Greetings from the New Economy

[Dan Clore]

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

[Some good info on various alternatives to state-corporate capitalism.
Smygo has a section of links on alternatives like these, that seek to
"build the structure of the new society in the shell of the old":

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/links/Counter_Economics_001186112419/

--DC]

http://www.zcommunications.org/greetings-from-the-new-economy-by-abby-scher
Greetings from the New Economy
August 04, 2012
By Abby Scher
Source: Dollars & Sense

�Are you ready for a new economy? Are you ready for a new politics?� The
challenge at the podium came from Gus Speth, the courtly co-founder of
the Natural Resources Defense Council, now a professor at Vermont Law
School, who is on the board of the newly created New Economics Institute
(NEI). The occasion was the founding conference of NEI, held at Bard
College in early June, and Speth was making a call for �an economy whose
very purpose is not to grow profit�but sustain people and the planet.�

NEI is the remade E.F. Schumacher Society, the group based in
Massachusetts� Berkshire mountains that promoted the wisdom of the
author of Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered for over
30 years. In honor of this early champion of a sustainable, just economy
and the idea that big is not necessarily better, the Society nurtured
economic innovations that support community building�community supported
agriculture, local currencies, local land trusts.

With the help of the London-based New Economics Foundation, the
Schumacher Society rethought what kind of �think and do� tank is needed
to transform our fossil fuel-powered, finance-bloated, inegalitarian
economy into one that is resilient, just, and sustainable in the
environmental and economic transition given true urgency by climate
change. And with the help of some deep pockets, it re-launched as NEI
and pulled together, all in one place on Bard�s rural campus on the
Hudson, some of the thinkers and organizers who might have a piece of
the puzzle.

People reimagining ownership and work on the job or in the academy,
ex-Wall Streeters revealing the secrets of how to curb the power of big
finance, community people reclaiming the commons�taking air, water, and
land out of the market�and rebuilding local economies from the bottom
up, advocates struggling with government to make it responsive, and
social scientists who are remaking our economic indicators�they may
never have talked with one another before the Strategies for a New
Economy conference. But as Bob Massie, the new executive director of NEI
said, together they created �raw energy.�

Beyond Growth and Finance

The �New Economy� moniker is bubbling around lately, with a meaning
recast far from President Bill Clinton�s neoliberal usage 20 years ago.
The venerable Washington DC-based Institute for Policy Studies has its
New Economy Working Group, a partnership with Yes! magazine and the
22,000-member Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). At
the core of the call for a New Economy is an effort to come up with
practical alternatives that democratize the control of the
economy�including workplaces, finance, and the structure of the firm�in
ways that are ecologically sustainable.

The focus on finance�on shrinking a dangerously unstable, extractive
banking sector and nurturing an alternative one�is powered by such
people as John Fullerton, the former JPMorgan managing director who
launched Capital Institute to promote the idea of finance �not as master
but as servant� and sees a role for �social impact� investing in the New
Economy.

It is in the New Economy movement that you�ll hear people talk about how
to build a �no-growth� economy that shares more and taxes the earth
less, a view promoted in the United States most notably by Boston
College professor Juliet Schor. On the board of the new NEI are thinkers
like Peter Victor of York University in Toronto, author of 2008�s
Managing Without Growth: Smaller by Design Not Disaster, and Stewart
Wallis, head of London�s New Economics Foundation, which has been
popularizing the no-growth idea for years.

�Even if everybody was to rediscover Keynes, that�s not the answer,�
Wallis told the NEI crowd, referring to the British economist who
popularized government investment in the economy during downturns, even
if it means running deficits, in order to boost demand and employment.
�We can have an economy with high well-being, high social justice� that
destroys the planet. �We need a new model, an economy that runs on very
different metrics, maximizing returns to scarce ecological resources,
maximizing returns [to] human well-being, good jobs.�

�We have to move from talking about ourselves as consumers to [regarding
ourselves as] stewards.� But the New Economy movement is a big tent, and
for some growth isn�t the question. For Marjorie Kelly, author of Owning
Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, and a fellow of the
Tellus Institute, the Boston-based think tank focused on sustainability,
growth isn�t the focus. In a chat at the conference �bookstore,� she said,

The problem is not growth but too much finance. You have the overlap of
debt, unemployment, lack of jobs for youth. ... We can�t have capital
markets run the economy. It has a destructive focus. It�s starting to
fall apart. That�s terrifying. You hold on desperately to what you have
as it collapses. But no, you have an alternative. You have the Right,
cutting taxes, deregulating. No serious thinker believes that those are
the solutions. ...There�s an inevitable sorting process. There�s some
loony ideas and we haven�t sorted that out yet. But they said that about
democracy.

