The Way Forward : Another World is Possible Joseph E.

Stiglitz
Goal
To achieve a society more in accord with our fundamental values, with more opportunity, a higher
national income, a stronger democracy and higher living standards for most individuals.
To create a more efficient economy and fairer society from making markets work like markets more competitive, less exploitative and tempering their excesses.
To invest more in our society in education, technology and infrastructure to provide more
security to ordinary citizens leading to a more efficient and dynamic economy more consistent with
what we claim to be and offering more opportunity to a wider section of society which may even
benefit the 1% once the capabilities of so many at the bottom are not squandered.
How to achieve it - Overview
1. Economic Reform
a. Curbing excesses at the top
b. Stronger and more effectively enforced competition laws
c. Improving corporate governance
d. Comprehensive reform of bankruptcy laws
e. End government giveaways
f. End corporate welfare
g. Legal reform democratising access to justice and diminishing the arms race
h. Tax reform
2. Helping the Rest
a. Improve access to education
b. Help ordinary Brits to save
c. Stop the stealth privatisation of the NHS
d. Strengthen social protection programs
e. Temper globalisation create a more level playing field and end the race to the
bottom
f. Restore and maintain full employment
g. Create a new social compact
h. Restore sustainable and equitable growth
3. Political Reform
a. Reform party funding to limit scope of corporate influence
b. Reform lobbying
c. Ensure greater access to less biased information by creating a more democratic
media
d. Provide public support for a variety of genuinely independent think tanks
e. Make voter registration and voting easier thus improving voter turnout
f. Reduce the scope for gerrymandering

How to achieve it - Detail

1. Economic Reform
a. Curbing excesses at the top
i. Curb the financial sector
a) Curb excessive risk taking and the too big-to-fail and toointerconnected-to-fail financial institutions
b) Make banks more transparent and remove taxpayer backing of overthe-counter derivatives
c) Make banks and credit card companies more competitive and
ensure they act competitively. We have technology to create an
efficient electronic payments system but the banks are determined
to maintain an out of date system that exploits consumers and
levies large transaction fees on merchants
d) Make it harder for banks to engage in predatory lending and abusive
credit card practices
e) Curb bonuses that encourage excessive risk taking and short-sighted
behaviour
f) Close down offshore banking centres that promote tax evasion and
avoidance
ii. Stronger and more effectively enforced competition laws
a) Enforce our legal and regulatory codes to improve efficiency and
equity
b) Prevent dominant firms from cornering the market, suppressing
competition and innovation
iii. Improving corporate governance
a) Limit the power of CEOs to divert so much of corporate resources
for their own benefit
b) Introduce laws to give shareholders a say on pay and accounting
rules to ensure that shareholders know how much their executives
are being paid
iv. Comprehensive reform of bankruptcy laws
a) Ensure the lender bears the brunt of the consequences of a mistake
rather than the borrower across the lending spectrum from
derivatives to underwater homes to student loans
b) Make the law more debtor-friendly to give the banks greater
incentive to be more careful in lending. This would reduce the
incidence of credit bubbles and number of UK citizens deeply in debt
v. End government giveaways
a) Stop government giveaways whether in the disposition of public
assets or procurement
vi. End corporate welfare
a) Cut the 85bn annual corporate welfare bill particularly by closing
loopholes in the tax code which act to reduce the progressivity of
the tax system and distort incentives

b) If corporations cant make it on their own without public support

they should be allowed to fail and assistance provided to workers
who need to move to new jobs
c) Scrap regulations that limit liability for the damage that industries
can cause which are effectively a corporate subsidy
vii. Legal reform democratising access to justice and diminishing the arms race
a) Ensure that we dont have a legal system where those with the
deepest pockets are in the best position to fight and win
b. Tax reform
i. Create a more progressive income and corporate tax system with fewer
loopholes
a) Tax speculators at least as much as those who work for their income
by bringing capital gains tax in line with income tax
b) Ensure those at the top pay at least as large a percentage of their
incomes in tax as those at the bottom
c) Reform the corporate tax system to close loopholes and encourage
job creation and investment
ii. Create a more effective and effectively enforced inheritance tax system
a) Create a meaningful inheritance tax to help prevent a new UK
oligarchy or plutocracy
2. