James Quilligan on Achieving a Commons Economy
Biographical Material
Bibliographical Material
Articles:
- Beyond State Capitalism The Commons Economy in our Lifetimes. By James Quilligan [1]; See: James Quilligan on Achieving a Commons Economy in our Lifetime
- Interest Rates and Climate Change: Realigning our Incentives through the Power of the Commons. By James Bernard Quilligan. Kosmos Journal, Winter 2010. [2]; See: James Quilligan on Cap and Rent for Climate Change
According to James Quilligan in a must-read essay in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of Kosmos Journal, neither prices nor taxes can adequately protect vital long-term common goods. The essay is vital reading and needs to be read in full, but here are some key passages below.
- 'Global Common Goods' http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo2/library/kosmos-articles/global-commons-goods.shtml
- 'The Commons and Integral Capital' http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo2/library/kosmos-articles/commons-and-integral-capital.shtml
- ‘People Sharing Resources’ http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo2/library/kosmos-articles/people-sharing-resources.shtml
- ‘The Commons of Mind, Life & Matter’ http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo2/library/kosmos-articles/the-commons-of-mind.shtml
Audio:
Video:
Excerpts
Intergenerational Wealth: Toward the Commons Economy
"Nations are deeply divided over how to manage the global commons, particularly the decarbonization of the atmosphere. Rich states refuse to make major emissions cuts until large developing nations like China, India, and Brazil also take radical steps. Poor states argue that the industrial world, which has been producing emissions for centuries, should provide the resources to help them grow economically while they adapt to climate change and minimize their own emissions. Yet the differences between rich and poor nations cannot be resolved on the same terms that gave rise to them. Our predominant vision of social justice—adaptation to cope with the impacts of climate change through investment, aid and technology—will not be realized through the current economic structure. Adaptation to address present impacts and relieve human misery and suffering is vital for obvious reasons; but the catalyst that is needed to unify nations and transform the economic system is mitigation—measures for limiting future damage from climate change.
The 1987 Brundtland Commission Report called for “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Thus far, the world community has viewed sustainable development through the lens of neo-liberalism and progress has been slight. But fully honoring the principle that the future has value to the people who will live in the future would adjust our fundamental patterns of economic activity toward a more holistic system that will also benefit the present generation. Ensuring that people in the far future have a standard of living on a par with our own requires a new kind of international planning based, not on geopolitical or corporate objectives, but on global resource distribution relative to population growth and ecological carrying capacity. Giving the same weight to future generations’ welfare as we give to those now living obliges us to increase the present wealth per capita—and this will transform the balance of trade, finance and aid for the current generation.
But as long as our global plan for the well-being of future generations is merely a quest to get prices right in the present, the value of the commons will continue to be suppressed by the market. Far from presenting a comprehensive alternative to climate change, carbon emission permits and taxes are incomplete measures of the sources of human incentives and collective worth within the greater biosphere. Renewable energy and technology are essential, but today’s green economics is merely another expression of the market’s misalignment of incentives and risk, since green investment is almost entirely dependent on subsidies, protectionism and debt-financing, which shift social incentives only at the margin. Nor is it adequate to address the problem of climate change by discounting the future—spending more money now and living with less global heating, or spending less money now and living with more global heating. Mitigation to reduce global heating must be measured, not by the scarcity-based instruments of interest or bond rates, but through a value that balances claims of future wealth with the economy’s power to generate that wealth sustainably today.
In a commons economy, the cost of failing to address climate change is viewed as a function of the sustainability of the resources that back our currencies. Thus, in computing the costs and benefits of climate mitigation for the future, it is money itself—the medium of exchange between buyers and sellers—that creates the incentives necessary for the global adjustment of value. With a commons reserve currency issued in co-credits, where the relative value of present and future goods arises from the commons as a collective expression of nature, society and culture, signals about the actual scarcity of resources and the cost of environmental damage and social disparities are conveyed directly through our money. When global sustainability is expressed through the value of currency, each of us will have much fuller and immediate realization of the potential impact of our purchasing power in spending, saving or investing, making it worth less to do ecological and social harm, and worth more to be ecologically and socially restorative. Prices will find the right level only after money is properly valued, breaking the endless-growth imperative, balancing the interests of the future with those of the present, and actualizing our incentives through nature, society and the economy. To get prices right, we need to get money right. This means getting energy right. And to do that, we must first get the commons right.” (http://www.kosmosjournal.org/kjo2/library/kosmos-articles/interest-rates-and-climate-change.shtml)