- An economic democracy would be a market economy,
- The core economic unit would be based on autonomous, democratically-governed, worker-owned cooperatives,
- Not all economic enterprises would be co-ops for there would also be an increase in the number of family-owned enterprises and sole-proprietorships,
- Both types of enterprises would be networked together by economic councils that would allow for mutual aid and input from the community,
- There would also be the existence of non-profit and community-owned enterprises for services that cannot be provided by either co-ops or sole-proprietorships,
- Investment would be provided by public sources, such as governmental bodies and non-profit NGO’s, rather than private capital,
- There would be extensive support to individuals and the various enterprises by local, state, and federal governments.
In my opinion these are the essentials of an economic democracy.
2 comments:
Seems to me like there's some conflict between the first item, and the last two on that list. A basic feature of a market economy is the practice of private investment, and the need to convince someone to invest their own money in your plan. That's a more demanding task than just having to convince some government agency to give political support in the form of money.
John,
Thanks for your comments.
The idea that private investment is an essential component of market economy is a mistaken assumption. The term “market economy” as used here simply means that the various goods and services provided by the economic enterprises would still be provided via the retail market.
Public investment could involve a combination of independent, non-profit banks that would disperse government money as either loans or grants along with the dramatic expansion of independently funded Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI). Both the independent banks and CDFI’s would give a variety of investment sources along with helping to keep the bureaucrats out of the system.
I’m sure this didn’t answer your concerns in detail. I plan to expand on this subject in future postings.
Again, thank you for your comments.
Post a Comment