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Capitalism 3.0

I’ve just finished reading Capitalism 3.0(PDF), by Peter Barnes, founder of Working Assets. It’s a quick, easy read for anyone interested in anything from media reform to wilderness protection to fighting poverty. Barnes is arguing for a way to moderate capitalism’s distorting effect on democracy. Instead of calling for more regulation (since those, as we’ve all seen with current media, environmental, and economic regulations are too often watered down by corporate influence) Barnes envisions is an economic model that balances the corporate market with the common wealth:
Much of what we label private wealth is taken from, or co-produced with, the commons. However, these takings from the commons are far from equal. To put it bluntly, the rich are rich because (through corporations) they get the lion’s share of common wealth; the poor are poor because they get very little.
He describes a shift from the “shortage” capitalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the “surplus” capitalism we’re in today: where markets used to meet consumer needs, they now create consumer wants. The problem is the market is now eating up the earth’s natural capital--the commons--and risks leaving nothing for the future.

Barnes is counting on there being a window of time in which the public sector can set up trusts independent of the government to manage the public commons—air, water, healthcare—and then leave the responsibility for those things with the commons sector. That way, corporations won’t be able to buy influence, and politicians won’t be pressured to water down regulations, since they won’t have any influence:

Instead of having only one engine—that is, the corporate-dominated private sector—our improved economic system would run on two: one geared to maximizing private profit, the other to preserving and enhancing common wealth.
Aside from basically ignoring the existing non-profit sector, I find his argument compelling. Basically, he’s arguing for endowments instead of charity to protect the commons, like the American Farmland Trust and the Nature Conservancy.

Capitalism 3.0 isn’t the first, and probably won’t be the last, to suggest how to reform capitalism. Natural Capitalism, and For the Common Good are just two of the others. It is one of the more accessible ones, though (not only because it’s a free download).
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