The Rise of the New Economy Movement
notes on Alperovitz, Gar. “The Rise of the New Economy Movement.” AlterNet. 20 May 2012.
The New Economy movement:
The broad goal is democratized ownership of the economy for the 99% in an ecologically sustainable and and participatory community-building fashion.
A range of new economic models are being tried out in small scales–
- Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland and other co-ops
- “Generative economy” efforts that nurture community, respect environment
Some stats:
- over 130 million Americans belong to some form of cooperative, especially credit unions
- 2000 municipally owned utilities
- 25% of American electricity provided by co-ops and public utilities
- over 10 million Americans work at some 11,000 employee-owned firms
- over 200 communities operate community land trusts
“Move your money” and “bank transfer day” campaigns — efforts to shift money from corporate banks to some more democratic institution
“New banking” strategies — states wanting to set up public banks along the lines of the Bank of North Dakota
Active protest efforts — Occupy movement
Large-scale enterprise in a new economy? One important thing will be to “put worker, consumer, environmental or community representatives of “stakeholder” groups on corporate boards.”
Lots of intellectual muscle behind New Economy theories:
- Richard Heinberg– end economic growth
- James Gustave Speth– restructure entire system to deal with ecological problems, growth
- David Korten– agenda for a new economy which stresses smal Main Street business and building from the bottom up
- Juliet Schor– “Plentitude” oriented around medium-scale high-tech industry
- Gar Alperovitz– Pluralist Commonwealth, community-building system characterized by democratized forms of ownership
- Herman Daly– challenges to endless economic growth
- David Bollier– need to transcend privatized economics in favor of a “commons” understanding
- Elinor Ostrom– 2009 Nobel Prize for work on commons-based development
Huge challenges, mostly having to do with the huge scale of the task: “changing and democratizing the very essence of the American economic system’s institutional structure.”
- The political-economic structure is dominated by corporate interests, supported by the financial elite (who overlap heavily with said corporate interests)
- Increasing widespread judgment that economic growth must be reduced, even ended.
- Labor unions are committed to growth as as essential for maintaining jobs
Trade Practices 