S3 E55 P5: Convert to a New Economy

Episode discussion topics

• This represents part 5 of the Five-Point Plan introduced in episode 50.
• Leading by example by going all-in on converting to a new economy for climate's sake.
• We can no longer rely on endlessly increasing profits, waste, and carbonization for shareholders' sake. We need to build clean local economies, live in the doughnut of sustainability, and think full circle about resource use.
• This new economy will offer the freedom of choice as to when and where you participate in the corporate concrete jungle, start your own business, or do something more creative. Learn more about how this could be possible by revisiting S3 E52 | P2: Right to A Minimum Standard of Living.
• The end game is that we all get to live a collaborative and fulfilling life within the means of our communities and our biosphere. No more borrowing against future generations for the greed of those alive today.
• The transition begins by focusing on four major areas of reform...
• Area 1: Legislation and law enforcement:
  • Enforcing anti-trust laws. Small business is better business.
  • Promoting tax policies that enable small, local, sustainable, resilient, community-oriented, businesses and institutions for the common good.
  • Promoting the replacement of fossil fuels and old-school industrialization with sustainable and renewable systems for life-support's sake.
  • Provide programs to make every home self-sustainable and grid-independent for resiliency's sake.
• Area 2: Promote government policies with a focus on relationships with the community. This includes things like:
  • Policies that provide for caregiving at the beginning and end of life in an integrated community way.
  • Policies that establish systems to help facilitate people's role transitions throughout life. Managing a multipronged career path.
  • Role transitions include things like serving as an apprentice, creator, follower, leader, teacher, and mentor. Some may be taken on simultaneously.
• Area 3: Government needs to make resources available to spur advancements in new ways to conduct business and also encourage more sustainable ownership structures like worker-owned cooperatives, credit unions, and other types of non-profits.
• Area 4: Add stakeholder seats to company boards that represent the interests of:
  • Employees of the company or their union.
  • Regulatory oversight agencies by industry, for example: financial, environmental, agriculture, aerospace, and health.
  • Department of the Treasury would be seated any time there is government ownership or equity stake in a company.
• Calls to Action:
  • Consider how you or your children might be benefitted from such an economy and have the freedom of how and when to participate in the capitalist parts of our system.
  • Consider how you might transition between the roles we described.  Also, think about how might you want your children to experience roles in their lives.
  • The Atlantic has published a thought-provoking article on the value of sabbaticals, an idea that we highlight during this episode. Check it out: What Is Life Like When We Subtract Work From It?
  • Learn more about doughnut economics and the steps you can take towards living sustainably for our posterity's sake. Check it out: S2 E25 | New Economics a la Doughnut.

Your hosts: Michael V. Piscitelli