Breaking away from Market Fundimentalism, embracing the concept of a Moral Economy:
With the construction of a moral economy as the frame, Reich's other stories fall into place. The "rot at the top" has never smelled so putrid; the decay comes from the obscenely wealthy who have abandoned real enterprise for paper manipulations that generate outlandish returns. The "mob at the gates" continues to be those committed to jihad against the West. But the Bush Administration's response to this threat has been completely self-defeating. We need, instead, greater international cooperation to combat terrorism and concerted efforts to build a moral economy at the global level. Creating a world in which children born in the slums of Cairo, Islamabad and Lagos have real opportunities for meaningful employment and political participation is the only way to isolate the jihadists.
The triumphant individuals in this narrative are people of different ethnicities, immigrants and native born, both women and men, gay and straight, rural, suburban and urban, for whom the doors of opportunity would be reopened by the project of building a moral economy. With such an economy, our nation would become a "benevolent community" in which each individual is able to reach his or her full potential.
To be sure, stories are not enough. We also need bold policy ideas that would implement the principles of a moral economy. But the stories have to come first, and those stories must connect us to our nation's richest traditions. The great popular movements of our nation's history--against the slave trade, for the abolition of slavery, for women's suffrage, for trade union rights, for restraints on the power of big business in the Progressive Era, and extending to the civil rights movement, the New Left and the environmental movement--can all be understood as efforts to align our economic and political institutions with our deepest moral commitments. We will be honoring their legacy when we present a vision of a moral economy as an alternative to the failed claims of Market Fundamentalism.
There are plenty of linguistic games to play around with -- like "Free Trade" vs. "Fair Trade" -- but the wind up is that progressives have a chance to rightfully take a position as the champions of real enterprise against corrupt croneys who seek to perpetuate an inequitable status quo.
Politically, this is what we're talking about when we say "It's the economy, stupid." It's not enough that people are having hard times (as they are outside the upper class). There has to be a narrative of why this is happening, and how things can be different.
