Wheel

Indigenous people describe the cosmos as a Medicine Wheel, a Dharma Wheel of sacrifice. It turns when we give as well as receive. If we only take without giving back, our mouths eat but our souls die. This is the dignity of work.

A functional economy is also a Medicine Wheel, not only providing free gifts, but empowering citizens to work and pay those gifts forward. Only then do citizens turn the wheel, and feel whole.

Even Carl Marx understood this. He did not simply say "TO each according to their need," but “FROM each according to their ability." The earliest Christians lived collectively, yet they too followed the law of the wheel, quoted in Christian scripture: "He who will not work, shall not eat."

Our politicians preach too often about what people should get for free, and not enough about creating jobs. We don’t just need a nanny state, we need a marketplace with an even playing field to generate meaningful work. We need schools that partner with local businesses to teach marketable skills. We need to stop making capitalism a dirty word, and create partnership between government and business. We need a candidate whose vision turns the wheel.