Following the NEF and Schumacher, the New Economy umbrella also covers
those promoting more realistic economic indicators that measure people�s
well-being and ecological costs, including the Green GDP. It considers
which business forms�not just worker-owned companies but also so-called
B-Corporations that consider social impact�might be compatible with a
just, sustainable economy. It covers those challenging the
decontextualized, value-free world of neoclassical economics because, as
Massie said, �our current theories have blinded us.� In late June, this
was the agenda of Juliet Schor�s week-long Summer Institute in New
Economics at Boston College, where graduate students sat at the feet of
Gar Alperovitz of the University of Maryland, James Boyce of the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Duncan Foley of the New School, and
others.

It�s a big tent, and feels a bit like the Progressive Movement of the
early 20th century, when many elites and middle-class people began
questioning and even challenging how capitalism was organized. Partly
because of its high price tag, the Bard gathering was almost entirely
white and highly educated, deploring poverty but not necessarily touched
by it, yet highly motivated to build a more communal, cooperative
economy. How these middle-class reformers will share leadership with
low-income immigrants, progressive unions, and co-ops�key social bases
for the movement�is a bit of a mystery. It�s no mystery, however, that
any massive change in the U.S. political economy needs all these sectors
pulling toward change.

Andrew Simms, the Brit known for his creative leadership in The Other
Economic Summits (which dogged G-7 meetings for years before turning
into London�s New Economy Foundation), put class and political power on
the table when he told the meeting, �When I hear people talk about
sustainable capitalism, they are making a strategic error,� adding �If
we could get where we need to be by writing reports, we would have
gotten there.� The knowledge that the activists need to raise their game
ran through the conference. In his plenary, Massie acknowledged who
largely was not represented in the room: unions, communities of color,
youth, business. He asked his audience to ask in turn, �How can we work
together? How can we make this bigger and make the New Economy a reality?�

Solidarity and Division

It was only April 2009, at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, that the
U.S. Solidarity Economy Network held its own sizeable gathering. That
brought together people in progressive unions, worker co-ops, credit
unions, food co-ops, green jobs initiatives, and even the peace
movement. Inspired by the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta in 2007 and
Solidarity Economy movements in Latin America and Quebec, the network
was soon celebrating the United Steel Workers� announcement that it
would try to take over smaller enterprises for worker ownership, based
on the example of Spain�s Mondrag�n cooperatives�an effort slowed by the
impact of the economic crisis on the union. Canadian unions reported
using their pension funds to support worker ownership.

There is some overlap between the Solidarity Economy and New Economy
networks. The NEI conference sought out sustainable business networks
and social venture funders while the solidarity framework inspired more
lower-income people and people of color. Worker co-ops came to the New
Economy gathering at Bard. The green Cleveland co-ops�the complex
including industrial laundry and urban farm (see �America Beyond
Capitalism,� D&S, November/December 2011)�received a rousing reception.
And NEI board member and plenary speaker Gar Alperovitz is one of worker
ownership�s most vocal academic champions. But as Donnie Maclurcan, of
Australia�s Post-Growth Institute asked me at the opening session:
�Where is the acknowledgment of the custodians? [Thanking the janitors]
is standard in Australia.� A participant set up a sign on a picnic table
during lunch asking people to come over and talk about race and class.
The divide is deep. Speth was another who took on the divisions in the
movements directly but warned the group they had to overcome it:

Critical here is a common progressive platform. It should embrace a
profound commitment to social justice, job creation, and environmental
protection; a sustained challenge to consumerism and commercialism and
the lifestyles they offer; a healthy skepticism of growth mania and a
democratic redefinition of what society should be striving to grow; a
challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation,
its goals and its management and ownership; a commitment to an array of
prodemocracy reforms in campaign finance, elections, the regulation of
lobbying; and much more. A common agenda would also include an ambitious
set of new national indicators beyond GDP to inform us of the true
quality of life in America.

