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Chevan Nanayakkara's avatar

Frank this resonates deeply - you've articulated exactly why our current economic framework feels so fundamentally broken. The dignity economy you're describing isn't just a nice ideal, it's actually achievable with the policy tools we already have available.

Your diagnosis points to the prescription: we've been trapped by economic mythology that treats scarcity as natural law when it's really just policy choices serving corporate interests. Since 1971, money has functioned as a coordination tool we create, not a scarce resource limiting what's possible. The "tough choices" politicians talk about are artificial constraints designed to maintain existing power structures while trillions flow to corporate subsidies and bailouts.

The dignity you're describing becomes practical through systematic changes: federal job guarantees creating meaningful work in infrastructure and community development, giving working families the same wealth-building advantages businesses already get through depreciation rules, and community-controlled economic development powered by federal resources. When we guarantee economic security - healthcare, education, housing stability - we don't suppress innovation, we enable it. People can take real entrepreneurial risks when failure doesn't mean catastrophe.

What excites me most is how this transcends traditional political divisions. A Republican small business owner struggling against monopolies, a Democratic parent losing wealth to planned obsolescence, an independent rural family worried about security - they all benefit from the same systematic changes that create genuine dignity and opportunity. The current system extracts wealth from anyone who works for a living while concentrating it among those who already have political connections.

We don't need to wait for capitalism to collapse or retreat to purely local solutions while authoritarians capture national policy. We can build a broad coalition around making capitalism actually work for dignity and opportunity creation rather than wealth extraction. I've been working on a framework that shows exactly how to implement what you're describing - the specific policies and coalition-building approach that can make the dignity economy real:

https://open.substack.com/pub/chevan/p/introducing-opportunity-economics?r=8ae8z&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

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Donnie Proles's avatar

Gain valuable economic skills in a profession that can ultimately meet your lifestyle needs, go to market, spend less than you make. 10 years later, or about 25% through a normal working career, you'll be fine. That's all I would require for a society. In the meantime just manage. Amazing how many people can't follow that plan, or follow the law, or wait until they're married and emotionally and financially stable enough to have children so they can raise kids to do the same.

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