Civic Membership vs Market Ownership

Discussion

Marvin Brown:

"My thinking at the present focuses on the idea of the civic as the foundation for local and beyond local economics. This means that the "people" in a people-centered economy are recognized as glo...bal citizens, with the rights of civic membership. Membership, as I now see it, offers a clear alternative to ownership, which has been the basis for most economic thinking. (Ownership becomes a civic decision on how to manage resources rather than a ticket to enter markets.) A civic economy does not only include those who have the resources to participate in markets, but all the people in the community, because they are all members of the same civic realm. In Civilizing the Economy, I try to show what a civic economy entails, and how it reframes economic performance into different systems of provision, such as the food system or the health care system. These systems, are both local and beyond, but they should be directed to local civic conversations." (February 2012, facebook comment)