The title of Paul Rosenberg's post "Externalized Costs: The Free Market's Free Lunch" sums up a whole lot of what's wrong with our economic system and dominant theories of economics. I read it just after reading some reviews of Riane Eisler's "The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economy." They dovetailed together nicely.
According to a review in Stanford Social Innovation Review written by Mal Warwick, former chair of the Social Venture Network, Eisler's book:
sets forth "six foundations for a caring economic system": 1) a "full-spectrum economic map" that encompasses the households, unpaid, natural and illegal economies, as well as the traditional market and government economies; 2) a set of cultural beliefs and institutions that shifts the reigning social paradigm from domination to partnerships; 3) caring economic rules, policies and practices for business and government that meet basic human needs, direct technological developments to life-sustaining applications and consider effects on future generations; 4) inclusive and accurate economic indicators that reject benchmarks like the GDP, which grows larger with every massive oil spill and every bullet used in war; 5) relationships between economic and social structures that don't result in the concentration of economic assets and power at the top; and 6) an evolving economic theory of what Eisler calls "partnership": human interaction that goes beyond capitalism and socialism to recognize the essential economic value of caring for ourselves, others and nature.
This perspective is very much in sync with the "dignitarianism" Paul's written about in earlier posts, and with the primary themes of his latest post, which are also powerfully presented in books like Peter Barnes' "Capitalism 3.0" and "Natural Capitalism" by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins.
There's also a growing body of economic and legal analysis focused on "commons-related" issues and "externalities" related to communication systems and policies and the Internet, in particular.
I can't help but think that it would be very valuable to develop an ongoing online discussion aimed at creating:
1) a detailed and integrated progressive platform built around these fundamental "dignitarian" principles for systemic reform;
2) a web site that aggregates and helps develop and integrate multimedia materials (articles, podcasts, videos, etc.) to help present this platform and related background material to the public in a powerful, digestible and paradigm-shifting way.
The raw materials are mostly out there already, on authors' web sites, various progressive blogs (e.g., I just discovered a great mix of author interviews at Peter Ellman's http://intrepidliber...). But these materials, authors, etc. aren't pulled together at one site whose purpose is to turn them into a united message and which has enough person-power behind it to manifest that purpose at the desired level of potency.
My sense is that a traditional blog structure is not sufficient for this task, partly because it's too chronological in structure and tends to have a somewhat different purpose and focus than what I'm talking about here. A blog could be part of it, but it would probably also need some elements of a Wiki, and perhaps other formats and tools.
I view something like this as the edge of one spear that can help pierce through the toxic media fog that most Americans have to slog through to get a sense that there are very practical solutions to what ails this country. As I see it, the focus would be much more on laying out a positive (dare I say inspiring) political and economic vision, rather than on the gazillion things that are screwed up in our current system (though some of the latter would be necessary and helpful).
There are brilliant and inspiring thinkers and doers out there. Bringing them and their ideas together in one "progressive portal" sounds like a worthy project. In some respects it would be a "virtual" think tank, whose job was to select, present and help integrate the best progressive policy thinking out there. But, unlike traditional think tanks, it would not be DC-centric, and would retain the democratic, open-access nature of blogs and Wikis. In doing so, it could provide the netroots with increased influence in policy debates, since it would give us a comprehensive, integrated and well documented and researched set of policies we could bring with us when we demand a seat at the table.
If anyone thinks something like this already exists, please tell me about it in a comment.
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