{"id":44,"date":"2026-02-07T23:47:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T23:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/?page_id=44"},"modified":"2026-02-21T02:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:56:11","slug":"the-canon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/?page_id=44","title":{"rendered":"THE CANON"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE GUILD SYLLABUS<\/h1>\n

The 27 Foundational Texts of Restorative Inquiry<\/p>\n

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To dismantle the system, you must first understand its internal logic. This curriculum is designed to move the reader from Diagnosis<\/strong> to Restoration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PHASE I: THE DIAGNOSIS (How the Machine Works)<\/h2>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To understand the system’s internal logic and its deceptions.<\/p>\n

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1. The New Industrial State<\/h4>\n

John Kenneth Galbraith<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Technostructure.<\/strong> The economy is not controlled by “market forces” but by corporate planning systems that manufacture consumer demand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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2. The Theory of the Leisure Class<\/h4>\n

Thorstein Veblen<\/p>\n

The Concept: Conspicuous Consumption.<\/strong> The system is driven not by utility, but by status signaling. Efficiency is sabotaged by “Business” to maximize profit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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3. Zombie Economics<\/h4>\n

John Quiggin<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Zombie Idea.<\/strong> Theories like “Trickle-Down” were killed by the 2008 crisis but keep rising from the dead because they serve the powerful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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4. Technofeudalism<\/h4>\n

Yanis Varoufakis<\/p>\n

The Concept: Cloud Capital.<\/strong> Capitalism is replaced by a feudal system where Tech Giants are lords and we are serfs producing data-rent for free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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5. Private Government<\/h4>\n

Elizabeth Anderson<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Communist Dictatorship of the Workplace.<\/strong> Modern firms are private governments where employers exercise sweeping, arbitrary, and unaccountable authority.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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6. Financial Instability Hypothesis<\/h4>\n

Hyman Minsky<\/p>\n

The Concept: Stability Breeds Instability.<\/strong> In prosperous times, profit-seeking firms move toward “Ponzi” financing, ensuring a fragile state and systemic collapse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

PHASE II: THE GENEALOGY (How We Got Here)<\/h2>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To see that the current order was not inevitable; it was constructed by specific choices.<\/p>\n

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7. The Great Transformation<\/h4>\n

Karl Polanyi<\/p>\n

The Concept: Fictitious Commodities.<\/strong> The dangerous lie that Land, Labor, and Money are just items for sale. When treated this way, society rebels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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8. The Heart of Christianity<\/h4>\n

Marcus Borg<\/p>\n

The Concept: Faith as Assent.<\/strong> Faith shifted from “Loyalty” to “Believing Impossible Things,” creating a mind rigid enough to accept Market Fundamentalism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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9. Democracy in Chains<\/h4>\n

Nancy MacLean<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Constitution of Lock-in.<\/strong> How institutions were deliberately designed to shackle democracy so the poor could never tax the rich.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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10. The Reactionary Mind<\/h4>\n

Corey Robin<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Counter-Revolutionary Impulse.<\/strong> Conservatism is an activist doctrine born in reaction to challenges from below to win back privilege.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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11. Prison Notebooks<\/h4>\n

Antonio Gramsci<\/p>\n

The Concept: Cultural Hegemony.<\/strong> Power is maintained through “Civil Society”\u2014the web of schools and media that manufacture spontaneous consent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PHASE III: THE CRISIS (The Cracks in the Wall)<\/h2>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To analyze the collision with physical and social reality.<\/p>\n

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12. Crashed \/ Chartbook<\/h4>\n

Adam Tooze<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Poly-Crisis.<\/strong> We are facing a tangle of feedback loops where solving one problem worsens another.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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13. Less is More<\/h4>\n

Jason Hickel<\/p>\n

The Concept: Degrowth.<\/strong> Infinite growth on a finite planet is madness. We must plan a democratic downscaling of production.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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14. Thinking in Systems<\/h4>\n

Donella Meadows<\/p>\n

The Concept: Overshoot and Feedback Delays.<\/strong> Systems are driven by internal structure. Exponential growth on a finite planet leads to inevitable overshoot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PHASE IV: THE MORAL ARCHITECTURE (The Soul)<\/h2>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To rebuild the definition of Justice and the Good Life.<\/p>\n

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15. What Money Can\u2019t Buy<\/h4>\n

Michael Sandel<\/p>\n

The Concept: Market Society.<\/strong> Pricing civic goods (health, education) corrupts their value and crowds out moral norms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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16. A Theory of Justice<\/h4>\n

John Rawls<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Veil of Ignorance.<\/strong> A just economy is one you would be happy to be born into blindly\u2014maximizing for the least advantaged.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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17. Development as Freedom<\/h4>\n

Amartya Sen<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Capability Approach.<\/strong> Poverty is a deprivation of freedom. The goal is to expand what humans can actually do and be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

PHASE V: THE NEW PARADIGM (The Hope)<\/h2>\n

Objective:<\/strong> To design an economy embedded in the Earth and the Spirit.<\/p>\n

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18. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander<\/h4>\n

Thomas Merton<\/p>\n

The Concept: The True Self.<\/strong> Resistance begins by rejecting the “Consumer” and reclaiming the “True Self” in communion with others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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19. Small is Beautiful<\/h4>\n

E.F. Schumacher<\/p>\n

The Concept: Buddhist Economics.<\/strong> Work is spiritual nourishment. The economy should maximize well-being with minimum consumption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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20. For the Common Good<\/h4>\n

Herman Daly & John Cobb<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Person-in-Community.<\/strong> Replacing Homo Economicus with a view of humans interconnected with each other and the Earth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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21. Tools for the Transition<\/h4>\n

Meadows et al.<\/p>\n

The Concept: Redesigning Information.<\/strong> Shifting feedback structure to motivate sustainability, moving from “Growth” to “Development.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

APPENDIX: THE STRUCTURAL FOUNDATIONS<\/h2>\n
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22. Globalists<\/h4>\n

Quinn Slobodian<\/p>\n

The Concept: Encasement.<\/strong> Designing international law to “encase” the market, protecting property rights from democratic voters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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23. Debt: The First 5,000 Years<\/h4>\n

David Graeber<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Myth of Barter.<\/strong> Markets were created by states to fund wars. Debt is a moral relationship recently weaponized for domination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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24. The Age of Extremes<\/h4>\n

Eric Hobsbawm<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Great Compromise.<\/strong> The “Golden Age” of high wages was a concession made by elites terrified of the Soviet alternative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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25. Debtor Nation<\/h4>\n

Louis Hyman<\/p>\n

The Concept: Financialization.<\/strong> Corporations realized they could profit more by lending money for consumption than producing goods.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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26. The Half Has Never Been Told<\/h4>\n

Edward Baptist<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Whipping Machine.<\/strong> American industrial dominance was built on the torture-based securitization of enslaved people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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27. Civilization and Capitalism<\/h4>\n

Fernand Braudel<\/p>\n

The Concept: The Longue Dur\u00e9e.<\/strong> History moves in deep currents that dwarf political events. We must look at 500-year cycles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Knowledge is a Commons.<\/p>\n

Return to Mission<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE GUILD SYLLABUS The 27 Foundational Texts of Restorative Inquiry To dismantle the system, you must first understand its internal logic. This curriculum is designed to move the reader from Diagnosis to Restoration. PHASE I: THE DIAGNOSIS (How the Machine Works) Objective: To understand the system’s internal logic and its deceptions. 1. The New Industrial … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-44","page","type-page","status-publish"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/44\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guildofinquiry.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}