If you ask those on the left, something needs to change but nothing will. Ask those on the right, everything is changing and we can only hope to adapt.
Whether climate change or (have you already forgotten?) austerity, underlying both positions is a great sense of powerlessness in the face of ‘the economy.’ But there is an alternative which is neither pipe dream nor utopian theory. It enables us to go beyond mere value extraction and work according to values like solidarity and sustainability. This alternative is workplace democracy, creating an actually free market and making an economy of values possible.
The current so-called ‘free’ market is a collection of dictatorships. Big or small, benevolent or often otherwise, a handful of people decide how and to what end we spend most of the energy we have. Small entrepreneurs are often considered the hardworking backbone of our economies, and not without cause. And individuals in the upper echelons of the corporate world can (try to) do a lot of good. But overall our economies are run in the narrow and often short-term financial interest of large shareholders who regularly own parts of multiple, even ‘competing’ companies. People who are far from the work being done and its impact make all the important decisions. Meanwhile, we have little to no control over our work and what it produces. We feel something needs to change but that nothing will. Or that everything is constantly changing around us, and we can only hope to adapt.
