FOUNDATIONAL ECONOMY

The members of the Foundational Economy collective are: Davide Arcidiacono, Filippo Barbera, Andrew Bowman, John Buchanan, Sandro Busso, Joselle Dagnes, Joe Earle, Ewald Engelen, Peter Folkman, Julie Froud, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal, Ian Jones, Dario Minervini, Mick Moran, Fabio Mostaccio, Gabriella Pauli, Leonhard Plank, Angelo Salento, Ferdinando Spina, Nick Tsitsianis, Karel Williams.

Foundational economy is the most important concept you have never heard of. The foundational encompasses material utilities like water, gas and electricity and providential services like education, health and care. Taken together, these services matter economically and politically because they are the collectively consumed infrastructure of everyday life, the basis of civilisation and should be citizen rights.
This foundational economy has a history which began heroically and ends in degradation. In the century after 1880 national and local state action built up the supply of foundational services right across Europe and North America. Since 1980 their systems of provision have been undermined by state neglect. This is variably combined with privatisation, outsourcing and market choice which import the unsuitable business models of financialised public companies and private equity.

The challenge then is to think about how we can have a better future. This book does not recommend specific policies but proposes broad principles for rebuilding the foundational which could mobilise old and new social actors in broad political alliances: ask the citizens what they want; reinvent taxation; lean on intermediary institutions; and do not assume the state is benign and competent.

Foreword by Colin Crouch
1 Introduction: foundational matters
2 (Re)discovering the foundational
3 Wrecking the foundational
4 The constitution of the foundational
5 Renewing the foundational
Afterword by Andy Haldane
Index