Alternative capitalism is a way to make the economy evolve while keeping its good sides. Even Marx, who fought capitalism all his life, made compliments about it, saying that it encouraged work and fights mediocrity ; it is a reason why he thought that it was a necessary step after feudalism before doing the proletarian dictatorship. However alternative capitalism can lead to many positive goals, without having bad sides it may have today ; to some extend we are back to the pre 1929 capitalistic world, which looks more like an oligarchy can it used to be during the Keynesian dominated time, from Roosevelt to Reagan. This subject is really complex and it is very hard to talk about even a good deal of them. I would just want to tell about some initiatives I think can give positive impact for the rise of this alternative system.
First a big investment should be made in libraries worldwide. Alternative capitalism, in its organization, puts more culture in the center of its system in general than classical capitalism. As it intends to reform the system and make it more humanistic while being efficient, fields like philosophy or literature, which can be useful to rethink a system, have their role. The current economy has been also theorized by philosophers like Locke and Hume. To the same extend Descartes participated to the emancipation of science towards theology, which had a huge impact on the development of the modern economy. It is the reason why, every time a system is put into question, thinkers have more role than when a system is established. It is the reason why libraries and the promotion of books should be revitalized. In my opinion libraries are great places because they give a great amount of knowledge for free. Revolutionaries like Lenin spent a lot of time in libraries and it was useful of them ; reading one or two books is useless, but reading hundreds of good books can make people stronger and smarter. It is the reason why alternative capitalism should invest more in the promotion of libraries everywhere in the world. The same way the leaders of the Commune war were taught by intellectuals doing evening classes for factory workers, promoting libraries everywhere can contribute indirectly to create more leaders or political opponents able to make things advance.
Second there should be more investments in the values of financial markets but compliant to the values of environment for instance. Alternative capitalism is at the same time valuing culture and books but can also access to strategic assets of financial markets. Its core value is studying and anyone can deepen a lot of knowledge of both without any position or network in classical capitalism. But it can be positive to rethink the impact of values like gold or copper for instance; to the same extend the exchange rates can be considered compliant to these values. Crypto currency or artificial intelligence can also be thought compliant to the values of the social and solidarity economy. Kant said that the first measure of power is money, it is the reason why investing in this alternative economy can be efficient to this extend. To this extend fields like philosophy can contribute to rethink a system which is disturbed by important technological revolutions for the beginning of this century. However this impact must be international. I don’t believe ideologies can have a real impact if they stay only in one country. Marx was right to want to build an international movement to implement his ideas, because a good deal of political advisors were finally not heard by politicians only wanting to satisfy their own ambitions.
These two sides, one relying on culture, the other on the financial markets, can have in my opinion a positive impact for the development of international alternative capitalism. Misfortunately there is not enough international connections between actors of alternative capitalism in general compared to many multinationals of classical capitalism. The idea is not to fight in general classical capitalism but to be more able to confront companies like Amazon who threaten a lot of small businesses and exploit many of its employees. It is the reason why alternative capitalism, which is seen (in my opinion truly) as a far west, but also with its promising sides, can give a lot of positive impact in the future.
The observer 