Ideas in Development

Today’s rural communities in United States are very different from those in the past. No longer boasting a predominately agriculture economy, they are in many respects facing the same competitive challenges that other places do. Low-wage foreign competition, accelerating product cycles, and the application of information technologies throughout the economy will continue to generate lots of economic change, for the better and the worse. As will changing workforce demographics and the widespread adoption of the logistics and outsourcing techniques, demonstrated successfully by Wal-Mart and others.

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Louis Kelso was a visionary in the field of economics.  He developed/pioneered the idea of Binary Economics as a new way of understanding capital and its role in industrial production and the production of wealth, and was the originator of Employee Stock Ownership Plans.  He subscribed to a ‘non-conformist’ form of capitalism that believed in a capitalist society where ownership was widely distributed throughout society, and co-authored The Capitalist Manifesto with philosopher Mortimer Adler, which highlights many of his main economic theories.¹ 

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Thesis 1: Economic development is not synonymous with business attraction strategies.

Economic development is not a single strategy, such as business attraction efforts or cutting high marginal income tax rates or earmarking more funds for in-state research and development. Instead, it should be regarded as a broader dynamic process that these initiatives may affect positively or negatively. To quote Kenneth Boulding: “Economic progress (or development) involves the discovery and implementation of better ways to address our wants.” Such a definition could be elaborated into a series of goal statements and relevant data indicators. So, economic development is not a collection of large capital projects, such as new plants and convention centers. It is an adaptation process, involving how smoothly, swiftly, profitably and humanely, a sub-national economy can adjust to changes in demography, technology, resource availability and costs, and competition from abroad and within the U.S.

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Edited by Stephanie Greenwood and with an introduction written by David Cay Johnston, author of a great exposé of the U.S. tax system, 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Hate Taxes is a much needed liberal manifesto.  Short and lucid articles provide the case for charging equitable and sufficient “dues” for this club to which we all belong: the U.S. of A.

Now, here are the reasons, absent evidence, rhetoric, or polemic:

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French Economist Daniel Cohen

French economist Daniel Cohen’s books on today’s economy deserve wide readership among policy makers, activists and intellectuals.

Hardly a household name or common feature of the American talk show circuit, (or is the proper word “circus”?), economist Daniel Cohen has authored a series of readable, challenging and illuminating works. He is a master of the book-long essay and is big on irony.

Cohen’s core arguments and diverting digressions offer little ideological solace to right or left. Both views are found wanting. Solutions that he proposes tend to draw from each side of the political spectrum.

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