By Howard Richards
1. A new economy (or economies), in other words a new social structure (or structures), whose principle is solidarity, is necessary, not optional.
2. It is impossible to construct the new economy using only the best-known old methods for changing society (legislation, revolution, electoral politics, nonviolent resistance, labour organizing, and others).
3. The way to construct the necessary new economy is to strengthen the many existing practices and discourses that in harmony with nature meet human needs (including the need for dignity and the need for a meaningful life), without depending (or depending less) on private capital accumulation.
4. An epistemological break is required to think up and act out, and thus to construct, the practices of an economy of solidarity. The ethical-juridical ideology of the now dominant social structure, and of the economic sciences that presuppose it, must be widened to allow for a more pragmatic (and even spiritual) and more realistic (physical, ecological) worldview.
5. The task of constructing the necessary new economy(ies) is mainly educational.
6. Building the necessary economy (better called in plural, economies) requires reinforcing and redefining ethics, in other words moral development, in still other words social and emotional education. It calls for ethical organizational development, parenting, and schooling.
