内容简介 · · · · · ·
Economics sometimes seems to be stacked against social, environmental and individual well-being. But it doesn't have to be like this. A new approach to economics - deriving as much from Ruskin and Schumacher as from Keynes or Smith - has begun to emerge. Skeptical about money as a measure of success, this new economics turns our assumptions about wealth and poverty upside down. It shows us that real wealth can be measured by increased well-being and environmental sustainability rather than just having and consuming more things. This book is the first accessible and straightforward guide to the new economics. It describes the problems and bizarre contradictions in conventional economics as well as the principles of the emerging new economics, and it tells the real-world stories of how new economics is being successfully put into practice around the world. An essential guide to understanding new economics for all those who care about making economics work for people and planet.
Author(s): David Boyle and Andrew Simms
Publisher: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 208
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Chapter 1 The Economic Problem
The economic problem
The ecological crisis
The human crisis
The spiritual crisis
It ignores the planet
It measures the wrong thing
It misunderstands real life
It encourages vulnerability
It colludes with short-termism
It overvalues owners
It remains blind to values
It encourages consumption for its own sake
It encourages and relies on debt and indenture
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 2 No Wealth but Life: A Brief History of the New Economics
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 3 Measurement: Why Did an Apparently Poor Pacific Island Hit the Top of the Happy Planet Index?
The success of Central America
The success of small islands
The basic problem: Money doesn’t measure real wealth
The measurement problem
New measures of success
A new economics way forward
Create a well-being economy
Reclaim our time
Massively cut house prices
Create a holistic education system that promotes creativity
Refocus the health system to promote health
Discourage materialism and clamp down on damaging advertising
Measure social effects
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 4 Money: Why did China Pay for the Iraq War?
The basic problem: The money system no longer serves its purpose
Slowing down the speed of money
The growing gap between rich and poor
The cuckoo in the nest effect
Faulty measurement: The struggling local economy
Faulty measurement: The struggling social economy
Faulty measurement: The loss of feedback
New ways of organizing money
Creating new money via the state
Multiple currencies
A new economics way forward
Calm the international money hurricane
Tax currency speculation
Clamp down on offshore financial centres
Link to a global reference currency
Set up new local savings schemes to make capital available locally
Back a new generation of complementary currencies
Experiment with the creation of public money
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 5 Markets: Why has London Traffic Always Travelled at 12mph?
The basic problem: A blindness about human motivation
The demand for well-being
The demand for ethics
The demand for blood
New ways of framing economics
A new economics way forward
End predict and provide
Maximize human contact in business
Provide moral coherence
Be authentic
Recognize that people have a spiritual side
Recognize that people need to feel useful and involved
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 6 Life: Why do Modern Britons Work Harder than Medieval Peasants?
The basic problem: The system impoverishes
Money poverty
Life poverty
More debt
More monopolies
Less work
A new economics way forward
Reform the global financial institutions
Outlaw ownership of life
Limit the amount people can borrow
Reward people’s effort in the community
Shorten the working week in the formal economy
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 7 Resources: Why are Cuban Mechanics the Best in the World?
The basic problem: Our economy is geared to rubbish
Because narrow definitions of economics exclude the beginning and end of the product life cycle
Because narrow definitions of value downgrade the worth of what is broken and worn
Because old economics favours built-in obsolescence
New ways to make rubbish into raw materials
Reusing resources
Reusing energy
Reusing money
A new economics way forward
Reward people for recycling and reusing
Invest in recycling intermediaries
Invest in a new repair infrastructure
Evaluate new projects by their impact on money flows
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 8 Trade: Why Does Britain Import the Same Number of Chocolate Waffles as it Exports?
The basic problem: The wrong kind of interdependence leads to poverty
Unbalanced trade
Ecological debt
Energy costs
New economics solutions
Impose duties on inward investors
Increase local production
Fair trade for local agriculture
Take the corporate ownership and control out of the food chain
Shift to Slow Food
Other books to read
Websites
Notes
Chapter 9 Community: Why Do Fewer People Vote when there is a Wal-mart Nearby?
Problems with supermarkets
The basic problem: Efficiency is not the same as effectiveness
New economics solutions
Time banks
Smart commissioning
Launch radical anti-trust action at every level
Change the way public sector commissioning is done to look at broader effects
Make philanthropy reciprocal
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 10 Debt: Why are Malawi Villagers Paying the Mortgages of Surbiton Stockbrokers?
The basic problem: The barriers to development
National debt
Manipulated debt
First world debt
Corporate debt
A new economics approach
Develop a concept of odious debt
Develop an international bankruptcy process for nations
Create low-interest loans for vital projects
Create new international currencies
Create a new currency based on emissions rights
Other books to read
Notes
Chapter 11 The Future
Notes
Appendices
Appendix A From the Ashes of the Crash: 20 First Steps from New Economics to Rebuild a Better Economy
1 Demerge banks that are ‘too big to fail’ – to reduce the risks of systemic failure
2 Segregate financial markets – by separating activities such as trading and retail banking
3 Bring onto the balance sheet, rigorously check and officially license all ‘exotic’ financial instruments
4 Create a secure, accessible local banking system for people by growing the role of post offices
5 Enhance economic support for the local economy by expanding the range of smaller-scale ‘friendly’ sources of finance
6 Encourage the introduction of complementary, multilevel currencies to provide credit in tune with the needs of regions, towns, cities and neighbourhoods, whilst helping to inoculate the economy from financial shocks
7 Create new public money, free of interest, where necessary to cope with unprecedented financial emergencies, and as the basis for loans to rebuild the infrastructure of productive local economies
8 Innovations for productive and secure savings (a): Introduce a ‘People’s Pension’ to provide secure savings vehicles for retirement
9 Innovations for productive and secure savings (b): Enable ‘local bonds’ as a secure investment vehicle for savers that also helps to finance essential investment and new infrastructure for a more environmentally sustainable Britain
10 Housing
11 Take a ‘social investment approach’ to public services, measure and reward broader value creation
12 Tap into the hidden value of time banking and grow the ‘core economy’
13 Improve checks and balances by introducing capital controls
14 Make taxation work
15 Increase stability and raise resources with currency and financial transaction taxes
16 Launch a Green New Deal to fight the recession whilst tackling energy insecurity and climate change
17 Pay for energy transition and fuel poverty: a windfall tax on the unearned profits of the fossil fuel companies to provide a safety net for those in fuel poverty, and to help finance the UK’s transition to clean energy
18 Hold accountancy firms accountable
19 Introduce a maximum pay differential, or maximum wage
20 Take a ‘five-a-day’ approach to well-being to help beat the negative psychological effects of recession and build resilience
Appendix B New Economics Tools and Techniques
BizFizz
Community finance
Community land trusts
Community reinvestment
Complementary currencies
Co-production
Democs
Ecological debt
Ethical investment
Future search
Happy Planet Index
Imagine
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
Local Alchemy
Local distinctiveness
LM3
Prove and improve
Prove it!
Social accounting and social auditing
Social investment
Social return on investment
Street markets
Time banks
Well-being
Index
