A new economic paradigm

Many books, films, pamphlets and essays have succeeded in articulating what is wrong with the current economic set-up. In this book, we have tried to make connections between the economic structures and institutions that make up ‘the system’, and to link them to unequal power relations within societies and between nations.

It should be clear by now that the economic system is not only failing to deliver sufficient wealth and wellbeing, it is also driving the two principal threats to the survival of our civilization, environmental breakdown and social violence. A new economic paradigm is needed, one which can deliver an economic system which has clear values and is explicit about its objectives. It must transcend traditional concepts of left and right: economics is not a simple choice between state control and unregulated free markets, or even a mixed-economy mash-up of the two. The kind of economy that emerges will depend on the outcomes we want, and those outcomes must be driven by moral considerations. Mechanisms that currently promote the concentration of economic opportunities and resources must be re-engineered in favour of majority interests.

This move to a new economic paradigm would be the greatest conscious revolutionary advance in the history of humankind. This book doesn’t offer the kind of shopping-list policy proposals you get in an election manifesto. Such documents cannot address systemic, structural issues. But, having identified what’s wrong with current arrangements, we must examine the kind of change required in three key areas: the monetary system, the tax system and the financial system.