Tag Archives | Rentier Capitalism

A palpable, but indecisive enthusiasm permeated a recent Seattle arts forum, revealing a city desperate for a future that no one quite knows how to build, let alone finance. Despite the proliferation of sticky notes with compelling schemes, as Amanda Manitach describes in The Stranger, the arts roundtable lacked a cohesive strategy for gathering its aspirational potpourri […]

In a recent essay, we advanced a proposal for sub-federal governments to sell municipal bonds to their own public banks. We took the city as our primary point of departure, but the same lessons are applicable to U.S. counties and states. Establishing a public bank that regularly purchases municipal debt, we argued, would not only significantly […]

What chance do local governments have in fighting authoritarian austerity, especially when they are left to rely on feckless legislators at the state and federal levels who refuse to push back? Right now, we see austerity budgets appearing across every institution and major employer in the U.S. If the federal government continues to sabotage municipalities, […]

I recommend this book, along with the rest of Standing’s body of work, as an example of the kind of outside-the-box thinking the Left needs in place of the dinosaur Old Left’s organization and policy models if it is to be relevant to the new economy.