Issue 10 - February 2006

Local Living Economies: The New Movement for Responsible Business By Judy Wicks A socially, environmentally and financially sustainable global economy must be composed of sustainable local economies. Yet, tragically, from American “Main Streets” to villages in developing countries, corporate globalization is causing the decline of local communities, family businesses, family farms and natural habitats. Wealth and power are consolidating in growing transnational corporations that wield alarming control over many important aspects of our lives – the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the news we hear, and even the government we rely on to protect the common good. By working cooperatively, locally-owned businesses and conscious consumers...

Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of Economics: Towards Basic Principles of a Bioregional Economy By Kirkpatrick Sale Economics of scale is what conventional industrial economies are all about, finding ways to more profitably and efficiently exploit nature. But the scale of economics is what the economies of the future must be about, finding ways to live so that healthy communities may foster a healthy earth. There are only two essentials to consider in coming at the problem of the optimum scale for an economy to produce and distribute goods and services: the natural ecosystem and the human community. An economy that does harm to the natural world – depleting resources, extincting species, producing pollution, piling up wastes – has...

The Real Economy by Dr. Robert Costanza Stories about the economy typically focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), jobs, stock prices, interest rates, retail sales, consumer confidence, housing starts, taxes and assorted other indicators. We hear things like “GDP grew at a 3-percent rate in the fourth quarter, indicating a recovering, healthy economy, but with room for further improvement.” Or, “The Fed raised short-term interest rates again to head off inflation.” But do these reports, and the indicators they cite, really tell us how the economy is doing? What is the economy, anyway? And what is this economy for? Conventional reports on these questions are rather narrow. The “economy” we usually hear about refers only to the...

From Common Wealth to Common Property By Peter Barnes Read more here. We all know what private wealth is, even if we don't own much. It's property we inherit or accumulate individually, including our fractional claims on corporations and mutual funds. When President Bush speaks of an "Ownership Society," it's this kind of wealth he has in mind. But there's another trove of wealth that's not so well known: our common wealth. Each of us is the joint recipient of a vast inheritance. This shared inheritance includes air and water, habitats and ecosystems, languages and cultures, science and technologies, social and political systems, and quite a...