Designing the Green Economy: Beyond Scarcity, Toward Abundance Brian Milani GreenEconomics.net Liefhebber Consortium of Green Development and Bad Dutch Football

The Green Economy A Historical Transition: …from Quantity to Quality A Question of Potentials …not simply limits Key to Sustainability: Redefining Wealth

Redefining Wealth I Quantitative: Qualitative: Money & Material Accumulation Qualitative: Well-being Regeneration

Redefining Non-Material Wealth II: Phantom/Casino vs. Real Economy Casino (debt-based) economy Eco-service economy

Design Dimensions Political / Financial: trade, money / currency, EPR / property /service Energy: soft energy path Technological: cradle-to-cradle, eco-industrialism, Carbo Economy, shearing layers, product design Spatial: urban design / green cities, localization

Principles of a Green Economy The Primacy of Human Need, Service, Use-value, Intrinsic Value & Quality Following Natural Flows Waste Equals Food Elegance and Multifunctionality Appropriate Scale / Linked Scale Diversity Self-Reliance, Self-Organization, Self-Design Participation & Direct Democracy Human Creativity and Development The Strategic role of the Built-environment, the Landscape & Spatial Design

The Green Economy: Human & Eco Dimensions “The Service Economy” End-use: “Hot Showers and Cold Beer” Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access, Shelter, Community, etc. The Economy in Loops — The “Lake Economy” Flowing with nature, Every output an input, Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the work

Common Sense Economics Increase restrictions on the flow of material goods and physical capital (to minimize transport costs, etc.) Lessen restrictions on the flow of information and culture. note: Globalization does exactly the opposite: via free trade and intellectual property law. Herman Daly “Trade Recipes, not Cookies.”

Creativity: the key to Real development meet real needs: Don’t use material consumption as a substitute for qualitative fulfillment Rifkin: The Empathic Civilization Greening: substitute human creativity for energy and resources. --People-intensive development --Resource productivity

Mass Collaboration beats competition every time wikinomics: based in abundance not scarcity undermines industrial markets

Labour & Resource Relationship Industrial economy: resource-intensive. labour productivity: Substitutes resources for labour. Green Economy: people-intensive / resource-saving. Substitutes human creativity for resources

Industrialism: The Divided Economy Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value “Consumption” “Production” People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

Invisible Economy (1) Total Productive System of an Industrial Society (layer cake with icing) 2 GNP-Monetized ½ of Cake Top two layers Non-Monetized Productive ½ of Cake Lower two layers GNP “Private” Sector Rests on GNP “Public” Sector Social Cooperative Love Economy Nature’s Layer “Private” Sector “Public”Sector “underground economy “Love Economy” Mother Nature All rights reserved. Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson

Invisible Economy (2)

The Economy in Loops

The Old Order: Materialism and Industrialism markets best suited to material stuff steel & autos; not culture and quality of life Crisis: overproduction and "effective demand" “Invisible Hand" doesn't work so well in cultural production post-Depression: Waste as economic driver.

Scarcity, Class Power & Waste War production, suburbanization and effective demand. Waste of resources Waste of human potential

The Post WW II Waste Economy Permanent War Economy The Suburb Economy: Oil / Autos / Subdivisions

“The greatest misallocation of resources in human history “The greatest misallocation of resources in human history.” …James Howard Kunstler

Fordism & the Reinforcement of Industrial Wealth Matter Waste Fordism Suburbanization/ Consumer Economy War Industry Money Debt Keynesianism Paper Economy Planned Inflation New forms of credit-money

1970s: End of the Line for the Fordist Waste Solution saturation of markets social & environmental costs coming due: fiscal crisis of the state limits to inflationary strategy Vietnam war, decline of the dollar, German/Japanese competition OPEC & the energy crisis Petrodollars & Currency Crisis

Post-Fordist Casino Economy cost of waste come due: need for new sources of “effective demand” new technologies & Megabyte Money: money disconnected from Real economy financial sector: 30-50 times (?) larger than the material economy Culture of Speculation: Stomp the weak / Get rich quick Empty wealth creation: de facto redistribution of wealth. Polarization of work and society end of social contracts: attack on Welfare State the growing gap between rich and poor

The Global Casino: Hijacking the Information Revolution expansion of employment in speculative industry Wall St.: more advanced technologically than the military. Bubble Economies: last ‘frontiers’ for capitalist growth. -stock crash of 1987 -tech stock bubble of late 90s -housing bubble of 2001-07 Housing speculation: most destructive & exploitative of the poor & average people.

Crisis, Waste & the Suppression of Human Potential Creating Scarcity since WWII: Waste production Debt & funny-money creation Austerity

The Economy & Culture of Fear Mainstream politics and media today are mobilized for the creation of fear, based in both scarcity and personal insecurity. Reality TV competitions, extreme fighting, Tea Parties, racist fundamentalism, cultural scapegoating, etc. Question: should we be careful of adding more fear, however justifiable? (climate change, etc.)

Strategies for Abundance Invest in social and natural regeneration infrastructure & public goods Material Economic Security: meet everyone’s needs Disable the Coercive power of Money Community Currencies Basic Income guarantees Free Culture: from ownership to access; from belongings to belonging

Invest in Social and Natural Regeneration (includes growing categories of “public goods” and social/eco infrastructure) increased role for government on all levels invest in community: the nexus for regenerative development eliminate externalities: make polluters, extractors, incarcerators pay

Property & Stewardship Ownership should be relative: designed to support stewardship and human development property: good for earlier materialistic development. Centralized ownership: EPR Small-holder stewardship: good for land

A New Paradigm of Security Geared as much to unleashing individual and community creativity as protecting the vulnerable. Eliminates fear on many levels. Deflates the coercive power of money—allows ethical values to factor into personal economic decisions. Supports imagination & innovation that transforms other sectors: e.g. community business. Meet everyone’s basic needs...or else!

Ending the Coercive Power of Money Community Currencies especially account-money systems Basic Income Guarantees the more universal, the better

the appropriate goal: Gift Circulation Money as information & energy Brand: “Information wants to be free.” Requires social / eco value to be embedded in everyday life : indicators Question: transitional mechanisms