The New Economy Won't Be Like the Last One

via CommonDreams:



Published on Thursday, June 25, 2009 by YES! Magazine

The New Economy Won't Be Like the Last One
by Sarah van Gelder


Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration, the economy is a long ways from recovery. The speculative system that created the mess remains intact, and foreclosures and unemployment continue to rise. But at the same time, a new economy is taking form. It’s built on a recognition that the only thing too big to fail is the Earth itself. It is designed to build sustainable wealth for families, communities, and ecosystems, and it’s our best chance to improve prospects for future generations, instead of leaving them with ever-growing debt, conflict, and environmental destruction.

Politicians, pundits, and financiers defend deepening our national debt to bail out the institutions of a failed Wall Street system. But this system, built on speculation and the rule of money, is undermining the health of the planet and the well-being of all but the wealthiest few.

It’s time to let it go.

The new economy is built on new forms of money, and on democratic finance and business. In the summer 2009 issue of YES!, we report on worker-owned cooperatives that distribute the benefits of hard work to employee-owners who call the shots in democratic workplaces. These co-ops spend locally and are rooted locally, so they are long-term boons to their local economies. And they don't close down in favor of sweat shops in low-wage regions.

Money, though hidden in plain sight, is another critical piece of the puzzle. As currently created, it destabilizes our economy and concentrates wealth. Many communities are developing new means of exchange that work even when there is a global shortage of credit. And the issuing of money could be a public service, rather than a profit center for private banks. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/25-2

has been a growing skepticism from emerging market countries toward our brand of predatory capitalism. We spent decades lecturing these countries on how to run their economies using ideas like efficient market theory. We gave them usurious loans and then offered debt forgiveness at steep costs. Now that they've witnessed how quickly we abandoned those philosophies once our own 'too big to fail' institutions failed so catastrophically, developing countries are much less eager to adopt this system. The shine is off of the American free market model.

"Blow up your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own"---John Prine