We are economists who think that the economy should serve people, the planet and the future.
Some politicians and economists still cling to the old claims that bigger is better, greed is good, a fossil-fueled economy is inevitable, and inequality is efficient. A growing body of evidence has shown this model to be bankrupt.
Instead of prosperity, it is feeding ever-wider inequalities of wealth and power that erode our health and economic well-being.
Instead of full employment, it is generating monthly job growth that fails to match labor force growth.
Instead of a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren, it has brought us to the brink of an unprecedented environmental crisis, consistently overstating the costs of actions to protect our climate while understating their benefits.
Instead of a competitive and resilient economy, it has fostered the growth of “too-big- to-fail” banks and corporations whose political power threatens the integrity of our democracy itself.
We call for a new economy founded on the building blocks of a level playing field, true- cost pricing, resilience, and real democracy.
In addition to new and effective policies in the critical arenas of job creation, housing, health care and regulation, we call for support for 21st century alternatives to the centralized, unfair, and unsustainable economy of the 20th century.
A new economy is already taking root across the country. The new economy includes small businesses accountable to the communities they serve. It includes clean energy producers. It includes worker-owned cooperatives. It includes locally based farming and food markets. It includes the peer production sector that gave birth to Wikipedia, Linux, and Freecycle.
The growth of this new economy demonstrates that economic activity can flourish when guided by social benefit rather than by private profit alone.
We extend our support to all who are working to build a new economy for our century – an economy that works for people, the planet, and the future.
If you’re an economist and would like to add your name to this statement, please send us an email by clicking here ([email protected]).
Randy Albelda / University of Massachusetts Boston
Gar Alperovitz / University of Maryland College Park
Hannah Appel / University of California Berkeley
Michael Ash / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Lee Badgett / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ron Baiman / Center for Tax and Budget Accountability
Scott Baker / Common Ground – NYC
Erdogan Bakir / Bucknell University
Benjamin Balak / Rollins College
Radhika Balakrishnan / Rutgers University
Fabian Balardini / Borough of Manhattan Community College (CUNY)
Ahmet Baytas / Montclair State University
Carole Biewener / Simmons College
Marc Bilodeau / Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
Cyrus Bina / University of Minnesota
Peter C. Bloch / University of Wisconsin-Madison
James K. Boyce / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Elissa Braunstein / Colorado State University
Antonio Callari / Franklin and Marshall College
Martha Campbell / SUNY Potsdam
Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Kimberly Christensen / Sarah Lawrence College
Jens Christiansen / Mount Holyoke College
Jennifer Cohen / Whitman College
J. Kevin Crocker / University of Massachusetts Amherst
James Crotty / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Omar S. Dahi / Hampshire College
Susan M. Davis / Buffalo State College
Carmen Diana Deere / University of Florida
George DeMartino / University of Denver
Geert Dhondt / John Jay College, The City University of New York
P.K. Dollar / Gem Communications
Laura Dresser / Center on Wisconsin Strategy
Marie Christine Duggan / Keene State College
Amitava Krishna Dutt / University of Notre Dame
Justin A. Elardo / Portland Community College
Gerald Epstein / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Bilge Erten / United Nations, DESA
Joshua Farley / University of Vermont
Kade Finnoff / University of Massachusetts Boston
Gerald Friedman / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Heidi Garrett-Peltier / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Barbara Garson / Author “Down the Up Escalator: How the 99% live in the Great Recession”
Armagan Gezici / Keene State College
David Gold / The New School
Jonathan P. Goldstein / Bowdoin College
Eban Goodstein / Bard College
Ilene Grabel / University of Denver
Doug Henwood / Left Business Observer, “Behind the News”
Wolfgang Hoeschele / Truman State University
Julio Huato / St. Francis College
Mary C. King / Portland State University
Mark Klinedinst / University of Southern Mississippi
Kazim Konyar / California State University, San Bernardino
Philip Kozel / Rollins College
David Laibman / City University of New York
June Lapidus / Roosevelt University
Joelle J. Leclaire / Buffalor State College, SUNY
Frederic Lee / University of Missouri Kansas City
Fernando Leiva / University at Albany (SUNY)
Charles Levenstein / University of Massachusetts Lowell
Margaret Levenstein / University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Patricia J. Lindsey / Retired
Sean MacDonald / New York City College of Technology, City University of New York
Arthur MacEwan / University of Massachusetts Boston
Stephanie Martin / Allegheny College
Peter Hans Matthews / Middlebury College
Elaine McCrate / University of Vermont
Michael Meeropol / John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY)
Ralph Meima / Marlboro College Graduate School
John D. Messier / University of Maine Farmington
Peter B. Meyer / University of Louisville, The E.P. Systems Group, Inc.
John Miller / Wheaton College
Fred Moseley / Mount Holyoke College
Tracy Mott University of Denver
Ellen Mutari / The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Eric Nilsson / California State University San Bernardino
Jennifer Olmsted / Drew University
Shaianne Osterreich / Ithaca College
Aaron Pacitti / Siena College
Karl Petrick / Western New England University
Thomas Michael / Power The University of Montana
Paddy Quick / St. Francis College
Wendy Rayack / Wesleyan University
Stephen Resnick / University of Massachusetts Amherst
Meenakshi Rishi / Seattle University
Leopoldo Rodriguez / Portland State University
Frank Roosevelt / Sarah Lawrence College
Luis D. Rosero / Fitchburg State University
Blair Sandler / University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD, now teaching T’ai Chi
Ted P. Schmidt / SUNY Buffalo State
Markus P. A. Schneider / University of Denver
Juliet Schor / Boston College
Barry Shelley / Brandeis University
Thomas Simmons / Greenfield Community College
Douglas Smith
Bryan Snyder / Bentley University
Peter Spiegler / University of Massachusetts Boston
Howard Stein / University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Masao Suzuki / Skyline College
Pavlina R. Tcherneva / Franklin and Marshall College
Frank Thompson / University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Renee Toback / URPE
Mariano Torras / Adelphi University
Mayo Toruño / California State University San Bernardino
A. Dale Tussing / Syracuse University
Hasmet Uluorta / University of Miami
Valerie Voorheis / University of Massachusetts Amherst and Marlboro College Graduate Center
Mwangi wa Gĩthĩnji / University of Massachusetts Amherst
James Wagner / John Burrough Schools, Webster University
Scott A. Weir / Wake Technical Community College
Thomas E. Weisskopf / University of Michigan
Maggie Winslow / University of San Francisco
Yavuz Yaşar / University of Denver
Notes:
“inequalities of wealth and power that are eroding our health and economic well-being”: see Wilkinson and Pickett 2009.
“monthly job growth fails to outpace labor force growth”: Shierholz 2012.
“overstating the costs of action to protect our climate while understating its benefits”: Ackerman et al. 2009.
“new economy is already taking root around the country”: Alperovitz 2012.
“the new sector of peer production that created Wikipedia, Linux, and Freecycle”: Benkler 2006.
“based on … the fundamental principle that social benefit, not just private profit, should guide economic activity”: see, for example, bcorporation.net.
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