'The Alternative' Describes More Ethical Economic Practices

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our current growth-based economic systems do not take into account their human cost, argues journalist Nick Romeo. And while there are economic initiatives and programs around the world that have been shown to improve local citizens’ lives, these are few and far between. Yet they provide models, like “true price” initiatives — price tags that account for human labor costs and environmental impacts. Or job guarantee programs, which ensure every member of a community has access to employment. In Romeo’s new book, “The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy,” he calls for the return of ethics into economics and offers examples around the world — as well as some in California. We’ll talk to him about what works, what doesn’t and what we have to gain if economists take an alternative approach to structuring, teaching and thinking about our economy. Guests: Nick Romeo, journalist, The New Yorker; lecturer, UC Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KikiWED podcasts comes from Landmark College, holding their annual summer institute for educators from June 24 through 26th.
0:09.1	More information at landmark.edu slash LCSI.
0:13.7	Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:21.3	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:27.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia.
0:31.6	When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and
0:40.1	devotion. The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orphium Theater for three weeks only,
0:47.1	May 20th through June 8th. Tickets on sale now at Broadwaysf.com.
1:17.0	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Rachel Myro in for Mina Kim. Coming up on forum, modern economics isn't just a dismal science, it's heartless and cold,
1:23.8	or can be a lot of the time.
1:26.7	So many people struggle desperately to survive, and the planet is a hot mess thanks to human
1:32.3	greed and competition.
1:34.0	So why do we presume the study of economics is fundamentally, necessarily, amoral?
1:40.5	Is ethical capitalism even possible?
1:43.5	Today we explore these questions with author and academic Nick Romeo,
1:47.6	whose new book The Alternative, How to Build a Just Economy, challenges what we accept as just the way it is.
1:54.3	That's next after this news.
1:58.4	This is Forum. I'm Rachel Myro in for Mina Kim. Why does it seem we collectively accept, or at least
2:06.2	resign ourselves, to a soul-crushing economic system that makes almost everybody's welfare
2:12.7	secondary to that of a few richy riches? Like the proverbial fish in a fishbowl, it's hard to see the water you swim in while you're swimming in it.
2:22.8	Nick Romeo's new book, The Alternative, offers a short list of ways people in a number of developed economies are challenging red in tooth-and-claw capitalism.
2:33.4	And he joins us here in studio to ask if they point
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