Weekend Economists Take a Chance and Call a Bluff July 26-28, 2013

[Demeter]

12. It's Our Economy Newsletter - Time to Decide: Plutocracy or Democracy‏

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=17a49926b1625f313cb5f63dd&id=13dbfc8bf9&e=b196ac3113

One of the major conflicts of the era that is not often highlighted for public debate is whether we want an economy that privatizes government services and public resources and continues to concentrate wealth; or whether we want to develop an economic democracy that invests in the public interest and creates shared prosperity.

Journalist Ted Koppel summarized the privatization trend: “We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another…. We’ve privatized a lot of what our military is doing. We’ve privatized a lot of what our intelligence agencies are doing. We’ve privatized our very prison system in many parts of the country. We’re privatizing the health system within those prisons. And it’s not working well.” The alternative, also growing rapidly albeit more quietly without corporate media coverage, is economic democracy. This is based on new models that give people greater control over their economic lives, share wealth in an egalitarian way and allow more influence over the direction of the economy.

We will delve into many of these alternatives in detail in the Economic Democracy Track at the Democracy Convention in Madison, WI from August 7 to August 11. Presenters who are deeply involved in their subjects will speak about big picture topics such as what money is, ending debt and creating a new economy to more hands-on topics such as creating socially-responsible businesses, alternative currencies, affordable housing, public banks, saving the post office, local investment, cooperatives and publicly-owned renewable energy. We encourage you to attend the conference (the price is low to make it possible for many to attend) and will provide reports and videos from the conference on It’s Our Economy for those who cannot make it....

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In fact, if the goal of the United States was a stronger economy for all, better services and a fair economy, we would be discussing turning some private functions into public services, accountable to the voters. For example, The Roosevelt Institute reported this week that the United States ranks poorly in Internet services because they are in the hands of private corporations like Verizon and Comcast. Right now, “the U.S. is behind South Korea, the UAE, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Norway."...We do know that we are in a time of transition, an era that will define the next economy. The effects of the neo-liberal economic agenda of privatization simultaneous with de-funding of public assets and services are becoming more obvious. People are fighting back in a number of ways. And greater awareness of economic democracy and modern monetary theory is growing. One thing is clear: it is going to take action from below to create an economy that puts people and the planet before profits.