Many Australians today feel like the economy isn’t working for them. There is growing inequality and environmental destruction baked into the current economic system. Think of the major crises we have faced in Australia in the past 20-30 years, (GFC, banking crisis, housing affordability, mass extinction, climate change, water and energy crises), dig deep enough and you will find structural economic drivers. 63% of Australians agree the economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful.
Much of the energy and resources we collectively deploy, address the symptoms rather than the causes of the system failures. For example, our current food system might be highly productive and profitable, but it also gives rise to a host of negatives social and environmental outcomes that we divert resources to solve. This increasing focus on downstream band-aid fixes, either keeps problems locked in place or can make them worse.
In response to this complex dynamic, a growing coalition of academics, activists, practitioners and professionals that can loosely be described as ‘the new economy movement’ are challenging the status quo.
This movement recognises that the way we have designed our economy is a root cause of many of the problems we are facing. The economies goals (infinite growth), measures of success (GDP) its tools (financialisation, commodification) and its preferences (capital accumulation, markets, deregulation) are in some way responsible for externalising and exacerbating negative outcomes like pollution and poverty.
The ‘New Economy’ response is intentionally pluralistic and intern-disciplinary, because it understands that many perspectives are required to find solutions. It centres systems-thinking, purpose, wellbeing, care and sufficiency.
It is a huge but necessary task to shift this system. But it has happened at least three times in the past century, so it can happen again. Importantly, philanthropy has acted as a key catalyst for these past changes and is leading the charge globally with collaborative initiatives like Partners for New Economy in Europe.
As a Community Foundation that is focused on the big challenges of our time, we recognise that there is a need to support long term change as well as immediate needs. We are ideally placed to link community responses to injustice with the structural transformation that needs to happen if we are to move to a wellbeing economy.
As this work is so emergent in Australia, we take a broad view of Economic Justice and work at three levels to build this movement for change. We have a growing network of partners and projects that demonstrates this.
At the landscape (big picture) level, we need to shift the mindsets and the stories that lock the current system in place. We are working with Regen Melbourne to develop alternative measures of progress through the Melbourne City Portrait and the Next Economy to work with different sectors to identify Upstream causes and solutions.
At the policy level, it is important to work in collaboration with a wide range of partners to advocate for policy that can reduce injustice and inequality. This currently includes working with Think Forward who are developing engaging advocacy and education campaigns like ‘Tix Tok Tax’. Or supporting the Foundations for Tomorrow to work with politicians on the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill.
At the grassroots level we continue to support business models like Social Enterprise, that demonstrate a new way of doing business. We are also working with communities who are ready to take further steps to shift wealth and power such as Neighbourhood Economics in Corio and Norlane and the Castlemaine Institute.
Read more about these examples here:
One critical part of the new Strategy 2030 is how we work with First Nations peoples to develop economic justice and sovereignty. We must approach this conversation carefully so as not to perpetuate the extractive nature of past interventions and will start this work in the coming months.
There is so much work to be done, and we look forward to developing partnerships and sharing our learning in this space.