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
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or democracy:
“A different world can be created or re-created—but not until we stop enshrining the economic values of invisible labor, infinite and obsessive growth, and a slow environmental suicide.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)