Common good economy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As common welfare economy are different concepts and alternative since the 1990s economic models indicated that an orientation of the economy on public welfare , cooperation and communities in the foreground. Also, human dignity , solidarity , environmental sustainability , social justice and democratic participation ( " participation ") are used as values referred Economics common good of.

Concept history

The first approaches were developed in the 1990s by Joachim Sikora , Bernd Winkelmann , Hans Diefenbacher and Richard Douthwaite . In 2010 Christian Felber founded the “Association for the Promotion of the Common Good Economy” in Vienna for an economy that relies on cooperation instead of competition. He was also the initiator of the failed Bank for Common Welfare project and deputy chairman of the supervisory board of the project-supporting cooperative.

Common good balance

The determination of the contribution a company / municipality / state / private person makes to the common good can be determined using the common good balance sheet . Human dignity, solidarity and justice, ecological sustainability, transparency and codecision are used as criteria.

Common good economy as a social movement

According to the company's own information, around 2,000 companies and 7,000 people have joined since it was founded in 2010 (as of mid-2019). Around 100 regional groups have formed (as of June 2017). The focus is on the DACH countries, other countries in Europe and South America.

The embedding of the economy for the common good in the European economic system and the Europe 2020 economic program was discussed in the European Economic and Social Committee from February 2015 . The committee adopted a ten-page own-initiative opinion on September 17, 2015 with an 86% majority and “considers the model to be suitable for being integrated into the legal framework of the EU and its memberships”.

The Club of Rome's 2017 report provides examples of its analysis, according to which the world - despite all opposition - is on the path of social transformation towards global sustainability; the economy of the common good is presented as one of these examples.

Criticism by economic chambers (in Austria)

The Commerce Austria published on August 27, 2013 "comprehensive and critical analysis" entitled "Common Welfare Economy to the test"; The main points of criticism were compared to the Austrian model of the eco-social market economy

  • the economy of the common good is based on valuations,
  • restrict property and civil liberties,
  • want to abolish market economy and competition,
  • subject individuals to a committee for the common good,
  • it is bureaucratic and ineffective,
  • also only enforceable worldwide, not by individual countries.

In 2013, the Styrian Chamber of Commerce published a brochure with similar content on the topics of growth criticism and economy for the common good. Felber dealt extensively with the points of criticism:

  • There are no value-free statements about what the economic order should be like. The eco-social model is also based on valuations.
  • Every economic order must be democratically legitimized, this legitimation is precisely what the existing liberal system lacks.
  • Unlimited freedom is not a meaningful freedom. The greatest possible freedom for all is only possible if it is limited in order to exclude concentration of power.
  • The common good principle is laid down in many constitutions.
  • An obligation to ethical behavior is not an impermissible restriction of freedom.

In 2010 the entrepreneur Mirko Kovats , majority owner of A-Tec Industries , which had become insolvent in the same year , described the model of the common good economy as “unworldly” in a dispute with Felber. In 2011, the former chief economist of the Austrian Federation of Industrialists, Erhard Fürst , who is now a critic of climate policy, saw the economy for the common good as a “guide to poverty and chaos”.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hannes Koch: Der Finanzmissionar In: the daily newspaper April 14, 2012.
  2. ^ Christian Felber: CV . Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  3. ^ Christian Felber - Cooperative for common good . Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  4. ↑ Susanne Meier: Humanity instead of financial profit: 16 Tyrolean pioneering companies are creating a public welfare balance for the first time by evaluating their company on points such as social justice and ecological sustainability. In: Tiroler Tageszeitung , November 17, 2012
  5. ↑ GWÖ - The Common Welfare Economy. July 24, 2019, accessed July 24, 2019 .
  6. ↑ List of GWÖ regional groups ( memento of the original from September 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Website of the Association for the Promotion of the Economy for the Common Good , Vienna. Retrieved June 20, 2017.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ecogood.org
  7. ↑ Press release: Economy for the common good in Brussels adopted on October 18, 2015, accessed on February 12, 2017
  8. ^ Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the subject of "The Economy for the Common Good: A Sustainable Economic Model for Social Cohesion" (pdf; 293 kB; 11 pages), dated September 17, 2015, accessed on February 12, 2017
  9. ↑ Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Anders Wijkman u. a .: It's our turn. Club of Rome: The Big Report. A new enlightenment for a full world, Gütersloh 2017, pp. 310–314
  10. ↑ Common good economy on the test bench ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Comments on the position paper of the WK Styria “Growth and economic models. Gross Domestic Product, Common Good Economy & Co ”(PDF; 97 kB; 6 pages) ( Memento from January 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), Christian Felber, July 1, 2013, accessed on March 15, 2020.
  12. ^ Format , print edition, September 24, 2010.
  13. ↑ Erhard Fürst: A Guide to Poverty. Die Presse , January 31, 2011, accessed July 4, 2017 .