Partnerism

Partnerism is an economic and cultural system based on nature and caring, as an alternative to domination culture. Unlike Capitalism and Socialism, Partnerism recognizes the economic value of care and adequately rewards it in both the market and non-market sectors. Partnerism was first coined by Riane Eisler in The Real Wealth of Nations and most internationally recognized in The Chalice and the Blade.

Domination/Partnership Social Scale

Domination/Partnership Social Scale
Domination	Partnership
In groups and out groups	Everyone matters
Hierarchies of domination	Hierarchies of actualization
Power maintained by force and fear	Increase in liberty and expression
Inequality	Equality: gender, race, etc
Ignores economic value of caring	Care is valued economically
Violence and abuse	Human flourishing and creativity

Hierarchies of Actualization

A Partnership System is not a completely flat structure. We can’t just do away with hierarchies. Sometimes someone has to make a decision. Riane Eisler coined the term “Hierarchies of Actualization” to describe how hierarchies are constructed in Partnership Systems. In Hierarchies of Actualization, parents, managers, leaders and others in positions of authority seek to uplift and empower others. In hierarchies of domination, rigid rankings are used to control others and keep people deemed inferior “in their place".

The Four Cornerstones

Riane Eisler’s research reveals four interactive levers for shifting away from domination systems toward Partnership Systems. Eisler’s scholarship directs us to focus our efforts in these four areas as foundational to build Partnership Systems. In a hierarchy of domination, accountability, mutual respect/ mutual benefitonly flow from the bottom up. In a Hierarchy of Actualization, they flow both ways. And that’s a huge difference.

Family & Childhood relations

Partnerism values the work of caring.
Neuroscience shows that what children experience and observe, starting at birth, determines how our brains develop and therefore how we think, feel, and act. Infants and children absorb partnership or domination worldview's from parents' relationships with each other and from their relationships with parents and siblings, long before they go to school and long before critical mental faculties are developed.

Gender relations

Partnerism values all people, regardless of gender or other differences.
How a society constructs gender roles and relations not only affects everyone’s individual life options; it affects families, education, religion, politics, and economics. When people learn to equate the physical differences between male and female with superiority or inferiority, dominating or being dominated, being served or serving, they internalize a template that can automatically be applied elsewhere: race, religion, ethnic, sexual orientation, etc..

Economic relations

Partnerism recognizes that the real wealth of our world consists of the contributions of people and of nature.
The gap between haves and have-nots has been growing among and within nations. This is a crisis. Moving to a more robust, sustainable and humane economics is not only vital for human and environmental reasons, but for purely economic ones. A caring economics of Partnerism recognizes that the real wealth of our world consists of the contributions of people and of nature.

Narrative/Language

Partnerism supports empathetic, mutually beneficial, caring relationships.
We need the language of partnership systems to transcend old categories and to describe beneficial social and economic systems. A caring democracy requires accurate narratives about 'human nature'. This will require a concerted effort in which the arts, music, literature, and education are informed and inspired by science and caring values.

Domination vs Partnerism Languaging
Domination	Partnership
We are shooting for a Thursday deadline	Our intention is to complete this project by Thursday
We are aiming to finish	Our plan is to finish
Let's target this demographic	Let's focus on this demographic
I dodged a bullet	Things worked out for the best
Deadline	Deliverables, due date, tasks done, life cycle
Fight injustice	Heal injustice
Killing time	Filling time
Mankind	Humankind
Kill two birds with one stone	Feed two birds with one scone
I really killed it/crushed it/nailed it	I really brought it to life
I will what that into shape	I will concentrate on this project
Take a stab at	Attempt, try
Things went South	Things went downhill from there
Spearhead an effort	Initiate an effort
Man the office	Staff the office
Command central	Action hub

New Economic Map

The Partnerism economic model includes the full spectrum of economic relations, from how humans relate to our natural habitat. This requires a complete and accurate map that includes all economic sectors with the household as the core inner sector. In the dominator economy, the foundational economic sectors, household, unpaid community, and natural are N/A (not applicable), omitted.

New Economic Map
	Domination	Partnership	Examples
Household economy	N/A	Core sector	Caring, caregiving
Unpaid community economy	N/A	Second sector	Volunteering, barter, community currency
Market economy	Core sector	Third sector	The conventional fiat economy
Illegal economy	Second sector	Fourth sector	Drug/sex/arms trade
Government economy	Third sector	Fifth sector	Policies/laws/rules governing market economy; public services
Natural economy	N/A	Sixth sector	Natural environment

