Promising “democracy, development, free markets, and free trade” to the world in the wake of 9/11, the U.S. administration unwittingly made the case that market fundamentalism contradicts democracy.
Dream Big, Start Small
The success of activism depends on the balance between how broad your cause might be and the small battles you can win. This chapter draws the main lessons from four world-renowned examples of such successes.
Secrets of the Good Life
Can growth be equated to progress? Data show that it is not GDP growth by itself that improves people’s lives but how money is distributed, notably through investing in public infrastructures.
Inverted Totalitarianism: Antecedents and Precedents
Democracy is threatened by the inverted form of totalitarianism resulting from the free-market ideology. Is the Founding Fathers’ defiance against democracy an antecedent to its “management” today?
Change the Goal
Conventional economics has no goal except one by default: indefinite growth. In nature, this is the principle of cancer. To get back to health, it is time to give the economy a more meaningful purpose.
Get Savvy with Systems
If supply and demand equilibrium were an economic “law,” the 1929 and 2008 financial crises would not have occurred. Rather than ready-made theories, economics needs the practical background provided by systems thinking.