Great post!
I can’t wait to hang out in Brussels, Francis. I myself struggle with these huge themes. In my day-by-day it feels like operating on small, interesting projects is enough; that local positive change is happening, and that’s OK, a honest day’s work. But of course, I know I am not fixing anything, not really.
It’s hard to figure out what kind of systam these small things (like your own Woodbine, or Edgeryders) would give rise to, if they were pervasive. Nobody knows. I’m supposed to be an economist, and economists used to be able to imagine and propose alternative economic systems; but now we have lost this ability. The only people I’m seeing that can do this (kind of) are a selected few science fiction writers: Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Peter Watts. Of these, Doctorow is the one who most explicitly engages with economic theory. Some years ago I wrote an economist’s take on his novel “Makers”, and I am now under the influence of his recent “[Walkaway]”(Coase’s Spectre — Crooked Timber). I think you, of all people, need to read it, if you have not done it already.
For some months now, I have been thinking about raising some money to organise a workshop of economic science fiction, inviting some of these writers (as keynote speakers and proponents) and some economists (as discussants and debuggers). I hope to get down to it in the Fall.