A Radical Stimulus Package

Here is a brainstorm! I haven't seen anyone else write anything that gets at what a radical stimulus could look like.

1. A democratic stimulus empowers people to achieve their goals.

2. In some cases this means increasing economic output, in other places decreasing it. For instance, cutting the military is essential. Also increasing spending on healthcare is not as important as ensuring high quality national healthcare for all.

3. A grassroots stimulus comes from the people, not the government. It comes from strong progressive social movements and can come from the right kind of revolution.

4. The primary power of the stimulus comes from the liberated minds and actions of the people. Social movements can unleash creative energy. Collective organization produces shared resources which are greater than those of the sum of the individuals. It is this "collective capital" that we should be tapping.

5. The secondary power of the stimulus comes from redistribution. Empowered people and communities can take a larger share of the pie for themselves, leaving less for the rich, the war machine, and the environmental destroyers. It is essential to note that this redistribution is NOT as important as harvesting the power of the liberated people, as a lot of institutions will need to be remade to be democratic, empowering, anti-racist (and anti other forms of opression), and environmentally sustainable.

6. A radical stimulus is not about saving banks, saving consumerism, saving the stock market, incorporating as many people into capitalism as possible by the grace of private home and car ownership, tax cuts, or having an underpaid overworked short on meaning "full-time" job.