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The ‘98 Birmingham People's Summit A Report by Trent Schroyer

The following is a reconstruction of the messages communicated to world citizens in Birmingham. Obviously the account is limited and partial; it is one person's interpretation of a multiplicity of events.

People's Summit Discourse with the G-8: Restatement of TOES Purpose

Whereas G-7 (now G-8) was originally created to stabilize global systems, it actually creates instabilities and unaccountable social and ecological costs. The People's summit is set up to question the legitimacy of governments of 12% of the world's population to set policy for the entire world.

The ‘98 People's Summit acts to:

accumulate evidence of the failures and costs of G-8 Policy;

recognize and celebrate innovations of civic actions and leadership ;

foster a fresh start for the poorest indebted countries;

map the transitions to a sustainable economy instead of global market rule;

support initiatives for social inclusion rather than market exclusions;

mobilize to block and create alternatives to the MAI and its WTO equivalents;

to plan for reduction of green house gases for just rights future consumption;

to forge new partnerships with business to improve social and environmental conditions.

Public Action-Jubilee 2000

On May 16, 1998 70,000 people formed a ten Kilometer chain in which people linked arms to call for a millennial debt cancellation for the poorest countries. Tony Blair meet with representatives from the New Economics foundation for 20 minutes to discuss this goal. Blair told the reps that the Jubilee protest had succeeded in getting the debt issue to the top of the summit agenda.

Central Message: A Strategy For a Just and Sustainable Future for All

(Themes stated by Colin Hines, Susan George, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Barry Coates, et.al.)

Bringing the Global Home:

Individuals and communities must keep informed about global dynamics and how they impact upon their localities and regions. It is imperative an understanding of global dynamics be brought to citizen's responses to the local impacts of global forces. Individuals and communities must learn how to counter these global forces in their localities, regions, while also working with other groups to translate these insights into national and transnational political actions.

Going Local: Relocalizing Thought and Action

All localities should also replicate existing models for sustainable local grass roots community economic institutions and community organizations for a people centered economies. But this requires fostering local discourse and connecting to wider campaigns that includes the national/global dimensions as contexts essential for identifying appropriate local sustainability projects. These experiments in "Going Local" are currently estimated to involve 678 million people who participate in new economics initiatives -e.g. micro-credit systems, local currencies, etc..

Failures of Global Market Rule:

"Deregulation " is not an appropriate description of the current situation -it is actually a higher level non-democratic re-regulation that favors the interests of large corporations and concentrated capital.(Susan George)

The dynamic of Economic Globalization creates a linear economic process- a positive feed back system in that money must grow to make production grow, for which consumption must grow -for which money must grow. This is neither just, nor sustainable, because a globalizing economy assumes there are no limits to growth and diverts 95% of all transactions to financial electronic exchange, instead of exchanges in the real economy of useful goods and services.(James Robertson)

Electronic markets create instability by forming a global casino currency speculations of $1.5 trillion a day. (Hazel Henderson)

The Mexican and Indonesian crises are related to this speculation shaped crisis and there will probably be more in Russia and Africa and South America. The presumption of this electronic system is that markets allocate correct prices -but they do not understand the true value of eco-systems, biodiversity, cultural practices, etc.-and therefore they must not be allowed to "steer" the world economy. Electronic markets also increase money laundering and other criminal activities, facilitate capital flights and tax evasions in off shore tax shelters. More research must be focused on relations between organized crime and the arms trade, as well as corruption in development and human rights abuses.

The New Economics

Ultimate aim is to move from linear systems to circular processes that move the world economy away from competing national economies toward a de-centralizing one world economic system. For this to emerge three major changes, that are already present as NGO initiatives, have to become major transformations on a world scale. The politics of the new economics is to mobilize public support for powerful , well informed and well directed campaigns by citizens to take the following initiatives forward:

[See James Robertson's Transforming Economic Life: A Millennial Challenge: Schumacher Briefings #1-isbn 1 870098 72 2]

1. Radical Reform of Public Finance

Currently the cost of maintaining infrastructure and clean up costs to support globalization is estimated to amount to $211 Billion. A new form of public finance is essential. Culturally this means creating a new social compact in which people will pay for what they take out of the common pot, not what they contribute to it. The principle of justice here is that all citizens have a right to share the benefits of nature and its resources.

