Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We propose the following set of five features, based on the values of self-management, equity, solidarity, diversity, and sustainability, as a foundational framework for a good economy for all, an economic vision known as participatory economics.
There are many possibilities for reining in corporations. But perhaps simply banning corporations beyond a certain size would be best.
In the United States, the city of Portland, Oregon offers some leadership in terms of what this might look like in action. The city boasts a lively network of partnerships between nonprofits, businesses, civilians, and different bureaus and layers of government.
Brewer instead puts forward a plan to create a planetary network of local living economies, organized as bioregions. This idea builds on the pioneering work of Dana Meadows and “The Limits to Growth” study published in the early 1980s.
It’s impossible to talk about Vision without also talking about Strategy for they are two sides of the same coin and they are both necessary. Without Strategy, we can never reach our Vision. Without Vision, our Strategy will meander aimlessly.
The idea is to try to bring degrowth’s abstract ideas to the ground and think more concretely about the metabolisms, policies, economics and politics that can make degrowth REAL.
Brian Czech once likened modern economic growth to a runaway train. This metaphor drives home the point that to save nature and humanity from an ecological train wreck, the most important thing is to decelerate the global economy.
In other words, information becomes an asset in the service of economic growth—just like our very interactions with one another on social media have been turned into economic activity.
Gwendolyn Hallsmith is the Executive Director of Global Community Initiatives, a non-profit organization she founded in 2002, and has just celebrated their 20th anniversary. She answers the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
With declining real wages, often precarious contracts, and stressful working conditions, parties that use communication tactics or promote policies that prompt strong negative emotional responses are more likely to attract voters then their more temperate rivals.
The solutions to these economic and temporal inequalities should be rooted in the goal that all workers, irrespective of gender, are able to devote equal time to care and other unpaid work.
My book ‘Uncommon Wealth’ and ‘BOOMERANG’ meets this challenge by examining how an honest reckoning with the legacies of empire can help us understand and address the roots of our current crises to finally create an economy that works for all.
