the means to steer their own life through an increased awareness of the economic and financial ‘rules of the road’. It is for young adults at the threshold of stepping out into the world with their unique destinies and contributions. Understanding economics and finance through visual art and money science can stimulate both imaginative mobile thinking as well as objective precision, leading to a new and increasingly accurate perception of the economic world students will soon be entering.

The Science Buzz Café and United Plant Savers at the Sebastopol Community Cultural Center created a friendly and festive market (16 vendors) mixed with the SBC presentation. The Associative Economic Café had its second meeting the following day. The economic activity and relationships from the previous evenings science café cultural/commercial event seemed to echo through to the next days discussion about price, value, exchange and capital formation at the second AE Café study group using ‘Prelude in Economics’. At AE Café # 2 we talked about the fact that economics is generally thought to be simply about providing the material needs of the human being. Upon further discussion it became apparent to most that exchange creates value. What does this mean? “How does exchange itself create capital over and above meeting material needs of each side of the transaction?”

Other major ideas of associative economics will be discussed at the next gathering. Barbara and Marianna are rereading the first three sections for the next ae café. In economics there is no such thing as intrinsic value, for economic value is given and taken away by human beings. Every value created is used up. If storing value is an illusion, what is used up when we think values are ‘stored’? Values come into being and go out of being. We will spend time on this one. We took a little time at the end to talk about the capital formation process that will continue this coming Friday the 26th of February for the Associative Economics Café # 3 at the Youth Annex. So far - Price, Value, Capital, Exchange, Production and Consumption.

daniel@economicsfoundation.org