Economic democracy advocates for power to be taken away from the wealthy and distributed to the people, with workers controlling production. It aims to remove artificial scarcity and increase consumer purchasing power. Approaches vary, from grassroots worker cooperatives to radical restructuring of governments and social ownership of banks, with the goal of eliminating poverty, famine, and war.
Economic democracy is a philosophy of socioeconomics. Socioeconomics is the study and exploration of economics when viewed in the context of social social values, behaviors and interactions. In this context, economic democracy advocates taking power away from the wealthy minority and distributing it to the people. Essentially, it is a form of economic socialism in which workers control production.
Models of economic democracy can take many forms, both in a theoretical framework and when applied to real-world situations. However, all approaches share core values. The philosophy determines that all people have access to common resources, such as land, water and raw materials. The artificial scarcity manufactured by big business must be removed and consumer purchasing power must be increased.
The basic economic problem, defined by the philosophy of economic democracy, is that society as a whole does not earn enough money to buy everything it produces and manufactures. The reason for this is that a small group of people own most of the wealth. They use this wealth, not for the welfare of their workers, but to make themselves and other shareholders even richer. This inequality, according to the philosophy of economic democracy, leads to poverty, unemployment and hunger.
Approaches to how to solve this problem vary in intensity and scope. Many advocates of the grassroots approach to economic democracy believe they can escape the capitalist model by forming worker cooperatives. A group of people who share similar skills come together to run a business. Each cooperative member will own or lease part of the building, pool money for utilities and advertising, and earn an equal share of the profits. Today, most worker cooperatives are run by groups of farmers or artists.
A more radical approach to economic democracy involves restructuring local, national, or world governments. Rather than just controlling their small cooperative, the workers would essentially share ownership of all the businesses. The property would not be owned by anyone and therefore could not be bought or sold. However, it could be rented. The value of all land would be determined by how it is used.
Under this approach, banks will also be socially owned. Every person would be entitled to a share of the profits made by the companies. Everyone works, but instead of being paid, they receive an equal share of the wealth. In this way, advocates argue that poverty, famine and war will virtually disappear.
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