How to Read The Rise of the Meaningful Economy: A megatrend where meaning is a new currency DOC
According to the authors, capitalism’s excesses have driven us to the brink of global collapse—a perfect storm of inequality; unsustainable debt, resource depletion, and environmental destruction. By reforming the current market economy, we can prolong the system’s viability for some time longer, but recent history has proven that capitalism is ultimately based on false fundamentals and cannot be reformed—it must be replaced.The economic principles outlined in this book represent a new set of holistic policies integrating small-scale private enterprise with worker-owned industries and efficient government institutions. This new economy goes beyond both left and right ideologies, and it reflects humanity’s urgent need for an economic system distributing our financial resources more equitably and our environmental resources more sustainably. “It’s too late to continue with business as usual,” says authors Roar Bjonnes, and environmental activist, and Caroline Hargreaves, a graduate of the London School of Economics. They believe it’s no longer enough to keep patching up the old economic cracks with yet another set of reforms. It is time for system change.James Quilligan, political economist and former advisor to Swedish Prime minister Oluf Palme, writes that the book provides “a long-term agenda for green, systemic change.” Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben says that the book is a “hopeful account of the possibilities contained in our current crisis.”Several recent books critical of both free market and green capitalism, including Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything and Richard Smith’s Green Capitalism: The God That Failed, proclaims that capitalism, no matter its color or form, can no longer sustain us economically or environmentally.The authors of Growing a New Economy largely agree with these critics, but their book does not only take a critical look at the history of capitalism, it also outlines an alternative economy, a blueprint for what the next economy should look like.According to Bjonnes and Hargreaves, a new economy is necessary for three basic reasons: 1) to replace an economic system with fundamental flaws beyond repair; 2) to avoid an economic and ecological collapse; 3) and to create a more equitable and sustainable society. In recent years, an increasing number of experts and think tanks, from writer David Korten to the Capital Institute, have suggested that we need a new economy, beyond old style capitalism and socialism. Growing a New Economy attempts to introduce just such an economy. As UNESCO Chair in Future studies, Sohail Inayatullah writes, “This must read book not only challenges neo-liberal thinking, but also socialist and even green narratives, creating a new discourse for a post-capitalist future.” The book not only summarizes the latest, hard-hitting critique from the experts; it continues with a deep-probing analysis of the data. Most importantly, it concludes with a set of practical solutions. The authors present a radically new macro-economic system unlike anything the progressive left or the greens have offered so far. The authors of Growing a New Economy believe this new economy may not only balance our budget, but also help create more economic equality, as well as save our rapidly deteriorating environment.
