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Jose Luis Coraggio: Another Economy is Happening |
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Page 9 of 27
The existing people’s economy consists of families who in order to meet the needs of the household deploy their labor power. Their labor power is augmented by tools, by special skills, and by assets that enhance labor, such as a plot of land in the country or a small building in the city that can be used to house a fruit and vegetable shop or a family-run restaurant. Coraggio proposes to extend the existing people’s economy in ways that will employ the unemployed and shift the political balance of power. The latter, the political shift, provides yet another reason for saying that the changes Coraggio proposes are structural.
Coraggio is not just helping labor to win the game at a time in history when labor is everywhere losing and capital is everywhere winning. He is proposing to change the rules of the game. Most importantly, he is proposing to change who decides what the rules of the game are. That is why the political shift is structural.
Coraggio calls for the “structural limitation of capital” through the agency of a “hegemonic political movement.” (26)
It is necessary to keep the political dimension in mind when evaluating Coraggio’s views on the relationship between the people’s economy and the entrepreneurial economy. He writes repeatedly that he expects the two types of private economy to coexist and to complement each other, and he expects both to be complemented by a significant public sector. (27)
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