The Either/Or Days Are Over

Recently I attended an economics conference in Washington DC put on by four progressive groups working collaboratively to explore the United States’ economic future.  I was greatly looking forward to it as they had numerous interesting speakers scheduled including Paul Krugman. Over 900 people attended this conference.

At the end of the conference though, I left rather disconcerted.  I came expecting to learn about new solutions for our economic malaise. What I got instead was nothing much more than a lot of highly educated people within the economics fields saying  that the ‘pendulum has swung’ and the 30+ years of the free markets domination was over and that now it was time for the government to be given its rightful place once again in the economic balance.  I shook my head in disbelief—this was nothing more than an ‘either/or’ game. 

Then on Friday, March 6th, posted on Alternet.org, an article by Barbara Ehreneich and Bill Fletcher, Jr. entitled, “ If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the "S" Word?” essentially saying the same thing—Its either Capitalism or Socialism” (although she did acknowledge that the Socialism side of the equation had no plan to get us out of this current economic mess that was any better than Capitalism.)  What’s obvious to me is that Democrat or Republican, Capitalist or Socialist, Government or Free Market---everybody is stuck in the ‘either/or’ game despite the fact that we can see it is failing miserably.  It seems not to have occurred to anyone that there is another option.

But there is...and that's what Caring Economics and Full Spectrum economy is all about. It's not either/or...its And/Both.  It's an inclusive model built on a Partnership platform and honoring the most important work of all--caring for humans and the planet. 

So, for all of us stuck in the old "Either/Or" of economics---its time to give ourselves permission to look beyond this and move forward. A Caring Economics and Full Spectrum Economy awaits!