Thinkers like Alperovitz support democratizing our economy by building
out our existing network of land trusts, consumer and worker
cooperatives, employee stock ownership programs with workers
participating in governance, and credit unions�building off institutions
crisscrossing the country. He mourns the age of unions as past, noting
that more workers are in worker co-ops or ESOPs than private-sector
unions. He sees these cooperative endeavors as providing a key base for
building the future. He gives a political blueprint calling for
redirecting federal, state and local government support toward these
enterprises from corporations. This echoes the �cooperative
commonwealth� envisioned by some 19th-century populists, and has healthy
if long-lost roots in American thought. Markets are left intact but so
is government action for the common good.

With a much greater ecological consciousness than many of her peers,
Juliet Schor (like Costas Panayotakis in his new book Remaking Scarcity)
calls for a struggle over our subjectivity and how we define our needs
in building a more egalitarian, sustainable economy. While Schor was
unable to attend the conference, in some ways she captures the
downshifting philosophy of much of the audience better than keynoter
Alperovitz. She warns us that capitalism�s ability to nimbly create new
needs and intensify consumerism needs to be challenged on an ecological
and moral basis. Can we remake the common-sense values that are lodged
at the core of our current system?

Schor lays out the more explicit vision of what almost seems like a
social crusade, yet relies on individual action. She argues we need to
remove ourselves from the market, step by step where we can: by working
part-time, making do with less disposable cash income, and doing more on
our own... That means everything from cooking to making clothes to home
construction. Drawing on the alternative economy movements promoted by
the old Schumacher Society, Schor champions local time dollar schemes,
freecycle sharing, and barter. These schemes seek to intensify community
values by intensifying your web of support with your neighbors.
Ultralocal, home-based solar energy production should spread. People
should embrace the slow money movement by investing locally through
credit unions other other local networks, not through big finance.
Meanwhile, she supports expanding the welfare state so that we are not
subject to markets when it comes to our health, to expand living-wage
jobs and in protecting the commons.

Slow Money

While the thinkers and policy heads dominated the panels at Bard, in the
hallways I met an organic farmer who is a soil activist and writer, a
big-city organizer trying to launch a Cleveland-style worker-owned
initiative in an impoverished area, an Occupier, a member of a worker
coop, and a Rhode Island man hoping to launch a community currency so
that impoverished residents can find value in their skills. I also met
Frank Nuessle of the Public Banking Institute, which is championing
state banks modeled on North Dakota�s, and Sean McGuire, Maryland�s
director of sustainability who championed the Genuine Progress Indicator
so the state now measures economic growth with an eye to its social and
ecological costs. Attending in force were Transition Woodstock members.
These last are part of the international Transition movement begun in
the U.K. that tries to encourage communities to downshift and take up
resilient, ecologically sound practices so that we respond to climate
change in an egalitarian way. NEI�s London partner, New Economy
Foundation, actively supports the Transition movement.

One of my deepest conversations was with Bonnie Rukin, regional
coordinator of Slow Money Maine, which holds events matching people who
can give loans or grants to enterprises creating a local sustainable
food system. That might mean an organic member-owned restaurant or
seaweed harvesters. Inspired by Woody Tasch, the former venture
capitalist who founded Slow Money, the Maine group is one of the more
successful regional spinoffs. Other people at the conference reported
struggling projects in Ohio and Colorado. �A funder meets a farmer. A
farmer meets a legislator. We have a lot of networking time at our
meetings,� said Rukin, a 62-year-old former organic farmer with a
nonprofit background. �We catalyzed the flow of $3 million � and untold
amounts of awareness. In terms of hunger needs, we�re second in the
country. We�re on par with Alabama. We want to develop the social fabric.�

�We started with 30 people gathering and we�re up to 450 people,� said
Rukin. �They�re each given 10 to 15 minutes to tell what they did�then
the bell would ring,� said Jonathan Lee, a Belfast, Maine Slow Money
activist. He describes the scene: �People in the audience are from
foundations, government�� Some skilled businesspeople offer their time.

