The global financial crisis has cleared intellectual space for new ideas on economy, ecology and well-being. We need to urgently reject our policymakers addiction to growth and promote these alternative, localised economic systems, argues Peter A. Victor.
Rather than continuing to pay off the very people who created this financial crisis, it's time to bite the bullet and start building an economic democracy featuring public banks and
mutual funded holding companies, says Gary Dorrien.
As the pursuit of material prosperity becomes increasingly unsustainable, a new vision is needed which measures a society's wealth in terms of well-being, social values and the dispersal of economic power, writes William Greider.
In the Great Depression Frederick Soddy criticized economists'
unfaltering belief in the 'invisible hand' of the market to harmlessly generate
infinite wealth. Although hesitantly received then, today his ideas are echoed in the alternative proposals of ecological economics,
argues Eric Zencey.
While
millions face poverty and hunger, others make fortunes without producing. A sustainable
alternative to financial globalisation must be based on international
cooperation and solidarity - with new indicators in place to measure well-being. By Marcos Arruda.
The fallacy that economic growth can lead to improved human welfare underpins the global financial crisis. Now, we need to move beyond 'growth at all costs' and reorganise the economy based on the quality of life rather than quantity of consumption, argues Robert Costanza.
Our preference for 'bigger is better' and rapid urbanisation has led to a decline in the importance of small cities. We could use small urban dwellings as the basis for a new economy based on localised energy, sustainable food systems and simple living, argues Catherine Tumber.
