Economic Democracy
In After Capitalism and other works, Schweickart has developed the model of market socialism he refers to as "economic democracy". In his own words "Economic Democracy is a market economy." It embodies several key ideas:
- Workplace self-management, including election of supervisors
- Management of capital investment by a form of public banking
- A market for goods, raw materials, instruments of production, etc.
- Protectionism to enforce trade equality between nations
The firms and factories are owned by society and managed by the workers. These enterprises, so managed, compete in markets to sell their goods. Profit is shared by the workers. Each enterprise is taxed for the capital they employ, and that tax is distributed to public banks, who fund expansion of existing and new industry.
Read more about this topic: David Schweickart
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“But I would emphasize again that social and economic solutions, as such, will not avail to satisfy the aspirations of the people unless they conform with the traditions of our race, deeply grooved in their sentiments through a century and a half of struggle for ideals of life that are rooted in religion and fed from purely spiritual springs.”
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