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The government just made it easier for workers to own a piece of their employer

Lydia DePillis
CNN

Lydia DePillis writes for CNN Money about "The government just made it easier for workers to own a piece of their employer." DePillis writes about The Democracy Collaborative project Fifty By Fifty:

In Depth: Hospitals tackling social determinants are setting the course for the industry

Steven Ross Johnson
Modern Healthcare

Steven Johnson writes for Modern Healthcare on "In Depth: Hospitals tackling social determinants are setting the course for the industry." In this article, Johnson writes about the Democracy Collaborative anchor work. 

Workplace Solidarity in the Equitable Economy

Jane Paul
Dollar and Sense

Jane Paul, writes in Dollars and Sense, about "Workplace Solidarity in the Equitable Economy." In this article, Paul quotes The Democracy Collaborative communication director John Duda on a cooperative support system: 

From Breweries to Factory Floors, Worker Coops are Blooming

Randy Mueller
Locavesting

Randy Mueller writes in Locavesting "From Breweries to Factory Floors, Worker Coops are Blooming." In this article, Mueller quotes Communication Director John Duda: 

Is Nationalization An Answer to Climate Change?

Kate Aronoff
The Intercept

Kate Aronoff writes for the Intercept on "Is Nationalization An Answer to Climate Change?" In this article, Aronoff cites research by the Next System Project: 

Why are councils investing in the fracking industry they oppose?

Mathew Brown
The Guardian

Mathew Brown writes for The Guardian in "Why are councils investing in the fracking industry they oppose?" In this article, Mathew Brown writes about the pension funds investing:

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, fracking has been effectively halted, but councils there still oversee pension funds investing heavily in fracking companies.

In Lancashire our has county council had its own now infamous battle with then communities secretary Sajid Javid when he overturned the council’s rejection of Cuadrilla’s application to frack at Preston New Road. Two years on Cuadrilla are set to begin drilling – and the government is attempting to ensure that councils lose any oversight of where fracking developments are established.

Read more at The Gaurdian

 

Fossil Fuels Are Next in Line for a Bailout – Here’s How We Respond

Carla Santos Skandier
Truthout

Cala Skandier, of the Democracy Collaborative, writes for Truthout: "Fossil Fuels Are Next in Line for a Bailout – Here’s How We Respond." In this article, Carla Skandier writes about the quantitative easing for the planet: 

That’s when the term “quantitative easing” entered the mainstream vocabulary. By pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, the Federal Reserve was able to buy assets of failing financial institutions, providing them with the parachute for a soft landing and a floor below which the economy would not fall further.

Read more at Truthout

 

Stop Subsidizing Overpaid CEOs & Why We Need Public Pharma!

RJ Eskow
We Act Radio

In this radio show Rj Esko interviews Dana Brown Deputy Director of the Next System Project on Zero Hour

Dana Brown is the Deputy Director of the Next System Project. Her research focuses on health system models and the intersection of health and economics. She joined the Democracy Collaborative in 2015 for the launch of the Next System Teach-Ins drawing on her experience with the Democracy Teach-Ins of the 90s and other popular education efforts related to the peace and social justice movements she has participated in for the last two decades.

Listen at We Act Radio

 

What Would a Socialist America Look Like?

Thomas Hanna, Joe Guinan and Peter Gowan
Politico Magazine

In this article, Politico Magazine writes about a socialist future, "What Would a Socialist America Look Like?" Peter Gowan—a fellow at The Democracy Collaborative—was interviewed about democratic ownership: 

A democratically elected government should own natural monopolies such as utilities and rail transport; provide social services like health care, education, housing, child care and banking; and create a general welfare state that eliminates poverty through guaranteeing a minimum income, with assistance for people with disabilities, the elderly and families with children.

