Som alla någorlunda regelbundna läsare av min blogg redan insett har jag tagit en paus i bloggandet på grund av andra mycket absorberande skriverier. Men när jag idag läste Niklas Ekdals kloka reflektion om Allmänningarnas tragedi måste jag förmedla ett boktips i ämnet. Boken jag syftar på är skriven av Peter Barnes. Titeln är Capitalism 3.0 med den i sammanhanget talande undertiteln A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons.
Boken presenteras på följande sätt på omslaget:
The commons – those creations of nature and society we inherit and must preserve for our children – is under siege. Our current version of capitalism – the corporate, globalized version 2.0 – is rapidly squandering this shared heritage. Now, Peter Barnes offers a solution: protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers.
Barnes shows how capitalism – like a computer – is run by an operating system. Our current operating system gives too much power to profit-maximizing corporations that devour our commons and distribute most of their profit to a sliver of the population. And government – which in theory should defend our commons – is all too often a tool of those very corporations.
Barnes proposes a revised operating system – Capitalism 3.0 – that protects the commons while preserving the many strengths of capitalism as we know it. His major innovation is the commons trust, a market-based legal entity with the power to limit use of scarce commons, charge rent, and pay dividends – in both cash and services – to everyone.
In Barnes’ vision, an array of commons trusts would institutionalize our obligations to future generations, fellow citizens, and nature. Once established, they’d use markets and property rights to create a better world for all.
Capitalism 3.0 offers a practical alternative to our current flawed economic system. It points the way to a future in which we can retain capitalism’s virtues while mitigating its vices.
Hemsidan för boken finns här och organisationen On the Commons intressanta hemsida finns här.
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