Examples of what good looks like. These are important in the development of a pragmatic approach to holistic political economy. Finding what works (in business terms finding best practice), and then using it using it to build on means reinforcing success, this is quite different from developing policy (which may look great in theory but be unproven) and implementing it top down.
c. July 2020 I have developed hope-wiki.com, at this time it has overlapping entries with what I have written here, but I hope it will develop and become a a more comprehensive source of information
Here are links to the many and various examples of people just getting on with it. When I think of rebalancing the economy what comes to mind is that it would be just as likely that a co-op is created as a plc. We are dominated by the idea that the job of the company is to maximise the profits for its shareholders (even when their ownership comes with no responsibility) and no matter what the additional costs are for society. These examples show a different mindset - one that works.
If all these alternatives were to become loosely coupled it would be clear just how vigorous and successful cooperation and collaboration is as a model. It would become very clear that the groundswell needed to bring about a paradigm shift in thinking about political-economy is not that far away.
I have only scratched the surface here but hopefully there is enough to get the point over. There are a lot of people out there just doing it, we can learn from them and build on their success. We don't need permission, we can just get on with it. We could use a raft of enabling legislation to put these aspects of political economy on a level playing field as we diversify away from our PLC monoculture.
Here are links to non-partisan, non-commercial organisations that are doing things which look as if they might be moving in the right direction.
These organisations have new or different approaches; they may be running on a break even basis or be charities, they all represent some aspect of the change that holistic political economy seeks but may not be full exemplars. All organisations can have weaknesses and I'm not claiming any of these are perfect. They all have something to contribute. Imagine of all these organisations (and all the ones I don't know about) were loosely coupled; anyone seeking hope, inspiration or help, would get a sense of the scale of what they represent. It would be clear that together they are more than the sum of their parts. I have a specific proposal about this in Part 4 - Tactics - Information, HoPEdia
Throughout this ebook I have stressed that the world is complicated and that power needs to be treated with circumspection. Where these organisations are having success they are on a small scale. We need to reinforce success, instead of being isolated examples they need to become exemplars that point to wider adoption. The same applies to the political alternatives, if these approaches can work on a small scale then the templates for success at a larger scale are lying around, ready to be scaled up.
When it comes to the deployment of technology to solve problems the issues of democracy, power and access get thrown into stark relief.
Instead of debates reaching a balanced conclusion what we see is intense lobbying on both sides (of an often false divide) to the detriment of accuracy. The business side talks up the benefits when it wants to go ahead with as little interference as possible. Opponents feel obliged to (over)emphasise dangers and risks even seeking bans. The issue for political economy is simply this. We clever monkeys will keep on probing and questioning and inventing things. The technology genie is out of the bottle and is never going back. We are too many and our impact is too big, we will live or die by our brain power. We have to get organised to deal with both the challenges we face and the technologies that we invent.
More and more people are seeing the bigger picture and joining the dots. Here are some examples of research and development which recognises the need to tackle the big issues and improve society in the future.
I have included new thinking in economics because it is becoming apparent to many people that there is no such thing as "homo econimus" (the assumed individual in classical economics which makes decisions based on rational, economic grounds). I have also included some links to sites that attempt to provide context and help develop a balanced view of what is really happening.
There is a lot of energy out there and many people are developing new ways of linking together that tackle the individualisation of society and divide and rule that accelerated over the last 30 years. There is likely to be someone out there who has had a similar problem and has been thinking about ways to deal with it. If they have not cracked the problem that may be abe to offer help support or just inspire you. Here are links to some sites offering help and resources online.