Public banks have the potential to address a host of economic, social, and ecological crises. This report proposes a democratic public bank model for Los Angeles and elsewhere that addresses key questions of how public banks can best live up to that potential.

It is time to nationalize big oil. Public ownership, by itself, does not guarantee that we will fully replace oil and gas with renewable energy in time to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. As detractors to public ownership often note, three-quarters of the world’s oil reserves are

“A diverse coalition of more than 600 labor, environmental, racial justice, and faith-based organizations delivered a letter Wednesday urging President-elect Joe Biden and his administration to enact a nationwide moratorium on utility disconnections on day one in the White House, stressing that

Our message about how we must respond to the 2017 Charlottesville tragedy is even more relevant after the attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters.

Laura Flanders, Senior Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative, writes in CounterPunch about the tax code and impact of private copyrights when held by democratic Community Boards and organizations dedicated to re-circulating royalties into Black artists and activists. She writes, “Since 1966, the

“The Federal Reserve is the country’s central banking system, and it has “not only the responsibility but the tools to turn climate action into reality,” Carla Skandier, co-manager of the climate and energy program of the Next System Project, said. […] [Skandier] noted that the government has

One of [the Next System Project’s] proposals that makes great sense is to expand the postal service into general services for people, like banking. It is a perfect way to do banking — not commercial banking, JPMorgan Chase giving someone $2 billion — but the kind of banking we all do. It would be

Biden’s list of policies is gargantuan compared to the time he’ll have for actual policymaking on day one. But environmental advocates and clean-energy boosters don’t expect a Biden administration to shunt energy and climate issues to the sidelines, even in a pandemic. “I don’t think climate can be

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is under attack and at grave risk. But with that many Americans are awakening to both the value of the USPS and the manifest dangers of privatization. The crisis has also sparked renewed interest in postal banking, a win-win approach that could both make the USPS more

“DC is taking its rightful place in the rising tide of cities who are designing and deploying comprehensive strategies to achieve reparative justice for all Black people in America. Our capacity for paying reparations and living by the ethics of reparative justice will not only provide redress for

Developing the ecosystem to reconstruct communities and grow local economic democracy in the United Kingdom.

Proponents of a genuinely just and sustainable society like Marjorie Kelly, executive vice president of The Democracy Collaborative, have criticized the BRT statement while arguing that what’s known as the triple-bottom-line approach to business—people, planet, and prosperity—is a step in the right

“Obviously, there is somewhat of a tension between one group seeking for housing to be affordable, which means low prices, and another group seeking continuing investment return, which requires not just high prices but continually increasing prices,” says Peter Gowan, policy associate at the policy

“It is unconscionable that Congress has failed to provide relief to the people of the United States for months, while continuing to roll out corporate bailouts programs. Our essential workers deserve access to PPE, we need our Postal Service now more than ever to help us deliver a fair election, and

Rather than standing by as a wave of corporate buyouts and consolidations undermine local economies and further exacerbate wealth inequality, social impact investors could become the agents of a sweeping economic transformation anchored in broad-based employee ownership. They could turn the current

Re-constructing American society with the focus of ensuring that All Black communities are thriving — that centers the perspectives, experience and leadership of Black people — will require a reimagining of the political economy of the country as well. For instance, can capitalism- an economic

According to Food & Water Action’s live tracker, 10 statewide moratoriums on water shutoffs and dozens of local moratoriums have already expired, leaving millions of people vulnerable to losing basic water services. “It is morally unacceptable to cut off people’s essential services like water

Part of ensuring the recovery from the COVID-19 economic slowdown works for everyone, not just the richest, could take the form of a state holding company with a mandate to support struggling businesses directly and to prevent the emergence of an “Amazon recovery.”

The Democracy Collaborative’s Johanna Bozuwa and Thomas Hanna write about how the Global Green New Deal could herald a new era of international cooperation to curb the climate crisis. Last September, 6 million people joined youth-led climate protests all around the world, from New Zealand to

The Community Reinvestment Act was passed by Congress in 1977 to spur lending and investing in communities of color and lower-income neighborhoods. The CRA requires that deposit-taking banks reinvest capital back into the communities from where they draw those deposits. This requirement is based on

The United States can wield its sovereign monetary power to shift majority control of fossil fuel reserves away from profit-driven, short-minded shareholders to the public interest.

Executive summary The next financial crisis is all but inevitable. While its exact timing and severity cannot be predicted, both the accelerating frequency of crises in recent decades and the continued consolidation of the banking sector in an increasingly financialized economy suggest that we