Towards a New Economy and a New Politics

These numbers, even if half right, suggest a powerful base on which to build exists. Indeed, new signposts are emerging: Confront consumption. Practice sufficiency. Create social environments where over-consumption is viewed as silly, wasteful, ostentatious. Establish commercial-free zones. Buy local. Revitalize local economies. Eat slow food. Downshift. Public policy should support these directions, and it should also devise new measures to track improvements in social welfare, a purpose for which GDP is a miserable failure.^31,32

Beyond policy change, another hopeful path into a sustainable and just future is to seed the landscape with innovative models. One of the most remarkable and yet under-noticed things going on in the United States today is the proliferation of innovative models of "local living" economies, sustainable communities and transition towns, and for-benefit businesses that prioritize community and environment over profit and growth. The community-owned Evergreen Cooperative in Cleveland is a wonderful case in point. An impressive array of new-economy businesses has been brought together in the American Sustainable Business Council and the B-Corporation program, and a new Fourth Sector is emerging, bringing together the best of the private sector, the not-for-profit NGOs, and government.^33-41

The transformation of today's economy requires far-reaching and effective government action. How else can the market be made to work for the environment rather than against it? How else can corporate behavior be altered or programs built to meet real human and social needs? Government is the principal means available to citizens to collectively exercise their stewardship responsibility to leave the world a better place. Inevitably, then, the drive for transformative change leads to the political arena, where a vital, muscular democracy, steered by an informed and engaged citizenry, is needed.

Yet, merely to state the matter this way suggests the enormity of the challenge. The ascendancy of market fundamentalism and anti-regulation, anti-government ideology has been particularly frightening, but even the passing of these extreme ideas would leave deeper, more long-term deficiencies. It is unimaginable that today's American politics will deliver the transformative changes needed.

There are many reasons why government in Washington today is too often more problem than solution. It is hooked on GDP growth--for its revenues, for its constituencies, and for its influence abroad. Government has been captured by the very corporations and concentration of wealth it should be seeking to regulate and revamp. And it is hobbled by an array of dysfunctional institutional arrangements, beginning with the way presidents are elected.

Building the strength needed for change requires, first of all, a unified agenda among progressives. As mentioned, the best hope for a new political dynamic is a fusion of those concerned about environment, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force. A unified agenda would embrace a profound commitment to social justice and environmental protection, a sustained challenge to consumerism and commercialism and the lifestyles they offer, a healthy skepticism of growth-mania and a new look at what society should be striving to grow, a challenge to corporate dominance and a redefinition of the corporation and its goals, and a commitment to an array of major pro-democracy reforms.

The new agenda should also incorporate advocacy of human rights as a central concern. For example, though environmental justice has gained a foothold in American environmentalism, it is not yet the priority it should be. Many established environmental issues should be seen as human rights issues--the right to water and sanitation, the right to sustainable development, the right to cultural survival, freedom from climatic disruption and ruin, freedom to live in a non-toxic environment, and the rights of future generations.

The new politics must turn major attention to the urgent need for political reforms in campaign finance, elections, the regulation of lobbying, and much more. In their book Off Center, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have developed an important and innovative agenda for political reform, including the revitalization of large-scale membership organizations that give citizens more leverage in the political process and measures that could increase voter turnout, open primaries, pursue nonpartisan redistricting, guarantee a minimum free TV and radio time for all federal candidates meeting basic requirements, reduce the perks of incumbency, and bring back the Fairness Doctrine requiring equal air time for competing political views.⁴² Meanwhile, Common Cause, Americans for Campaign Reform, and others have developed a powerful case for clean and fair elections through public financing, a case now even stronger due to the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^43-45

Successful political reform will also depend on addressing issues of social justice. In his book On Political Equality, America's senior political scientist Robert Dahl concludes it is "highly plausible" that "powerful international and domestic forces [could] push us toward an irreversible level of political inequality that so greatly impairs our present democratic institutions as to render the ideals of democracy and political equality virtually irrelevant."⁴⁶ The authors brought together by political analysts Lawrence Jacobs and Theda Skocpol in Inequality and American Democracy document the emergence of a vicious cycle: Income disparities shift political access and influence to wealthy constituencies and businesses, which further imperils the potential of the democratic process to correct the growing income disparities.⁴⁷

If the first watchword of the new politics is "broaden the agenda," the second is "get political." Lawyering and lobbying are important, but what the new politics must build now is a mighty force in electoral politics. Building the necessary muscle will require major efforts at grassroots organizing; strengthening groups working at the state and community levels; and developing messages, appeals, and stories that inspire and motivate because they speak in a language people can understand, resonating with what is best in both the American tradition and the public's values and presenting compelling visions of a future worth having for families and children.

Our environmental discourse has been dominated thus far by lawyers, scientists, and economists. It has been too wonkish, out of touch with Main Street. Now, we need to hear a lot more from the poets, preachers, philosophers, and psychologists. And indeed, we are. The world's religions are coming alive to their environmental roles--entering their ecological phase, in the words of religious leader Mary Evelyn Tucker. And just last year, the American Psychological Association devoted its annual gathering to environmental issues. The Earth Charter text and movement are providing a powerful base for a revitalization of the ethical and spiritual grounds of environmental efforts.

The final watchword of the new politics is "build the movement." Efforts to build strength in America's electoral process and to bring together a wider array of constituencies embracing a broader agenda should contribute to the emergence of a powerful citizens' movement for change. The new politics must be broadly inclusive, reaching out to embrace union members and working families, minorities and people of color, religious organizations, environmentalists, the women's movement, and other communities of complementary interest and shared fate. It is unfortunate, but true, that stronger alliances are still needed to overcome the "silo effect" that separates progressive communities, including those working on environment, domestic political reforms, the liberal social agenda, human rights, international peace, consumer issues, world health and population concerns, and world poverty and underdevelopment.

Building a new economy and a new politics must be an ecumenical endeavor open to many progressive perspectives and ideas. Progress requires concerted efforts from many communities in at least three areas: challenging the current order of things, envisioning a new order and identifying the initiatives needed to realize it, and building capacity to promote change.

Challenging the current order. A great many Americans remain enthralled by a reigning mythology now deeply embedded in the national consciousness: GDP growth is an unalloyed good. Government regulation and other interference in the economy must meet the test of economic benefit. America is a land of economic opportunity and consumer sovereignty. The poor are poor because they deserve to be. We are well on our way to solving our environmental problems. America is the most democratic nation on Earth, and also the most generous, with the best health care.

The reality, of course, is far from these propositions. It is important that this mythology be dethroned and that accurate information about actual conditions and trends be brought to an ever wider audience. Real life in America too often sharply conflicts with the country's best values and highest aspirations.

Envisioning a new order. Envisioning the new economy and a new politics involves three linked projects:

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