Can Capitalism be tamed? Can Capitalism become more caring and socially responsible?

These are the questions Dr. Emily Kawano asked and attempted to answer as the other half of the opening plenary at the Center for Popular Economics 2015 Summer Institute in Northhampton MA, which I am attending all this week. Robert Pollin gave the other half of the plenary talk, and I wrote about that first, because it seemed to relate more to the recent news that Governor Gina Raimondo was announcing a new fracked gas energy plant to be built in Burrillville, RI. But  I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to write about Kawano’s talk, which was eye opening and filled with possibilities.

Emily Kawano has a doctorate in economics and is the coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and co-director of Wellspring Cooperative. She spoke about transforming our economic system from capitalism to what she calls the solidarity economy.

The biggest problem facing our society is climate change, fueled by capitalism. Kawano mentioned the book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, which covers past mass extinctions (like the one that killed the dinosaurs) and argues that we are living through the sixth extinction now, and that the cause of this extinction is humanity, not a stray asteroid.

So, can Capitalism be tamed before the worst effects of climate change damage the planet beyond repair? Kawano thinks not. Capitalism can be reigned in, but that’s not enough. What is needed in a “big shift in our paradigm, a different way of being with each other and the earth and nature,” says Kawano.

We need a solidarity economy.

A solidarity economy is based on values and principles such as solidarity, cooperation, mutualism, sustainability, democracy, equity and pluralism.

The kinds of things that scare the crap out of capitalists.

A solidarity economy focuses on living well and living in harmony with each other and the natural world. It is, says Kawano, “a different way of thinking about the economy.”

The rights of the natural world, people, animals, insects, water, even life itself, would be prioritized. Human social creations, such as knowledge, spirituality (what a Humanist might call conscience) and art would be freely shared.

Governance would include such revolutionary ideas as participatory budgeting, community led development, collective ownership, regulation, restorative justice and democracy. In a solidarity economy unpaid work, such as the care provided by parents for children and families for the elderly, would be considered as part of the economy as a whole. Banks would be public institutions.

It all sounds like a utopian fairy tale, until you consider that once upon a time, a government that guaranteed free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion also sounded impossible.

The concepts of a solidarity economy have been built into the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. There are solidarity economy ministries in Brazil, France and Luxembourg. There is a United Nations task force examining these ideas, as well as the ILO (International Labor Organization).

The environmental encyclical of Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, is full of solidarity economy-like talk.

Climate change is coming fast. Economic planning is the most effective way to shift economies, markets are slow by comparison. Think about WWII, when the economy switched from a civilian to a war economy. That wasn’t markets reacting to end fascism, that was governmental policy.

The solidarity economy is about taking all these different systems, ideas and grassroots work and trying “to pull them together,” says Kawano. “The mainstream economy isn’t seeing it.”

On the local and grassroots level Kawano is talking about networks of worker-owned businesses, job creation in marginalized communities, local purchasing from anchor institutions and de-commodification through community land trusts, to name just a few ideas.

It turns out that economic revolution, like mass extinction, is hard to see from the inside. Did the people living through the end of feudalism and the beginnings of capitalism understand what was happening? Not really. They were buffeted by forces they could not understand or control, and the end result was unparalleled economic growth combined with environmental disaster.

If we had a chance to do it again, we would make different choices. That’s the solidarity economy.

Listening to Robert Pollin speak, I could not help but think about the backwards, corporatist thinking that has lead Governor Gina Raimondo to conclude that building a natural gas energy plant in Burrillville is the right move for Rhode Island. Pollin is professor of economics at UMass Amherst and one of Foreign Policy magazines, “100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2013.” He was delivering the plenary (along with Emily Kawano, who I will get to in a future piece) at the Center for Popular Economics‘ 2015 Summer Institute Northhampton MA.

“Fracking is disastrous,” says Pollin, “burning natural gas means we will never hit the goal” necessary to avert global climate catastrophe. On the other hand, “Building a Green Economy is good for jobs.”

Green jobs create more jobs per dollar invested than other types of energy jobs. Green jobs are are better “in every country, without exception.” Pollin says he’s done the research and has the data to prove his point. He traveled recently to Spain, with its 23 percent unemployment, where he consulted with the leftist party Podemos. Spain generates 50 percent of its electricity through wind power, but the ruling right wing party, under austerity, has cut subsidies to renewable energy in favor of importing more fossil fuels.

Currently CO2 emission levels are about 33 billion tons a year. In order to stave off climate catastrophe, the most conservative estimates are that the world needs to decrease these emissions by half by mid century. Instead, we are on track to increase CO2 emissions to $41 billion tons a year. “We are going to miss our goal,” says Pollin, “by 100 percent.”

Unlike many economists, Pollin is optimistic that the goal can be met, and that economic growth can be maintained. “If we invest on the order of 1.5 percent GDP in energy efficiency,” says Pollin, “and invest in clean, renewable energy- Solar, wind, small scale hydro, geothermal,” we could in theory prevent the worst effects of global climate catastrophe. In Pollin’s calculations, nuclear energy is eliminated completely.

One big hurdle is the myth “holding back a progressive coalition between labor and the environment” and that myth is that we can’t both save the environment and create jobs. But transitioning to a green economy will create more jobs than the Keystone Pipeline (or a new natural gas energy plant  in Burrillville) ever will.

Labor is not on board with this message yet. When Pollin mentioned his research at a conference a few years back, Damon Silvers, policy director of the AFL-CIO reacted poorly. But Pollin is adamant.

“If you invest in anything at all, you will create jobs…” points out Pollin, but, “A Green economy is good for jobs. Building the green economy is good for jobs. Much better for jobs than sustaining the fossil fuel economy. Three times as many jobs.”

Natural gas is not the answer, though the fossil fuel industry is eager to sell us on the idea that it is. People like the Koch Brothers, who mean to spend nearly a billion dollars to elect the next President of the United States, don’t care about the environment. They have a business to run dependent on keeping us buying their products. Many people advising Governor Raimondo are also heavily invested in or tied to the fossil fuel industry, such as Scott DePasquale, chairman of the Governor’s Cybersecurity Commission.

Green jobs and green energy will be disruptive and create enormous economic opportunities. In January the Financial Times reported that “ that Edison Electric Institute warned that utilities are facing disruption similar” to the kinds of technological and financial disruptions that rendered land lines obsolete as cellphone technology swept the world.

“Distributive energy systems do not require a utility at all,” says Pollin.

Imagine that. Yet Rhode Island is preparing to commit to a plan that will tie us all to burning fossil fuels well into the middle of the 21st century, the environment and our children’s children be damned.

There is a rally planned for Tuesday morning at the State House to protest the new Power Plant.