I welcome your additions to the discussion. Let's evolve together! Worker Cooperatives Can Revitalize Our Economy. From Sustainable Tompkins by Joe Marraffino and Gay Nicholson Leaders in the sustainability movement believe that the most promising economic development strategy available may be a focus on economic justice. This would reduce poverty and increase tax revenues, strengthen democracy and the sense of a shared future, reduce the tax burden for social services, and increase support for investments in education and public infrastructure.
All of these are part of a viable and sustainable local economy. Worker cooperatives can be an important tool in this strategy. According to the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, cooperatives can create a green and just economy by building community wealth “in which ownership is broadly shared, locally rooted, and directed toward the common good. While worker cooperatives have been a steady presence in modern history, they have surged during times of economic dislocation, and rapid cultural and technological change. Tompkins Weekly 10/3/11. Innovative State and City Government Solutions to Watch in 2012 - Jobs & Economy. Although the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, communities throughout the United States are still struggling to cope with the effects of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Unemployment is 8.6 percent, and income inequality is at its highest levels in decades. Despite incremental improvements over the course of 2011, metropolitan areas across America continue to suffer from sluggish hiring and lackluster growth. As the nation inches toward economic recovery, it’s become increasingly apparent that restoring prosperity is not just a matter of bouncing back and returning to business as usual. Business as usual is what got us here. Instead, we need to move toward a new economic growth model, a next economy that prizes production over consumption, true innovation over financial wizardry and long-term growth over short-term speculation.
In an ideal world, the federal government would take action to help make this new economic vision a reality. Delivering the Next Economy by Dr. Josef Ackermann. Next Economy. "next economy" Speculative Micro - DeLong & Froomkin. DRAFT November 22, 1999(1)Copyright (c) 1997, 1999 J. Bradford DeLong, A. Michael Froomkin All rights reserved. Permission granted to make one copy for noncommercial use. Two and one-quarter centuries ago, the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith used a particular metaphor to describe the competitive market system, a metaphor that still resonates today.
"every individual . . . endeavours as much as he can . . . to direct . . . industry so that its produce may be of the greatest value . . . neither intend[ing] to promote the public interest, nor know[ing] how much he is promoting it. . . . Adam Smith's claim, made in 1776, that the market system promoted the general good was new. The campaign waged by Adam Smith and his successors was completely successful. The lesson usually drawn from this economic success story is laissez-faire, laissez-passer: In the overwhelming majority of cases, the best thing the government can do for the economy is simply to leave it alone.
Excludability Rivalry. Creating the Next Economy | NDN. In my last post, I wrote about where the capital is that is necessary to create the next economy. It is in private hands--those of banks, institutional investors and, as the New York Times echos today, corporations who are now sitting trillions in cash. There is no guarantee this money will go to work anytime soon or that it will all stay in the Untied States. Government's role post-crisis must be to coax it out of hiding by reducing uncertainty while investing in education and infrastructure--two local factors in growth where there is no substitute for government leadership--to make the US attractive to investors. But when capital comes out of hiding, what will the next economy look like? Today I will describe four economic trends that will shape the next economy. The Great Recession did not reverse these trends; rather it was failure to adjust to them that precipated the crisis.
There is a solid economic reason for this trend. Third, the next economy must leverage innovation. Blog | LIFT Business Coaching | Ambassadors From the Next Economy. How to Build the Next Economy - Bruce Katz - Business. The phrase "the next economy" has become common currency in the public debate about economics and public policy. The term itself has been used before--Paul Hawken's book, "The Next Economy," was published in 1983--but the term has evolved as the global situation has changed. So when we talk about a "next economy" in 2011, what do we mean, and how will it be different from what existed before?
My candidate for the next economy: one that is driven by exports, powered by low-carbon, fueled by innovation, and rich with opportunity. This is a vision where the U.S. exports more and wastes less, innovates in what matters, produces and deploys more of what it invents, and ensures the economy works for working families.
Why exports? Because the locus of world economic power is shifting. The top 30 metropolitan economic performers between 2009 and 2010 are almost exclusively located in Asia and Latin America. Why low carbon? Why innovation? Why opportunity? Cleveland artisans craft their own economic force: Eric Wobser. View full sizeThomas Ondrey/The Plain DealerSam McNulty relaxes at his Bier Market on April 14. He also owns Bar Cento and Speakeasy and will open Market Garden later this spring. By Eric Wobser President Barack Obama's February summit on small business demonstrated Cleveland's wise long-term investments in health care and technology.
