Levels of economic literacy & resistance
posted Nov. 22 - 3:16 pm by Myles C
Jim Stanford brought us a democratic critical approach to the current crisis of capitalism and progressive opportunity. He brought an excellent message that we all need to see how a lack, and under utilization of economic knowledge precipitated the current economic crisis. Taking this as a lesson we must seek to de-mystify economics and increase the use of economic knowledge as a means of resistance. The principle benefit of economic literacy for resistance is in increasing the access to information so as to allow for critical decision making thus combating the ability of mainstream media to fear monger.
What I found wasn’t engaged in Jim's talk was more advanced strategies for a democratic economic solution to the current crisis. The crisis of neo-liberalism has resulted in a sever failure of the private and personalized welfare model. Jim spoke of the success of the mass actions to protect the pensions of auto workers as a site of resistance in this crisis, but also of its faults. I believe that the area of workers' pensions should be a site of resistance and a site to develop greater economic literacy. Worker ownership and management of wage earner pension funds is by no means a way to totally challenge the private ownership of the dominant means of production. However, it can act as a way to resist the neo-liberal restructuring in the wake of the crisis, develop an alternative economic literacy and seek to finance and promote the demand(ex unionized green jobs) that will bring us out of the crisis and into a progressive economy. In response to a question regarding pensions, Jim stressed that pensions won't go far enough in changing the system and we should rather support a larger state pension program. I however, feel that we need new solutions and basic economic literacy is not enough, pensions are a prime site for resistance against the structures of neo-liberalism where we can develop a higher level of alternative economic literacy and a means for practicing and creating the rules we want for a democratic economics of social and environmental justice. Worker controlled pensions would serve an enormous purpose for transformative solidarity, making pensions not the end point but a place to begin imagining the practice of future progressive economics.
