Introduction : Economic transitions in surprising places -- What's wrong with what we've got? Rising tides, trickle down, and other economic myths -- Renewing households and communities : from consumptive dependence to productive resilience -- Unleashing local living economies : from trickle-down problems to bottom-up solutions -- Building broadly based and durable prosperity : from concentrated wealth and widespread insecurity to worker ownership and community capital -- Taking sustainability to scale : from a thousand flickers of light to networks of learning, doing, and change -- Rebuilding a meaningful public debate : from debilitating corporate media to energizing civic conversations -- Transforming politics from the bottom up : unleashing a community-based politics of engagement to overcome the lobbyists and moneyed elites -- Conclusion : Creating a new story, from the bottom up.

How to empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, and secure digital transaction systems. Data is now central to the economy, government, and health systems—so why are data and the AI systems that interpret the data in the hands of so few people? Building the New Economy calls for us to reinvent the ways that data and artificial intelligence are used in civic and government systems. Arguing that we need to think about data as a new type of capital, the authors show that the use of data trusts and distributed ledgers can empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, machine learning fairness principles and methodologies, and secure digital transaction systems. It’s well known that social media generate disinformation and that mobile phone tracking apps threaten privacy. But these same technologies may also enable the creation of more agile systems in which power and decision-making are distributed among stakeholders rather than concentrated in a few hands. Offering both big ideas and detailed blueprints, the authors describe such key building blocks as data cooperatives, tokenized funding mechanisms, and tradecoin architecture. They also discuss technical issues, including how to build an ecosystem of trusted data, the implementation of digital currencies, and interoperability, and consider the evolution of computational law systems.

Bestselling author John R. Talbott, who predicted the housing and mortgage crisis, pictures in Obamanomics--written well in advance of the historic 2008 elections--a Barack Obama presidency based on justice and cooperation—principles that have not held sway in Washington, DC, for quite some time. Talbott's powerful grasp of finance allows him to connect the issue of financial inequality in America with our need as a people to embrace change. Obama has shown he knows that divisions among races, religions, and political views have prevented Americans from coming together to solve the most important problems of our age. Obamanomics, infused with Obama's speeches, campaign policy statements, and other writings, describes a government acting according to democratic principles to enact lobbying reform, get our economy moving again, fix our healthcare system, slow global warming, prevent unnecessary wars, improve education, address the aging of our population, find alternative energy sources, and bring about housing, mortgage, and banking reform.

A profound look at the crisis of work and the collapse of the safety net, and a vision for a better way forward, rooted in America’s cooperative spirit, from the founder of the Freelancers Union “Read this essential book to see how we can and must build the future.”—Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin Mutualism: It’s not capitalism and it’s not socialism. It’s the future. The twentieth century changed every facet of life for American workers: how much they could expect to earn and what they had the right to demand. But by 2027, a majority of Americans—from low-wage service workers to white-collar professionals—won’t be traditional employees. Benefits like paid sick leave, pensions, 401(k)s, disability insurance, and health care will be nearly extinct. To meet the needs of this new generation of workers, the government has done almost nothing. In this book, labor lawyer, former chair of the board of the New York Federal Reserve, and MacArthur “genius” Sara Horowitz brings us a solution to the current crisis of work that’s rooted in the best of American traditions, which she calls mutualism. Horowitz shows how the future of our economic safety net rests on this approach and demonstrates how mutualist organizations have helped us solve common problems in the past and are now quietly driving rural and urban economies alike all over the world, inspired not by for-profit corporations but by labor unions and trade associations, religious organizations and mutual aid societies, and vital social movements from women’s suffrage to civil rights. Mutualism is for anyone who feels that the system is not working for them, and is looking for a new way to build collaboratively, create the new American social contract, and prosper in the twenty-first century.

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.

A surprising take on how you can help tackle the really big problems in society–from one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs. People are looking for a better way. Towering barriers are holding millions of people back, and the institutions that should help everyone rise are not doing the job. Crumbling communities. One-size fits all education. Businesses that rig the economy. Public policy that stifles opportunity and emboldens the extremes. As a result, this country is quickly heading toward a two-tiered society. Today’s challenges call for nothing short of a paradigm shift – away from a top-down approach that sees people as problems to be managed, toward bottom-up solutions that empower everyone to realize their potential and foster a more inclusive society. Such a shift starts by asking: What would it mean to truly believe in people? Businessman and philanthropist Charles Koch has devoted his life to answering that question. Learn what he’s discovered during his 60-year career to help you apply the principles of empowerment in your life, in your business, and in society. By learning from the social movements and applying the principles that have enabled social progress throughout history, Koch has achieved more than he dreamed possible – building one of the world’s most successful companies and founding Stand Together, one of America’s most innovative philanthropic communities. Stand Together CEO Brian Hooks and Koch show how the only way to solve the really big problems – from poverty and addiction to harmful business practices and destructive public policy – is for each and every one of us to find and take action in our unique role as part of the solution. Full of compelling examples of what works – including several first-person accounts from individuals whose lives have been transformed – Koch and Hooks’ refreshing approach promotes partnership instead of partisanship and speaks to people from different perspectives and all walks of life. They show that no injustice is too tough to overcome if you share a deep belief in people, are willing to unite with anyone to do right, and work to empower others from the bottom up.

