Creating an Economy for the Common Good
* Book: Christian Felber. Change Everything. Creating an Economy for the Common Good. ZED Books, 2015
URL = http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/node/20840
Description
"Is it possible for businesses to have a bottom line that is not profit and endless growth, but human dignity, justice, sustainability and democracy? Or an alternative economic model that is untainted by the greed and crises of current financial systems?
Christian Felber says it is. Moreover, in Change Everything he shows us how. The Economy for the Common Good is not just an idea, but has already become a broad international movement with thousands of people, hundreds of companies, and dozens of communities and organizations participating, developing and implementing it. Published in English for the first time, this is a remarkable blueprint for change that will profoundly influence debates on reshaping our economy for the future."
Contents
Table of Contents
1 A broken system
2 Defining the economy for the common good
3 The democratic bank
4 Property
5 Motivation and meaning
6 Advancing democracy
7 Real world examples
8 Putting it into practice
CORE IDEAS:
- Economic success is currently measured using monetary indicators like the Gross Domestic Product and financial balance sheets. Success is not measured in terms of human needs, quality of life, and fulfilment of fundamental values but the accumulation of money. A “Common Good Product” and “Common Good Balance Sheet” will fundamentally rectify this distorted thinking and practice.
- One-sided economic thinking is replaced by a holistic and interdisciplinary approach, whose proposals are based on scientific and empirical research: game theory, neurobiology, social psychology, philosophy etc.
- It is an open and evolutionary approach promoting learning from experience and open to integrating elements from other similar and related approaches like solidarity economy, economic democracy, degrowth, blue economy, care economy, gift economy, and others."
(https://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-governance/ggi-events/christianfaber)
About the Author:
"Christian Felber is an Austrian alternative economist and university lecturer. He is an internationally renowned speaker, author of several award-winning bestsellers and a regular commentator on ethics, business and economics in various media. He co-founded the NGO Attac Austria and initiated the Economy for the Common Good as well as the planned Bank for the Common Good, which will be Austria's first ethical finance institute." (http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/node/20840)
More Information
- see the Common Good Balance Sheet