Following our last episode on Chris Rogers' "Alternatives to Capitalism," this session is dedicated entirely to Wendy Harcourt's journal article, "The Future of Capitalism: A Consideration of Alternatives."
At its heart, Wendy Harcourt's article reviews three distinct but interconnected approaches to discussing alternatives to today's neoliberal capitalism. Her aim is to explore "alternative visions for a different world order based on the values of ecological, gender, and social justice." She draws on the experiences of various networks and movements globally that are seeking a "more sustainable, harmonious, liveable and just world order."
In her conclusion, Harcourt synthesizes the ideas from all three sections, identifying common threads and the path forward.
• Common Goal: All the reviewed literature aims to "find ways to live with and redefine capitalism aware of social and ecological limits" and to change economic values to include "care and respect for our families, communities, other knowledges, and cultures."
• "Living Economies": This concept proposes redesigning economies so that "life is valued more than money and power resides in ordinary women and men who care for each other, their community, and their natural environment."
• Shared Values: Despite different terminologies (new economics, green new deal, solidarity economies, social enterprise, core economy, care economy, social reproduction, place-based feminist alternatives, and buen vivir), these visions for the future are all "based in beliefs and values that build on the ethics of care, have respect for diversity, and question growth as the driver of economic development."
• Knowledge from Movements: Harcourt emphasizes that these alternatives are not just academic theories but are "coming out of movements as spaces and processes in which knowledges are produced, modified, and mobilized by diverse actors."
• Challenge for Intellectuals: The task is to "work with these plural visions, the tensions within them, acknowledging the context in which they are formed, learning from popular movements and political activism in the co-production of knowledge." This means avoiding the imposition of a single "blueprint" for the future.
• The Paradox: Harcourt acknowledges the challenge that despite strong evidence of capitalism's negative impacts, "people in industrializing countries continue to strive for consumer goods, high-tech tools, and a modern society," illustrating the pervasive "politics of desire at the heart of capitalism."
• Call for New Political Economy: She calls for current and future economists and intellectuals to be open to these "multiple social, political and economic experiments," integrating this knowledge to shape a "new political economy based on the ethics of care, compassion, conviviality, connectedness, and community."
Harcourt concludes by highlighting that these "place-based alternative practices" represent a "shift of consciousness" that can lead to greater economic and social transformations, acting as "transitory practices to overcome the paradox we live in between yearning for alternatives and sticking to the old ways of doing things."