Ch. 21 Building a Better Economy

 "The ultimate phase of this process is the situation in which

the official structures... simply begin withering away and dying off,

to be replaced by new structures that have evolved from 'below'

and are put together in a fundamentally different way."

- Vaclav Havel

Let's complete Part 2 of this book by briefly summarizing some of the previous chapters, then outlining our strategy for moving forward and building that better economy.

Summary of Part 2: Economy

What is the economy? (Ch. 10) - When politicians and the media talk about "the economy" they are usually referring to GDP (gross domestic product), the stock market etc. But this is an extremely limited picture which ignores the economic wellbeing of more than 70% of the population. Particularly the working class. 

Our collective economic conversation must include the working class, the working poor and those who have been left behind by our current neo-liberal capitalist system.

Capitalism (Ch. 11) - An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit. (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023.)

In other words, the capitalists own the means of production, and operate them in order to make money by extracting surplus value from the labor of their employees.

Sofia Gradin defines capitalism using three key characteristics.

1. A drive for profit.
2. A distinction between the owners and the workers. 
3. Competition. (How to Abandon Capitalism, Ted Talk, 2019.)

Economic Extractionism (Ch. 12) - Ralph Pechukas defines it as "The theft of wealth from the great working population of the planet into the coffers of the accumulating few.”

The few extract more value than they provide, then they use that extracted value to leverage more and more value, heaping it up and removing it from circulation and hoarding it for themselves. 

Velocity of Money (Ch. 14) - "Simply put, it's the rate at which consumers and businesses in an economy collectively spend money.” (Chen, 2022). 

The Velocity of Money is the measurement of how many times a single dollar is exchanged or spent in a set amount of time, usually a year. For the purposes of this conversation, a dollar that is allowed to circulate within a community, provides exponentially more value than a dollar that is hoarded away by the wealthy.

Community Wealth Building (Ch. 14) - "Community Wealth Building is an economic development model that transforms local economics based on communities having direct ownership and control of their assets." (democracycollaborative.org) 

The Democracy Collaborative outlines a 5 Pillar strategy.

1. Inclusive and Democratic Enterprise
2. Locally rooted finance
3. Fair work
4. Just use of Land and Property
5. Progressive procurement

Worker-owned Cooperatives (Ch. 15) - Workers own the business and participate in its financial success on the basis of their contribution to the cooperative. They also have representation and vote for the board of directors, adhering to the principle of one worker, one vote (Whalley, 2023).

The 7 Cooperative Principles

1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Members' economic participation
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Education, training and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community

Non-profit Cooperative Services (Ch. 16) - The non-profits provide essential services such as banking, health insurance, housing, education, employment and more. Since these cooperatives aren’t trying to generate profit, and because they are literally owned by their stakeholders (workers, consumers and/or communities) they can focus on providing better service for their members at a lower cost.

Large Scale Cooperative Networks (Ch. 17) - Large cooperative networks such as the Evergreen Cooperatives and the Mondragon Cooperative Network, show us that there is no ceiling for how big we can grow a cooperative platform.

A New System A New Paradigm (Ch. 18) - This new paradigm looks more like every worker being given the opportunity to contribute their own talents, skills, and passions while receiving a living wage. As businesses grow, so do workers pensions, as well as their access to fairly-priced services such as banking, insurance, etc. With these basic needs taken care of, workers are freed from the stress and anxiety of subsistence living and able to connect with their larger community and to be more civically engaged. Thus the democratic power that they enjoy in the workplace is expanded to the larger world.  

Parallel Society (Ch. 20) - As parallel structures are built and developed, they connect with other structures and form a growing network. As the network grows, so does it's influence and resources (both intellectual and material). Thus the leverage and power of the network grows, eventually developing into a true parallel society, undercutting the stranglehold of the current authoritarian system. 

Notes on Our Strategy for Building a Better Economy

The first thing to remember, this is a long term strategy. We are outlining a 30 year plan here. 

Rome wasn't built in a day. Jeff Bezos started Amazon, his vehicle for economic extractionism, in 1994 (30 years from this writing) with a $300,000 family loan selling books out of a garage. 

History shows us that large enterprises and movements can, and do start from humble beginnings and grow into something the world is forced to recognize (for better or for worse). 

The second thing we should address, is easily the most frequently asked question I get...

"How you gonna PAY for it?"

Ok. This is a legitimate question. For sure. As the reader, you may have been asking yourself this question already. 

However, to my mind this question (if it's not asked in bad faith) simply shows a fundamental lack of imagination. Honestly, can't you think of many, many examples of ordinary people collectively coming up with large sums of money in a short period of time?

Here are a few examples:

• When 16 year old Ralph Yarl was shot twice, for accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell, when he went to pick up his siblings from a playdate, a GoFundMe was started to help pay for his medical and therapy bills. This GoFundMe surpassed $3.3 million in 3 days, with an average donation of $36.
  
  When ordinary people are moved, they will come together and help pay for it.
  
  
• Bernie Sanders raised $46 million in a single month, February 2020 for his Presidential campaign, with an average donation of $17. 
  
  When ordinary people are inspired, they will come together and help pay for it. 
  