But we have to go beyond that. We need measures to establish democratic ownership over the wider economy, and eliminate our dependence on industries that rely on pollution and war for their existence. There need to be strategies to allow workers in the defense, aerospace and fossil fuel industries to repurpose their facilities for more socially useful production, drawing on the example of the Lucas Plan in Britain, where workers designed and published a viable “alternative corporate plan” that included funding for renewable energy, public transport and medical technology. We need a mechanism to transfer corporate equity into sector-oriented social wealth funds controlled by diverse and accountable stakeholders, which would gradually transfer ownership away from unaccountable elites and toward inclusive institutions.

A democratic socialist America would be a society where wealth and power are far more evenly distributed, and it would be less cruel, less lonely and less alienating. Democratic socialism aims for the liberation of human agency and creativity—not just in America, but in all the countries that capital exploits and invades for the profits of our nation’s billionaires.

Read the full article at Politico Magazine

The Next Global Financial Crisis is Inevitable

The Real News Network
The Real News Network

The Real News Network  interviews Thomas Hanna of the Democracy Collaborative about 'The Next Global Financial Crisis is Inevitable.' In this article, The Real News Network discusses the report The Crisis Next Time:

It has been ten years since the last major financial crisis. With systemic deregulation undoing the safeguards, we are due for another crisis very one soon. Thomas Hanna, research director of the Democracy Collaborative’s Next System Project, says it is almost guaranteed

Watch in The Real News Network 

 

Where next for the New Economy movement?

Eli Feghal
Open Democracy

Eli Feghali writes in Open Democracy on 'where next for the New Economy movement?' In this article, Feghali highlights the work of the Democracy Collaborative with the Preston Model:  

These policy victories could be a sign of the mass appeal of new economy values and ideas. That certainly seems to be the case in parts of UK politics, where the Labour party has adopted policies and narratives about democratizing the economy in their national party platform. This development was inspired in part by the success of the “Preston model”—an economic development framework which gives priority to building an ecosystem of institutions that work together to build and circulate wealth within the community. This model (named after the city of Preston where it’s been tested since around 2013) was itself inspired by a US experiment, the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio, a network of worker cooperatives financed and supported by anchor institutions like hospitals and schools in the community.

Read more in Open Democracy

‘Amazon Doesn’t Need The Money’: In The D.C. Region, Resistance Is Growing To Tax Breaks For HQ2

Ally Swartz
WAMU

Ally Swartz writes for WAMU, "‘Amazon Doesn’t Need The Money’: In The D.C. Region, Resistance Is Growing To Tax Breaks For HQ2." In this article, she highlights alternative models of community development to Amazon's proposed HQ2: 

The office’s director, Reginald Gordon, says his agency has helped connect Richmond residents to jobs at new enterprises like Stone Brewing, which the city and state attracted to Richmond with a $6 million incentives package. Gordon’s office is also taking steps toward what it calls a “social enterprise strategy” to help locals start their own businesses, some of which could be worker-owned. In Cleveland, Ohio, residents have taken community wealth building to the next step, starting a network of cooperatives that serve the city’s universities and hospitals.

At the Our Revolution Arlington meeting at Summers Restaurant, a research director from the Democracy Collaborative extolled the benefits of community wealth building while Arlington County Board member Christian Dorsey sat at a table, listening.

Read more in WAMU

In the Age of Disaster Capitalism, Is ‘Survival Socialism’ the Solution?

Laura Flanders
The Nation

In this article, Laura Flanders writes for The Nation "In the Age of Disaster Capitalism, Is ‘Survival Socialism’ the Solution?" In this article, she writes about the needs for alternative to the boom and bust cylce of capitalism, as well as featuring graphic designed by Dylan Petrohilos 

Brown is tall and bald, mid-40s, but, even now, you can imagine him as a boy, smart and obsessive, taking radios apart to study their workings and reassemble them better. What he’s been tinkering with since he was elected to the Preston City Council in 2002, at age 30, is the machinery of city government. In 2011, after a 12-year plan to create jobs fell apart when a powerful name-brand retailer pulled out of what was to have been a shiny new shopping center, Brown reached out to Ted Howard of the Democracy Collaborative, an American “think-and-do tank” that he’d been reading about online. The collaborative helped start the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland.

