The New Economist

An unnamed journalist at The Economist seems to have caught on to the significance of money creation by banks, after reading Richard Duncan's latest book The New Depression.

This is not capitalism, [Duncan] suggests, but “creditism”. It is this system which has broken down, and unless you understand it, you will not be able to fix it.

Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market.

Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.

AlterNet has published an excellent article that seeks to summarize the "new economy movement" - at least from a progressive perspective - including sustainability, community, co-ops, localization, collective ownership, stockholder activism, corporate...

For two centuries political debates have been framed by economic arguments – markets versus states; right versus left. But economic thinking is changing, and it is paramount that policy and politics change along with it.

So my first point is the importance of recognizing the commons as a distinct sector for creating value. This can be difficult – because we don’t have an agreed-upon language or taxonomy for talking about the value-proposition of the commons. The phenomenon is still too novel.

For many people, it is difficult to accept that value can exist without the sanction of money or private property rights – that value that is intangible and unquantifiable can actually matter.

"Infinite growth of material consumption in a finite world is an impossibility."
–E. F. Schumacher

Sustainability Reconsidered

The last two chapters have outlined an economy that is sustainable: it incorporates the ecological limits of the planet, and it thrives without a structural need for endless growth in consumption. But is sustainability to be our highest aspiration?

I have long been impatient with “sustainability,” as if that were an end in itself. Isn’t it more important to think about what we want to sustain, and therefore what we want to create? Many beautiful, necessary things are not sustainable: pregnancy, for example. I am heartened by the recent shift of thinking away from sustainability and toward transition. What we are transitioning to will be far more sustainable than our current way of life, but that is not the ultimate goal, just as the ultimate goal of life is not merely to stay alive.

Activists, theorists, organizations and ordinary citizens are rebuilding the American political-economic system from the ground up.

So we find ourselves in the midst of economic disruptions that may well foreshadow long-term, whole-system economic breakdowns fed by a full spectrum of emerging dynamics - from resource depletion (especially peak oil and loss of fresh water and topsoil)...