The experts say that America's best days are behind us, that mediocre long-term economic growth is baked in the cake, and that politically, socially, and racially, the United States will continue to tear itself apart. But David Smick-hedge fund strategist and author of the 2008 bestseller The World Is Curved-argues that the experts are wrong. In recent decades, a Corporate Capitalism of top down mismanagement and backroom deal-making has smothered America's innovative spirit. Policy now favors the big, the corporate, and the status quo at the expense of the small, the inventive, and the entrepreneurial. The result is that working and middle class Americans have seen their incomes flat-lining and their American Dreams slipping away. In response, Smick calls for the great equalizer, a Main Street Capitalism of mass small-business startups and bottom-up innovation, all unfolding on a level playing field. Introducing a fourteen-point plan of bipartisan reforms for unleashing America's creativity and confidence, his forward-thinking book describes a new climate of dynamism where every man and woman is a potential entrepreneur-especially those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Ultimately, Smick argues, economies are more than statistical measurements of supply and demand, economic output, and rates of return. Economies are people-their hopes, fears, dreams, and expectations. The Great Equalizer is a call for a set of new paradigms that inspire and empower average American people to reimagine and reboot their economy. It is a manifesto asserting that, with a new kind of economic policy, America's best days lie ahead.

Bottom-up is a way of life and a way of doing business. The Bottom-Up Revolution picks up where Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point left off, describing an emerging cultural phenomenon with deep biological and evolutionary underpinnings. It is a how-to book for businesses, leaders, organizations, activists, and individuals, cracking wide-open humankind's biggest trend in seven million years. By understanding the roots and implications of "bottom up" and "top down" you'll be better able to tap the incredible power of this trend, as the billionaire founders of Craigslist, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and political revolutionaries have done. It includes interview excerpts with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Fritjof Capra, Frans de Waal, Ann Marie Slaughter, Joseph Nye, Naomi Klein, Nicholas Carr, Riane Eisler, George Lakoff, Douglas Rushkoff, Robin Chase, Darcia Narvaez, Dennis Kucinich, Tim O'Reilly, Mike Medavoy, and John McKnight. Why you need this book? You can learn: to unleash the bottom-up powers brimming within you to apply bottom-up ideas to make your organization more successful to connect better and how connection and disconnection have changed how top-down thinking and values have enabled an authoritarian explosion to have more, better, deeper positive experiences how and why to have hero's journeys how bottom-up is a core progressive value how some of the most successful business pioneers have tapped the power of bottom-up to tap new, revolutionary ways to manage to use bottom-up thinking and ways to more effectively use social media and search engines to use bottom-up approaches to build more effective, smarter, successful websites build and access power-political, personal, community, organizational-that was not available in the top-down world, before the bottom-up revolution to run effective, successful crowdsourcing campaigns how to get yourself or your organization a Wikipedia page why bottom-up is one of the most disruptive forces in the world to think about creating new products and business that tap into our bottom-up genetic evolutionary wiring how bottom-up thinking is a core part of making activism work, making your visions for change a reality. to understand how bottom-up will change your life, world, and relationships how story plays an essential bottom-up role in changing yourself and the world to see the world through bottom-up eyes, with more caring, compassion, and understanding of how culture and society work

How we can achieve healthy growth--more regenerative than destructive, restoring equity rather than exacerbating inequalities. In Tomorrow's Economy, Per Espen Stoknes reframes the hot-button issue of economic growth. Going beyond the usual dialectic of pro-growth versus anti-growth, Stoknes calls for healthy growth. Healthy economic growth is more regenerative than destructive, repairs problems rather than greenwashing them, and restores equity rather than exacerbating global inequalities. Stoknes--a psychologist, economist, climate strategy researcher, and green-tech entrepreneur--argues that we have the tools to achieve healthy growth, but our success depends on transformations in government practices and individual behavior. Stoknes provides a compass to guide us toward the mindset, mechanisms, and possibilities of healthy growth.

The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.