Portion below; whole thing here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/19/economics-communities
One unintended consequence of the current global financial crisis is that it will reveal what some have known for a long time, namely that a new economics is already emerging. The tragedy is that the crisis-ridden financial system has long since failed to do the basic job required – underpin the productive economy and the fundamental operating systems upon which we all depend. These have been variously neglected, taken for granted or cannibalised by finance. They include the core economy of family, neighbourhood, community and society, and the natural economy of the biosphere, our oceans forests and fields.
That is why, as we aim for recovery, we should not be trying to get back to how things were before. Before was built on an illusion of limitless credit and unlimited natural resources. It was unsustainable for many reasons. Injecting liquidity into the system and looking for signs of recovery in the return of consumer binge-spending on the high street will simply lay the foundations for an even bigger crash in the future. Consumerism is highly addictive, giving a brief high that quickly wears off and is damaging to both the individual and the world around them.
For a society like Britain, there is a large and growing literature that shows, fairly conclusively, we have been looking in the wrong place to find greater life satisfaction and measure the economy's success. With most people having most of their basic material needs met, organising society to achieve progress through indiscriminately rising consumption not only doesn't work – the fall-out from the long hours, throwaway, materialistic, individualistic, status-obsessed culture that accompanies it, is counter-productive, undermining and ultimately destructive.
For a vision of what an alternative might look like, the current edition of New Scientist magazine contains enough economic heresy (but scientific common sense) to choke every finance minister in the northern hemisphere and the whole staff of the International Monetary Fund. Best is the vision for what the country and economy could like in 2020. In it, we have moved from an economy of over-consumption, through-put and waste, and the anachronism of overwork and unemployment, to one which the ecological economist Herman Daly describes as, "a subtle and complex economics of maintenance, qualitative improvements, sharing, frugality, and adaptation to natural limits. It is an economics of better, not bigger."The good thing about such an economy is that it is rich in employment and the thick weave of local, micro-economic relationships that help to create resilient economies and bind communities together. Instead of worshipping the invisible, and usually remote, hand of the market economy (which too often can be caught picking the pockets of the poor), you design an economic system in which resources flow and circulate effectively to serve the invisible heart of the core economy – made up of family, neighbourhood, community and civil society.
It is already happening in place but could quickly move to a much bigger scale. Google tell their staff to spend 10% of their time not doing their job. They're free to get involved with the local community. The company has found that as a result it has made staff more innovative. A lot of research shows that such community involvement also has a very positive payback in terms of life satisfaction. A 10% rule could be introduced across the economy with time credited to the local community. But we could go further. In Britain, the idea of a shorter working week was sullied by the chaos of the 1970s. But again, if people who over-work, worked less, employment could be more equally distributed. Coupled with other innovations to ensure a basic income guaranteeing basic needs, shorter working weeks help turn us from being time-poor, to time-affluent. With more time for family, community and creative learning it makes for happier people and better neighbourhoods.
A duty of reciprocity in public services could also help nurture the core economy. People who offer time, as simple as making visits to the elderly and infirm, could earn time credits to use public services like leisure centres at off peak times.
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