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The Extraenvironmentalist: Next US Revolution
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:08:15 — 117.5MB) | Embed
Podcast (96kbps): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:08:33 — 88.3MB) | Embed
With a media ecosystem focused almost entirely the corporate system, burgeoning elements of a new economy revolution escape the mainstream eye. As our political systems stagnate in the face of ecological, energy and social crises, can an alternative to capitalism develop over the next few decades? Do ongoing experiments in money, society and energy have the ability to coalesce into a broader cultural shift?
In Extraenvironmentalist #63 we talk about the growing network of institutions and businesses that are forming the new economic revolution in the United States with historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. Gar describes the ideas in his new book, What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution. Then we hear from two of Italy’s leading economists Stefano and Vera Zamagni about the civil society model of a market economy.
5 Comments on "The Extraenvironmentalist: Next US Revolution"
BillT on Tue, 23rd Jul 2013 2:26 am
Jumping through the 4 hours of dreams, I doubt that any of it will happen.
Is it me or does there seem to be more and more kooks coming out of the woodwork these days? Do they live such sheltered lives that they actually believe all that they say? Does reality have any part in their lives?
I bookmarked this for sometime I am cleaning or cooking and need some background nose, but then, I will probably never listen to it all. Dream on, Extra…
Bloomer on Tue, 23rd Jul 2013 3:23 am
Getting rid of the big bad union was suppose to cure all of Americas’ woes. Instead their economy and social structure is weaker with no sign of returning to the good old days.
Could it be that the unions were not the problem? That perhaps when people got paid well, had good benefits and had a voice that society as a whole was better off? I know that radical commie thinking. What would Rush Limbaugh think?
Stephen on Tue, 23rd Jul 2013 5:23 am
Bloomer, I agree with you.
I don’t think getting rid of the unions, nor raising CEO wages and lowering others wages helped anything. In fact, I think it hurt in more ways than one. Shipping labor that was in the USA to China, India, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Guatemala, etc just because it it cheap was one of the worst decisions we ever made.
This decision did three things:
1) Forced us to depend on imports, increasing our fuel consumption
2) Drove down real wages, leading to a debt explosion
3) Made the corporate CEOs more powerful.
We need to rethink infinite growth capitalism, corporate control of everything, to think beyond profit motive as a national priority for policy, reverse globalization, and reduce the level of consumption. We will also have to make some other sacrifices such as a debt jubilee and make it so people don’t lose everything when debts aren’t paid.
BillT on Tue, 23rd Jul 2013 5:34 am
Stephen, that it would be so easy. I see total collapse and a reset to a medieval Lord/serf relationship, (at least in the West) when the dust settles and the blood is washed away. You do not reverse a very profitable century of greed from the lowest to the highest, in a few years without a major event like a Great Depression and or major war.
Stephen on Wed, 24th Jul 2013 1:05 am
It could be done without blood but it would require the following:
* Politicians letting people other than corporate execs to testify at the policy hearings.
* It would mean limiting private campaign contributions and reversal of cases like Citizens United v SEC
* It would mean a lot of civilian protests and getting a lot of lower income people out to the polls
* It would take a ton of education to the politicians that the remaining supply of alternatives is not sufficient to run our economy as-is, and that the marketplace cannot solve all these problems alone. Solving it will take significant government intervention and serious economic, local, state and national policy changes and lots of public cooperation.
* It will take the willingness for people to make significant sacrifices and that we will have to put quality of life ahead of profit as a national priority, and do this in a way that consumes far less resources.