  
• The silly (but oh so fun) family card game Exploding Kittens raised $8.7 million in 30 days for startup costs. 
  
  When ordinary people are even amused and entertained, they will come together and help pay for it!

The idea that we can't come together and collectively fund big projects is absurd. History and a quick Google search says otherwise. 

One more quick reminder...

The Key to Changing the World (Ch. 6) - Remember the key to changing the world is changing our collective thinking and our culture. 

Culture = Beliefs + Values + Behavior. 

Step by Step Guide for Building a Better Economy

The three foundational steps of building a better world will always remain the same...

1. Educate - Changing our thinking begins with education. This book is a good first step, so share the book with others of a like mind. Understand that the ideas in this book must be spread through social interactions, social media etc. We must challenge old beliefs that are a product of decades of disinformation. Challenge values (What Do We Value? Ch. 19). We must change our own behavior and exemplify new behavior for those looking for a new way (Parallel Society Ch. 20). 

2. Organize - Without getting too detailed (yet), it's sufficient to say that existing technology and the internet make it very simple and cost effective to organize people on a massive scale. More on this later.

3. Participate - Our biggest (perhaps our only) true advantage is our sheer numbers. The 1% may have more money than all of us combined, but we are hundreds of millions strong. Millions of able, willing and committed bodies and minds. A collective knowledge base that encompasses the length and breadth of virtually all human learning.

The potential power contained within our working class community is staggering. But only if we can remember the lesson of Common Sense, get on the same page, and learn to act in concert. 

Not everyone will agree with this strategy, but millions will if they are exposed to it. 

The above three steps don't change, but the details vary depending on with of the "4 E's" we are talking about.

Economy

- Initial crowdfunding (more on this later)

- Build a Digital Participation Platform. A digital platform that allows ordinary citizens to organize, share knowledge and resources, and democratically guide the direction and movement of the organization (more on this later).

- Create a Cooperative Business Incubator. A business incubator is an organization that helps new startup companies. It provides a range of services, from strategic planning, branding, and management training, to startup funding and continued business consulting. 

- Begin building Worker-owned Cooperative Businesses. We start small... there are literally hundreds of possibilities for cooperative businesses that have low start up costs, and are both scalable and duplicatable. We will explore many of these possibilities in Parts 3 and 4 of this book. 

We start a worker cooperative, nurture it until it is a going concern, then duplicate it in another region. Start a new one. Rinse and repeat. Each new cooperative business that joins the network increases our leverage and resources. Each business pays 10% of it's net revenue into our revolving fund that helps to fund new businesses, the cooperative incubator, research and development etc. 

Again, this is a 30 year plan. A marathon not a sprint. An organization like the Mondragon Cooperative shows us that this is well within the realm of the achievable. 

- Build and/or Recruit Non-profit Cooperative Services Providers. This raft of non-profit cooperatives will provide essential services such as banking, insurance, education, housing and employment. Each new service provides increasing benefits to not only the worker/owners, but also paying members of the Digital Participation Platform (more later). 

- Create a Green New Market. Give people an opportunity to invest their money in something beneficial. We can start simply, with low cost Corporate Bonds. Then, as as our cooperative network grows, we can begin to offer the opportunity to invest in a Green Cooperative Index Fund. Every dollar invested in a fund like this will not only receive a reasonable return over time, but it will help to build a better world. 

Consider, if you are currently investing in an index fund like the S&P 500, you are supporting and investing in corporations like... 

• Exxon (one of the biggest polluters in the world)
• Amazon (with a carbon footprint of 71.5 million metric tons, and hundreds of millions of tons of plastic packaging waste that goes into landfills)
• Pepsi and Coke (among the biggest producers of branded plastic waste)
• Tyson (dumped 371 million tons of pollutants and actual poisons into US rivers and lakes over 5 years)

... It might be a touch hyperbolic to say that you are investing in the apocalypse. But there's no way to deny that you are literally investing your money in a worse future for your kids and the planet. 

Let's give people a chance to invest in a better future. 

- Build a Parallel Cooperative Economic Structure. This new cooperative economic structure will grow quietly but steadily beside or beneath the current capitalist economic structure. This new parallel structure will provide a new home, a place of belonging for those wanting to escape the current system.

It’s obvious that in order to build a better world, we’re going to have to bury a lot of existing industries like fossil fuel. This is going to displace a large number of workers. In capitalist economies, that’s just their tough luck.

But in a cooperative economy, those displaced workers will be given new opportunities and new jobs. No one has to be out of work, because quite frankly there’s plenty of work to be done when your mission is to build a better world, and not just increase shareholder profits at the exclusion of all else.

This is a slow, deliberate, strategic process. But it's not happening in a vacuum. We are simultaneously building other parallel structures which will be connected to and through this economic structure. 

We can change things.

Who is we? You the reader, and me the author. We change the world by each doing our part. I'm doing my part now. I invite you to keep reading and watch for the part you want to play. 

There are plenty of willing hands ready and eager to help build a better world. This raises the question: What kind of work is this cooperative network going to do, to make a difference in the world? That question will begin to be answered in Part 3: Energy.

This concludes Part 2 Economy: The Business of Building a Better World