A new approach to public spending will include:

reshaping the tax system toward taxing energy, land and environmental taxes and reducing the taxes on employment, incomes, profits, value-added and savings. These changes will be more equitable and provide incentives to efficiency and sustainability;

a citizen's income, or basic income, is proposed as coming from common endowment sources;

terminating the billions put into subsidies that skew prices into favoring the socially and environmental destructive activities (e.g.subsidy to wasteful energy consumption, higher R&D to nuclear power and public spending on inefficient infrastructure such as roads against rail, etc.). Currently the democratic control over these subsidies are virtually non-existent . They much be shifted to encourage social equity, environmental sustainability and economic efficiency and enterprises which minimize need for government interventions into the market.

Such reforms are essential to shift to a people centered economy, and not a business and government centered one; this means stopping all subsidies to business and encouraging local production for local consumption and people centered economics.

2. Reform of Monetary and Financial System

Currently the system transfers wealth from the poor to the rich in ways that is unaccountable, irresponsible, and exploitative. Shifting savings from poor communities to richer localities may give banks and investors benefits but it gives the poor locality no access to capital. Artificially raised levels of interest, production and consumption increases their environmental impact and systematically skews economic effort toward making money out of money, rather than providing useful goods and services.

Therefore it is essential to extend micro-credit and local currencies , community credit unions, ethical and green investment etc. ; these are already on the new economics agenda.

Financial institutions must also shift to providing grass-roots credit for people and localities. It is also necessary to stop the MAI mentality in the many diverse forms that it is now re-appearing. Although all these are necessary, they are not sufficient-we need an overall strategy for change that includes all three components.

3. Democratize Global Economy

Need to positively encourage self-reliant peoples, communities and nations to conserve earth's resources for the benefit of all . For the rich countries that means to re-orient economic life in ways that manage international trade and aid, as well as evolving new global policies that regulate trade, develop global taxation and manage international monetary and financial systems -including debts. In this context already existing movements to reform the Bretton Woods institutions (including the new WTO) will become a central issue for all localities discourse. Additional institutions - such as a global citizens assembly , a World Economic Council (instead of the G-8) and a unified U.N. that co-ordinates the Bretton Woods institutions with world policy - not the interests of the rich countries. These reforms will move toward democratizing and restructuring global governance.

Local Sustainable Employment Strategies (Pat Conaty)

Focusing on creating real work requires many simultaneous dimensions converging:

Knowledge of Community and Social Economies:

Need to organize citizen involvement by identifying local people as experts (social entrepreneurs);

Need to have wider knowledge of local economies that includes surveys of skills and community need assessments;

Need to organize community reinvestment , start environmental businesses- such as energy co-operatives - and encourage self-employment and social enterprises.

Linking Local to State and National Economies:

Need to campaign for benefit reforms that define minimum wage, flexible employment, and child care arrangements;

Starting Point: Reveal Presence of Local Social Economy as People's Action.

Identify social entrepreneurs as the individuals who combine the skill for finding new opportunities with the desire for social justice and the competence to create an organizational form appropriate for serving these needs. Social entrepreneurs are found in every sector and are the real community leaders in their creative response to the needs around them with innovative ideas and ability to motivate and empower others to turn their ideas into reality .

This social entrepreneur concept, which is new to the new economics foundation, is precisely what is assumed in the search for working alternatives in TOES ‘97- it focuses upon the community based entrepreneurs who are at the heart of the many initiatives that are charting paths to a new social economy that is at the center of the wider local and specifically located community economy..

This concept was the focus for Birmingham CAN-DO projects (Jane Blaney), (borrowed from Ted Wysocki's Chicago Association of Neighborhood Organizations), that seek nominations for public awards of the "doers" - the social entrepreneurs. The Community Action Network uses criteria to identify doers that emphasizes issues that link north and south and supports practical projects via a coalition of voluntary and community based institutions, working in partnership with private and public sectors.