Restructuring Economic Systems

Restructuring Economic Systems
Domination	Partnership
Ignore contributions of the life-sustaining activities of households, communities, and nature.	Recognize contributions of the life-sustaining activities of households, communities, and nature.
Rules, policies, and practices inhibit human development, creativity, equitable relations, mutual responsibility, and concern for nature and future generations.	Rules, policies, and practices support human development, creativity, equitable relations, mutual responsibility, and concern for nature and future generations.
Technological applications are driven by an ethos of control and domination.	Technological applications are driven by an ethos of caring and partnership.
Measurements of economic productivity include activities that harm people and nature, and fail to include essential non-market life-supporting activities.	Measurements of economic productivity exclude activities that harm people and nature, and include essential non-market life-supporting activities.
Economic structures are designed to support concentration of assets and power at the top, with little accountability to those on bottom.	Economic structures are participatory and equitable, designed to support mutual accountability and benefit.
Human needs and capacities are often exploited, and nature is depleted and polluted.	Human needs and capacities are nurtured, and our natural habitat is conserved.
Investment in developing the high-quality human capital needed for the postindustrial age is inadequate.	Investment in developing the high-quality human capital needed for the postindustrial age is a top priority.
Is not sustainable at our level of technology in an inextricably interconnected world.	Can help us meet the social, economic, and ecological challenges we face.

History

In the prehistory of humans, partnership used to be the norm. In both the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, there are examples of matriarchal societies preceding patriarchies. British archaeologist James Mellaart, for example, reported a Neolithic site with many female images and no signs of destructive warfare for almost 1000 years. For thousands of years, people lived in these peaceful partnership societies, until warlike nomadic tribes disrupted the balance with their dominator cultures (5000 B.C.E., 3000 B.C.E.).

The Paleolithic Age (3 million to 10,000 B.C.E.)

Cave art, dating back over 30,000 years from the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age, Stone Age, does not express any form of domination culture. Instead of images celebrating the power to take life, what we instead see are images celebrating the life giving and nurturing powers of nature, often as incarnated in the body of woman.

The Neolithic Age (10,000 to 3000 B.C.E.)

In the Neolithic or first agrarian cultures going back about 10,000 years, we first see a profusion of female images, and, reflecting a massive cultural shift, their disappearance toward its end. We see the first signs of domination culture stemming from nomadic culture around 5000 B.C.E., and becoming widespread by 3000 B.C.E.

The Bronze Age (3000 B.C.E. to 1000 B.C.E.)

The Minoan civilization on the Mediterranean island of Crete was a high civilization: a technologically, artistically, economically, and socially developed, centralized society, that flourished under a partnership-oriented system, with art, governance, economy and architecture that revered women and nature. It was one of the last remaining large-scale partnership civilizations in the world until domination culture replaced it.

Economy Policy

The economic policy goal of Parnerism is in developing the human capabilities of each person, not the level of monetary income per person.

Resources

Partnerism in SEEDS

Websites

• partnerism.org - Information site dedicated to activating a mainstream movement to build Partnership-based economic and social systems
• centerforpartnership.org - Center for Partnership Systems website
• learnpartnership.org - Learning center for partnerism with a focus on courses

Foundational Books

• The Chalice & The Blade: Our History, Our Future (Riane Eisler, 1988) - The most comprehensive explanation of how and why partnership and domination societies were conceptualized and normalized. Its main message is that our social norms frame our reality, but norms can be evolved towards peaceful and prosperous coexistence.
• Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination & Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future (Riane Eisler, 2019)
• The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (Riane Eisler, 2008)
• The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning, Healing Our Families, and Our World (A Practical Companion for "the Chalice and the Blade") (Riane Eisler, 1990) - Provides group exercises and activities as well as case studies of groups from different sectors learning about and implementing partnerism.

Additional Books

• Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body – New Paths to Power and Love - An intensive read on politics and inequality throughout written history, ex. institutionalized patriarchy.
• Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future - Research and insight in the neuroscience behind the two social systems of partnership and domination respectively and how they shape our internal and external realities. It addresses the importance of childhood experiences and learning, and our true human instincts of caring and compassion.

Documents

• Partnership Systems & Partnerism One Page - An informative infographic that highlights all the main components and building blocks of partnerism.
• How to Turn 20 Everyday Phrases From Negative to Positive - Shifting towards partnership/positive rhetoric and dismantling underlying violent/domination norms]

Partnerism Media Kit

Link to Partnerism Media Kit pdf by Center for Partnership Systems

Defining caring

Caring, caregiving in Partnerism are defined as activities guided by a caring orientation over a longer time horizon. It not only fulfills human needs and aspirations, it also offers a wholly different approach to business and government policies that are both financially and socially profitable. A caring orientation includes giving visibility and value to:

• the work of caring for children, the sick, and the elderly in households
• caring work in the market economy, such as child care, teaching, nursing, and caring for people in retirement homes
• being ethical in business and government
• the civic labor of building healthy communities, the social justice labor of progressive social movements, and the environmental labor needed to preserve a healthy natural environment for ourselves and future generations.

A caring orientation is also distinguished by a longer time horizon, taking into account short-term and long-term considerations.