Climate Change and the Politics of Interdependence

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.

We have created a system in which votes made with the dollar speak louder than votes at the poll. Today’s capitalism, Benjamin Barber argues, makes little distinction between wants and needs. Half a century ago, the model capitalist was one who figured out how to produce something that people truly needed and made a profit selling it. Now that our needs are met (for many, but certainly not all, in the US and the rest of the world) a version of “paper capitalism” has emerged, in which making a profit is more important than making a product. Barber points out that there are dire crises—global warming being the most pressing—for which solutions need to be invented to combat them. His argument is that this cannot be done in a system where individuals think of themselves first as consumers and only secondarily as citizens. To solve today’s most pressing issues we must reclaim our citizenship and strengthen the voices speaking out for the common good.