Read more in the Nation 

Beyond extraction: The political power of community wealth building

Martin O'Neill and Ted Howard
Renewal

Martin O'Neill and Ted Howard write for Renewal "Beyond extraction: The political power of community wealth building."  In this piece, they write about new ideas for the economy: 

An interview with Ted Howard, Co-Founder and President of the Democracy Collaborative, a Washington, D.C.-based ‘think-do tank’ that develops and promotes ideas for a more democratic economy. Howard is now an adviser to the Labour Party’s new Community Wealth Building Unit.

Read more in Renewal 

The return of public ownership

Thomas M. Hanna
Renewal

Thomas Hanna writes for Renewal "The return of public ownership." In this article, he writes about about his book on public ownership: 

Public ownership is back. And, in fact, outside the UK it never really went away – as a forthcoming book amply demonstrates. Democratised and decentralised forms of public ownership can and should be a component of the left’s vision for a new economic settlement.

Read more in Renewal

Editorial: The institutional turn: Labour’s new political economy

Joe Guinan and Martin O'Neill
Renewal

Joe Guinan and Martin O'Neill write for Renewal, "Editorial: The institutional turn: Labour’s new political economy ." In this editorial, they write about the Labour's leadership in the new economy:

The Labour leadership is putting together the elements of a new twenty-first century socialist political economy with a direct focus on ownership, control, democracy, and participation. Rolled out across the entire economy, it could displace traditional corporate and financial power in Britain.

Read more in Renewal 

Trump Is Handing Us the Weapon We Need to Avert Climate Catastrophe

Johanna Bozuwa and Carla Skandier
Truthout

Democracy Collaborative staff, Johanna Bozuwa and Carla Skandier, write in Truthout about "Trump Is Handing Us the Weapon We Need to Avert Climate Catastrophe." In this article, Bozuwa and Skandier write about the research started about nationalization and climate change: 

Editorial: Anchors aweigh on tackling the social determinants of health

Merrill Goozner
Modern Healthcare

Merrill Goozner writes in Modern Healthcare "Editorial: Anchors aweigh on tackling the social determinants of health." In this editorial, Goozner writes about the work of the Healthcare Anchor Network: 

Next week, a 2-year-old network of major healthcare systems dedicated to combating the social problems contributing to ill health in their own backyards will go public. They've chosen to highlight a San Francisco Bay Area food production center that will be up and running by the end of this year.

Located in Richmond, a working-class community that's two-thirds Hispanic and African-American, the center will employ about 200 people in what its sponsors promise will be living-wage jobs. Hospitals belonging to Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health and the University of California at San Francisco will purchase fresh meals from the facility.

Organizers say this is just the start of a nationwide movement to use healthcare systems, often a community's largest employer and purchaser, as an "anchor" institution for local economic development. Three dozen major systems, which collectively represent 600 hospitals with over 1 million employees in more than 400 cities and towns, have already signed on to the Healthcare Anchor Network. They are pledging to use their hiring, purchasing and investment decisions to promote better-paying jobs.

It's a promising development in healthcare's evolving approach to population health. The core concept rests on the belief that achieving better health outcomes for the populations for which they're at risk financially will ultimately depend on improving the social conditions that spawned their diseases.

Read more in Modern Healthcare 

A Future For Homeownership

Jarrid Green
Other Words

Jarried Green writes in Other Words "A Future For Homeownership." In this article, Green writes about how community land trust and housing could save the American dream: 

At this point, it’s no secret that America has an affordable housing problem. Home ownership, long the staple of the “American Dream,” is increasingly a privilege enjoyed only by the wealthier and whiter.

For many young people, the opportunity their parents had to build stable wealth through home ownership seems like a cruel joke in today’s economy. There’s even a viral tweet: “Millennials. Walking around like they rent the place.”

But the housing situation in the U.S. is no laughing matter.

Read more at Other Words