<div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">I received a bulk email today from the AFL-CIO advertising their online discussion site in preparation for a September AFL-CIO convention. The moderator for today's discussion was former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the theme question was: "The rich keep getting a bigger share of the economic pie while everyone else’s share keeps shrinking. What should be done to reverse this trend?"</div>
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<a href="http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Discussion-Page#question7" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Discussion-Page#question7</a></div>
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My suggestion was "Stop growing "the pie." Restore the commons instead." I added a reply linking to my elaboration of the concept of "labour power as a common pool resource": <a href="http://commonsandeconomics.org/groups/stream-2-labor-and-care/forum/topic/labour-power-as-a-common-pool-resource/" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://commonsandeconomics.org/groups/stream-2-labor-and-care/forum/topic/labour-power-as-a-common-pool-resource/</a></div>
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Bob Reich replied to my comment:</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
They go together. Economic growth doesn't have to result in more consumption of material goods. It can also result in a better environment, better public health, better education. All growth does is create the economic capacity to do these things. How we use growth -- either for more consumer goods of for more public goods (the commons) is a political choice.</blockquote>
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To which I replied: </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
There is a very large literature that disagrees with that assumption, Bob. A good place to start would be with Jonathan Rowe's "Our Common Wealth" or the 1995 Atlantic Magazine article on the GDP Jonathan co-authored. Also the commons is not just another term for public goods. See Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize winning work on the commons.</blockquote>
<div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div><br></div><div>I suppose it's a step in the right direction that the AFL-CIO <i>says,</i> "It’s time we started hearing from YOU. Join the conversation online and tell us what you really think about the future of the labor movement. We’ll use your ideas to shape our agenda for the convention." But judging from Bob Reich's reflex reply to my comment, I have to be skeptical about the extent to which ideas deviating from the conventional wisdom will shape the AFL-CIO agenda</div>
</div><div><br></div>-- <br>Cheers,<br><br>Tom Walker (Sandwichman)