Market coordination — the organization of investment, production, and provision through the profit imperative and the perogatives of capitalist power — cannot adequately address the challenges of our age of overlapping emergency—from the cost of housing and healthcare to delivering deep decarbonization and resilience. How can we reorder our economy and politics to ensure collective prosperity and build a 21st Century green economic democracy?
As US Programme Director at Common Wealth, I work on this question through my own research and by leading the design and delivery of Common Wealth’s US research programme and strategy. Our current flagship initiatives include: the Green Planning Commission —a multi-year project convening leading economists and policy thinkers to build the intellectual architecture for green democratic planning; and Forces of Production—a data product by our fantastic US Principal Economist Alex Williams providing conjunctural analysis of the supply side of the US and global economy.
I'm keen to build collaborative relationships and partnerships across the US progressive ecosystem as this programme develops.
Before joining Common Wealth, I researched (global) macrofinance, economic management, and industrial planning policy for decarbonization at E3G. There, I wrote a bi-weekly newsletter on green macrofinance and transition planning. I began my career as a researcher in progressive policy and political economy as Gar Alperovitz’s research assistant at the Democracy Collaborative’s Next System Project. There, I supported Alperovitz’s draft manuscript of political economic theory “The Next System,” which advances his model of a Pluralist Commonwealth, centered on (multiscaler and decentralized) democratic ownership and planning.
I studied global political economy at Penn State and Columbia. But I’ve learned the most from lurking on Twitter.
Drawings by my partner!