On November 4, 2008, the prison doors of the trickle down, free-market
thinking that has captivated official U.S. economic imagination for
decades slid open a crack.  On November
5, leading media affirmed that the unfettered market does not necessarily produce
social and economic wellbeing, but may breed insecurity and risk, sweatshops
and exploitation, global warming and pollution. 
The New York Times, for example, proclaimed that Mr. Obama won the
election because of the “utter failure of government to protect its people,” observing
that government indeed has an important role in regulating the economy fairly in
order to safeguard common goods such as healthcare, education, and the
environment.

The barred doors of free-market thinking slid open enough
that many who had long been struggling to escape experienced a sense of
visceral relief, able, finally, to inhale a breath of fresh air that can fuel
anew our social and economic imagination. 
No longer are we held hostage to a simplistic story which pits us
(whites, Christians, freedom-lovers) against them (dark-skinned, Muslims,
freedom-haters) and posits a host of binary oppositions in which (our) free-market
capitalism is associated with freedom, democracy, light, and progress and (their)
government with terror, socialism, darkness, and regression. Instead of struggling
in vain with a mental straight jacket – “if you are not for us, you are against
us” – we are now free to place ourselves in alternative narratives that may be as
complicated as the story of our president-elect, as much Kenyan as Kansan,
Christian but with Muslim family background, black and white – a story of a
“mutt” as he referred to himself.

Complication liberates. 
Government is not a necessary evil! 
The free market does not solve all problems!  “We” do not have all the solutions! “They” are
not always the problem!

In our new narrative the Afghans and Iraqis, the poor and
the oppressed, and all people for whom everyday is a life of terror, can be our
brothers and sisters rather than distant and threatening others.   Ultimately, there is only an “us;” no “us and
them.”  Government can be something more
than an instrument of war, torture, and imprisonment; it can be re-conceived as
a tool for the common good, and for social and economic justice at home and
across the globe.  The economy no longer
has to lie beyond our imagination, a force beyond human influence that only
experts trained to use arcane terminology can comprehend.  Instead the economy can become a construct
that serves the people by measuring both positive and negative influences of
corporations and governments on people’s and the planet’s wellbeing.

The sweatfree movement can help to further liberate the
social and economic imagination.  Even
during the darkest years of free-market orthodoxy, the movement articulated a
set of alternative economic principles and convinced a host of states and local
governments to adopt those principles in their purchasing policies.  In imagining a new economy, we can take
inspiration from these alternatives.

A new economy based on the principles of sweatfree
purchasing could:

Lower the speed of
financial transactions.  Just as
state and local officials must take the time to consider the workers behind the
uniform labels in making sweatfree purchasing decisions those who now engage in
lightning-fast speculative financial transactions for short-term gain could be
required to make longer-term investments that yield broader social and economic
benefits. Reckless speculation at unsafe speeds can be penalized. A slower
economy can be a more humane economy.

Reintroduce democracy
in the economy.  Sweatfree purchasing
is inspired and guided by grassroots campaigns that advocate for policies that
reflect their values and priorities. 
Cities and states have established citizens’ advisory groups to guide
policy implementation.  When given the
opportunity people want to be engaged as citizens lending their experience and
wisdom to help shape an economy that is not just a thing for the experts to
discuss and deliberate.  A cocoon of
obscure terminology surrounds the world of public procurement, but that does
not mean that those not schooled in its language cannot impact it.  Where lie the opportunities for citizen
participation in the larger economic world? 
In state and local budgeting?   In
creating fair trade policy?  In rooting
out corruption in military contracting?  In
setting green standards for the auto industry? 
A stronger public voice in the economy would address its core problem:
the socialization of cost and risk and the privatization of profit and benefit.

Create transparency.  Some states and cities have dug down deep
into supply chains to learn where and in what conditions uniforms and other
apparel they buy are made.  That
information is now publicly available on websites despite the fact that part of
the uniform industry still considers factory locations to be “trade secrets” or
“proprietary information.”  A transparent
economy is a healthy one.  When companies
cannot pollute rivers and skies or use sweatshop labor in secret they will be
more likely to innovate in more constructive ways to get an edge on the
competition.

 Place worker rights higher on the agenda.   Cities
and states that buy sweatfree look for quality and a good price, but not at the
expense of workers’ rights.  If the low
bidder offers to sell products made in sweatshop conditions or does not say
where they are made, it does not get the contract.   After decades of seeing CEO-pay
skyrocketing and corporations enjoying double digit profits while workers’
salaries stagnate even though they produce more than before,  it is now time to put workers’ rights higher
on the agenda in other economic decisions as well.  How about sweatfree trade, financial, and tax
policies?

Now is the time to break old habits of buying cheap no
matter the social and economic cost and boldly promote social and economic
justice as indispensable to economic recovery. Sweatfree cities and states can
help lead the way if we reject kneejerk reaction to crisis, placing price and
short-term gain before the long-term wellbeing of workers and communities.  Sweatfree cities and states can show that
good morals is good economy, that caring for those of us who are worst off is
good for all of us.  Now that we can more
easily talk about government as a positive force we should seize the moment and
let it become one.