THE END OF NEO-LIBERALISM AND THE BEGINNINGS OF INTEGRAL ECONOMICS

Abstract

A burgeoning policy shift from neo-liberal economics is underway, with leadership by presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). His platform positions stem in part from his negative experiences with neo-liberalism when he was Mayor of Cleveland more than 30 years ago. Although his response as Mayor was based on confrontation politics, examples of community-based economies built on collaborative planning, ownership, and management have since become more widely known. We can now show that the successful Grameen Bank and the Mondragon Cooperatives were constructed on principles consistent with Integral Science.

Keywords:

• Collaborative processes
• Grameen Bank
• Integral Science
• Jeffersonian democracy
• Mondragon Cooperatives
• neo-liberal economics
• social learning
• triune brain
• urban populism

Notes

1 Swanstrom defines growth politics as the effort by governments to enhance their economies by attracting mobile wealth; he uses it as a basis for understanding the political dynamics of urban systems influenced by the “deep underlying logic of international capital accumulation” (pp. 3, 17).