Jonah Fertig, a member of the Sprouts cooperative restaurant funded
through Slow Money Maine, said simply, �It�s helped us to connect to
different resources and people,� including fellow �farmers, cooks, food
procecessors��

American Sustainable Business Association

Less explicitly anti-capitalist than many of the alternative economy
folks are some of the business-oriented elements of the New Economy
movement that wrestle to reform traditional market-based tools so they
create incentives toward sustainable, socially just practices. Or
sometimes they just try to create a counterforce to the big-business
lobby. �Policies that provide social benefit are called bad for
business,� David Levine, founding director of the American Sustainable
Business Association reported to the Bard gathering. �It was time to
ask, �Bad for whose business?��

The ASBA formed after the election of President Obama to provide
lobbying muscle and build political power for policies that tackle
global warming and invest in job growth. �That means showing up before
the Energy and Commerce committee and say why regulations are very
important for business.� It now networks 150 existing local and
specialized business associations representing 150,000 members. The New
Mexico Green Chamber of Commerce and women�s business associations are
among their members.

�We can actually produce chemicals that are not toxic. We can produce
materials that are recyclable,� said Levine. �What are we up against?
It�s the $200 million budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While we
might not have the money, we can show up and have a voice.�

B-Corporations

Being obsessed with profit and growth comes with costs that don�t show
up in the numbers. Community stakeholders and goals are ignored in
corporate ratings, and companies are captive to Wall Street�s
short-termism. And Wall Street�s goals are written into corporate law. A
former bond trader came up with a new corporate form, B-corporations,
that allows companies to be evaluated by their social performance, not
just their economic bottom line. Since 2010, laws allowing B-corps have
been enacted in eight states, most recently in Louisiana. Nathan
Gilbert�s job at B-Lab, a New York-based nonprofit, is to make it spread.

Strategists who think investors will voluntarily make better decisions
if they knew the true impact of companies are also creating alternatives
like GIIRS, the Global Impact Investing Rating System, to reveal what
businesses are doing for the environment, job creation, and job quality.

But only 500 companies are chartered as B-corporations, mostly small
firms. �They have $3 billion total capitalization�that�s cappuccino
money at Apple,� said Allen K. White, vice president of Tellus, another
speaker. Still, he said, �Ownership does matter. It has a moral and
operational quality.�

Meanwhile, he pointed out, most of the world�s economic activity is
controlled by the 1,000 largest corporations, untouched by many of these
ideas and local movements. Richard Branson of Virgin may have told
Davos, the gathering of the high and mighty, that we are seeing �the end
of capitalism,� as White noted. And indeed the Solidarity Economy and
New Economy movements are debating what should replace it.

The stakes are high. The environmental writer and campaigner Bill
McKibben was on hand to give the conference a sense of urgency to curb
corporations� destructive power before the imminent damage caused by
climate change is irreversible. �It is a fundamentally altered planet,�
he told a packed auditorium. Given our interconnection, it�s not enough
to work in our home communities. �If we don�t take care of this large
global crisis, we won�t realize the future toward which we are all working.

�This is not only a huge practical dilemma but a moral one too,� he
said, reporting on the dengue fever epidemic he just faced in Bangladesh
which he survived when undernourished people died. �Today we learned
this spring was the worst spring and the most extreme. Saudi Arabia had
the hottest rainstorm recorded on this planet�109 degrees. We�re
building a science fiction story and I don�t know if we can stop it.�

�Here�s the good news: Most of what we need to do to deal with global
warming will also help [people],� he said. With those marching orders,
his middle-class reform army filed out.

ABBY SCHER is a sociologist and journalist who was co-editor of Dollars
& Sense in the 1990s. She is now a D&S Associate and an Associate Fellow
of the Institute for Policy Studies.

SOURCES: Juliet Schor, True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans
Are Creating a Time-rich, Ecologically Light, Small-scale,
High-satisfaction Economy, Penguin, 2011; Bill Mckibben, Eaarth: Making
a Life on a Tough New Planet, New York Times, 2010; Costas Panayotakis,
Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy,
Pluto, 2011; James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World:
Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability,
Yale University Press, 2008; Marjorie Kelly, Owning Our Future: The
Emerging Ownership Revolution, Berrett-Koehler, 2012; Tim Jackson,
Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet, Earthscan,
2009; Gar Alperovitz, America beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth,
Our Liberty, and Our Democracy, Democracy Collaborative/Dollars & Sense,
2011; E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People
Mattered, Harper & Row, 1973; Peter Victor, Managing Without Growth:
Smaller by Design Not Disaster, Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. 2008;
David Brancaccio, �Fixing the Future,� pbs.org; The Democracy
Collaborative, community-wealth.org; New Economics Institute,
neweconomicsinstitute.org; The New Economics Foundation,
neweconomics.org; The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives,
usworker.coop.

--
Dan Clore

New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_