On June 5th the New Economics Institute held its founding meeting. Guests helped imagine the future of the Institute -- its vision, its programs, the urgency of its realization. Members of the board of directors outlined future projects:
The New Economics Institute is working to make the new economics, one which supports people and planet, mainstream in the USA. It is a partnership between the E. F. Schumacher Society, the predecessor of the Institute, and the New Economics Foundation from London. The US economic system is failing in its essential purpose: to provide fulfilling and healthy lives for all people while nurturing the social and natural systems on which the economic system depends.
It is sometimes suggested that the USA is one of the places in the world least susceptible to a new economics. This is very far from being the case. The United States is a hugely energetic society, with a widespread sense of possibility, which explains why – as well as becoming a global symbol for some failing economic assumptions – it is also in the forefront of the alternative:
The heart of the New Economics Institute’s strategy is collaboration. Presenting an academically and intellectually robust new economics will allow us to partner with mainstream businesses and financial services which are looking for ways to adapt to new economic mandates. It will allow us to bypass policy disputes between campaigning outsiders and innovative insiders by focusing on empirical solutions.
