When we think of systems, at the heart of our approach is a recognition of the centrality of ownership. Who owns and controls the economy is among the most fundamental questions of political economy.

Our deepening problems – wage stagnation, underinvestment, widening inequalities of wealth and power, climate danger – are not accidental but hardwired into how our economy functions.  

The institutional arrangements at the heart of today’s economy – private ownership, credit creation by banks, global capital markets, giant publicly traded corporations – together form a powerful engine. It is these sets of relationships, that drive the outcomes we are seeing, and living with.

A political economy is a system, and our system is programmed not to meet basic needs but rather to steadily concentrate virtually all the gains to the economy in the hands of a tiny elite. It follows that if we are serious about addressing real economic challenges then we need a different set of institutions and arrangements capable of producing sustainable, lasting and more democratic outcomes – a new paradigm, a democratic economy in support of a democratic polity.

Fortunately, the elements of this new direction are already emerging, across the world, in a series of powerful models: state-owned banks, municipally-owned utilities, worker-owned firms, community-owned solar, and many other practical efforts that are rooted in the core value of community.

The democratic economy is not a pipe dream but already emerging all around us – a spontaneous response to social pain by people in some of our poorest communities. Traditional policies and approaches have demonstrably failed them, and as a consequence, more and more people are beginning to turn to genuine economic alternatives in which new wealth is built collectively and from the bottom up. Recent years have witnessed an explosion of interest in and practical experimentation with a variety of alternative economic institutions and models that are capable of fundamentally altering patterns of ownership – and of producing greatly improved economic, environmental, and social outcomes.

These alternative economic institutions include worker ownership, cooperatives, municipal enterprise, community land trusts, public banks, benefit corporations, social wealth funds, and more. They represent ways in which capital can be democratized and held in common by workers, communities, and local governments. They illuminate how practical new approaches can generate innovative solutions to deep underlying problems. They embody alternative design principles, relying not on regulatory fixes or “after the fact” redistribution but on deep structural changes in the economy and the nature of ownership and control over productive wealth that go right to the heart of our current difficulties. New forms are constantly emerging, as well as ideas as to how innovative combinations might produce still more powerful results.

Taken as a whole, these institutions and approaches form the mosaic of a new democratic economy in the making. They suggest the contours of a next system beyond the extractive economy, and some pathways for getting there.