An equally important but often overlooked economic transformation is being led by a group of entrepreneurs who are as handy with a brew kettle or a band saw as they are with a Bluetooth. These entrepreneurs are part of what Portland State University professor Charles Heying describes as the "artisan economy," a movement capitalizing on growing consumer demand for local and unique products -- demand couched in part as a rejection of national chains and globalization. Highly specialized artisan entrepreneurs manufacture, produce and sell products that tell a unique local story and, most importantly, create difficult-to-export local jobs. New Economics Institute. THE BUSINESS ALLIANCE FOR LOCAL LIVING ECONOMIES | BALLE - Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. Xconomy | Business, Life Sciences, and Technology News. Green Shoots of an Entrepreneurial Spring. Daniel Isenberg and Leonard Schlesinger6/20/11 [Editor's note: Cross-posted from The Economist, 6/16/11] As the G8 last month pledged $10 billion to aid the Arab Spring to support the building of economic and political institutions, the May 24th NASDAQ debut of Russia’s $10 billion Yandex was but one of many green shoots of an equally significant Entrepreneurial Spring blossoming out from Chile to China, and Israel to India.
Led by two brilliant entrepreneurs who knew how to take native search engine technology and implant it in the emerging Russian marketplace, for over a decade, Yandex, a Moscow-based Internet venture, had been growing inside of its language-walled garden. Finally, after a planned 2008 IPO was foiled by the economic crisis, this ambitious venture burst onto a global stage with the largest NASDAQ Internet offering in recent history. Fortunately, there are also green shoots of such enlightened leadership. For those countries not yet blooming with new ventures, get ready. Jeff Heegaard on the next economy. Photo by Bill Kelley Jeff Heegaard sat down with The Line to discuss entrepreneurship in the Twin Cities. Jeff Heegaard admits that his first job, at General Mills, wasn't a good fit.
After leaving what he calls "the corporate castle," he launched a career of small-business startups and philanthropic activities, building a reputation as one of the Twin Cities' boldest and most forward-thinking businessmen. In 2010 he joined cofounders Don Ball and Kyle Coolbroth as a partner in CoCo, the metro's second coworking space. The Line sat down with him in CoCo's Saint Paul digs in Lowertown to talk about what the CoCo experience has taught him about where we are and where we may be going. The Line: Jeff, what's happening at CoCo these days? Jeff Heegaard: I think the bigger question is, what's happening to create the need, the desire, for something like CoCo? The Line: What are some of those sparks? Jeff Heegaard: I think to answer that you have to move your focus upward to the greater economy.
Thomas Fisher: The Next Economy and the 'Next Politics' To understand how the next economy differs from the one we have known, consider just one statistic: analysts following small businesses see the number of "contingent" workers -- the self-employed, free-lancers, or "accidental entrepreneurs" laid off from full-time positions -- growing to 40 to 45 percent of the workforce by 2020 and becoming a majority by 2030. That trend represents an enormous change in how people will live and work, in how businesses will operate, and in what services and support we will need from government.
And apart from leaders like former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, who has written insightfully about this, much of the political discussion in this country seems oblivious to this tectonic shift in our economy. The Obama administration's efforts to enhance manufacturing jobs, while very much needed, seem focused on a 20th century model of large-scale, "heavy" industry. This post-industrial, post-Guttenberg world is not a new idea. New Economy Network Members Area | Home. The New-Economy Movement. The idea that we need a “new economy”—that the entire economic system must be radically restructured if critical social and environmental goals are to be met—runs directly counter to the American creed that capitalism as we know it is the best, and only possible, option.
Over the past few decades, however, a deepening sense of the profound ecological challenges facing the planet and growing despair at the inability of traditional politics to address economic failings have fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation by activists, economists and socially minded business leaders. Most of the projects, ideas and research efforts have gained traction slowly and with little notice. But in the wake of the financial crisis, they have proliferated and earned a surprising amount of support—and not only among the usual suspects on the left. Gar Alperovitz is a participant in various systemic-change efforts, including some of the new-economy projects described in this article.
Gar Alperovitz. 'Next Economy'