The Brooklyn Consensus
Business, PoliticsMay 21, 2011By Terry Morrone
We’re in a class war and we’re losing. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer. We’re abusing the planet through global warming and pollution. Unless we make radical changes, we’re heading for poverty, starvation and constant war. The whole world is in crisis, not just the United States. The amoral behavior of corporations and their allies in government are causing most of our problems. They don’t care how many people they kill in their quest for money and power. Imagine a world without laws. That’s what exists now for the rich and powerful. But our identification with the rich and the respect we give to anyone with money, no matter how they got it, is also a problem.
In this report I’m going to briefly describe the destructive behavior of our major corporations and banks. Then I’m going to suggest a list of remedies that I and others advocate. There seems to be a consensus on what has to be done among a group of progressive economists I’m familiar with.
Brooklyn, a borough in New York City, is one of the most liberal communities in the nation. Last year I attended a Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE)