How do we get from here to there—from where we are to where we want to be? One can imagine a civic economy where economic trends are moving toward making provisions for everyone and ensuring that future generations have the capacities to meet their needs. But how do we get there?
Responses to the corporate funded attacks on labor unions in Wisconsin and elsewhere have created new possibilities for turning our nation toward justice and sustainability. Will we be able to realize these possibilities? In other words, can our labor unions help civilize the economy? I think it depends on how they frame collective bargaining.
If we see the economy is a social system, then like other social systems, the economy does not have its own self-organizing principle—like some invisible hand—but is influenced by both positive and negative feedback loops that reinforce and resist specific trends. Once we understand the trends of our economic-social system, then it is possible to identify the persons, groups, and institutions located at different places in this system. If you are located in a bank in Basel, Switzerland, for example, you will have a larger possibility of controlling the economy than someone on the street in Oakland, California, even though both locations belong to the same global economy.
Marvin T. Brown, Ph.D teaches business and organizational ethics at the University of San Francisco and Saybrook University in San Francisco.
This book is the culmination of 30 years of teaching and writing on business and society from a communicative perspective. Visit workingethics.com for more information.
Adam Smith American Dream Atlantic trade banks biosphere citizen Citizens United civic civic conversations civic economy Civicism civic membership civilizing the economy Commons corporate citizen corporations democracy disagreement economics of property economics of provision Egypt health care reform human dignity invisible hand John Locke libertarianism Libya living wage membership money moral equality property property relations protection Scotland slavery slaves Smith and slavery Smithian economics sports sustainability system of provision the civic tobacco trade Wall Street