* Book: Civilizing the Economy. A new economics of provision. Marvin T. Brown. Cambridge University Press, 2010

We nominated this as p2p book of the year for 2010 and presented it in our blog on January 5.

However, we never gave it the book of week treatment, with original excerpts from the book. That oversight is now corrected.

We start with an overview of the book by the author, followed by two excerpts from chapter one and thirteen.

Marvin Brown:

“If you have been paying attention, you know that global economic trends all but ensure that we will leave to our grandchildren unstable communities of inequality and a despoiled planet, and yet we continue to push for policies that maintain these unjust and unsustainable trends. Civilizing the Economy addresses this economic disconnect by telling two stories.

The first story revolves around the Anglo-American belief that the value of things is their property value. Adam Smith’s writing The Wealth of Nations is a perfect illustration. Even though Smith knew that the slave-based tobacco trade was a major source of wealth creation, he does not write about it because for him slaves were property. This tradition of treating living beings—labor and land—as property perpetuates the disjointed thinking we witness today.

The second story describes the emergence of the civic sphere, and how it could became the platform for civic conversations about how to provide, to protect, and to find purpose for global communities. In such an economy, relationships would be based on civic membership rather than on property ownership. Instead of economic sectors for investment, we would have economic systems of provision that would provide for all. This second story provides an alternative to our current corporate economy: a citizen’s economy.”

First Excerpt: The Civic Option as a Third Way, from Chapter One

Marvin Brown:

“The current economic story has its origin in the eighteenth-century during the Scottish Enlightenment, at the beginning of the first global Atlantic trade between Europe, Africa, and the American colonies. During this period new theories of property and property relations were developed to explain and to justify the Atlantic economy, which involved the enslavement of more than eleven million Africans to supply the labor for the growing economies of the Americas. Slaves, at the time, were treated as property. They received no more sympathy and consideration than cattle or horses. This is a hard truth, but it is the dark stain that continues to influence how many of us think about economics today. The refusal to integrate this history into our views of Anglo-American economic development prevents us from telling the truth about the current destruction of the environment or to acknowledge—really acknowledge—the misery of workers today who provide us our goods. But facing this history is the only way out of the economics of property and into an economics of provision that could save the future for our children and grandchildren.

Many people see only two organizing options: capitalism or socialism. This book offers a third option: a civic option. As citizens, guided by such civic norms as reciprocity, we can engage in civic conversations to turn economic systems toward sustainability and justice. If we are smart citizens, we will not discard things that can work, such as markets and property rights, but we will also not allow them to control our fate.

In a sense, moving from an economics of property to an economics of provision continues the ongoing shift from ownership as the basis for citizenship to citizenship being the basis for ownership. In the eighteenth century, ownership was really the basis of full citizenship and the right to vote was contingent on property rights. In some states, citizens without property did not get the right to vote until 1850. Women did not achieve full citizenship until the 20th century. The economy, however, has continued to remain under the control of property owners. It is time—in fact, is it past time—to replace property rights with civic rights as the basis for our life together.

The new framework does not eliminate property rights. Instead, it places them in the context of making provisions. An economics of provision does not eliminate the market, but it sees civic relations rather than market relations as a basis for a global community. Non-market norms and institutions—things such as stability, trust, and the rule of law—already provide a foundation for market transactions. Labor unions, government legislation to protect workers and the environment, and financial regulations have also constrained the reach of an economics of property. Non-profits and voluntary organizations are doing amazing things to help people’s lives. In his recent book Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken presents the work of many of these groups, which he called “the largest movement in the world.” This movement, he believes, now includes between one and two million organizations. These non-governmental organizations are growing all over the world as people of all ages try to protect themselves and the planet from the current trends of an economics of property. In an economics of provision, all these non-market programs and protections will be strengthened so that all persons will be treated as citizens existing in relationships of basic moral equality and reciprocity.”

Second Excerpt, Three Strategies for Change: Incentives, Regulation and Persuasion, from Chapter 13:

“Just as there are three basic activities of human communities (providing, protecting, and creating a worthwhile purpose), so there are three basic strategies (incentives, regulation, and persuasion) for changing systems of provision—each one appropriate to one the those activities. We can change how a system exchanges goods and services through incentives, how it protects providers through regulations, and how it understands its purpose and beliefs through persuasion.

…

Given the clear evidence that all of the systems of provision in which we live today are unsustainable, we need to make changes in the rewards that support them, the regulations that constrain them, and the beliefs that legitimize them. Incentives in the market can promote technological innovations to create more sustainable products and processes. New government regulations can improve the protection of the key providers of wealth—the natural environment and human providers. And education by school systems, advocacy groups, and the media can change public opinion. All three strategies belong to any competent plan for change, and the correct balance among them will depend on the particular system of provision.”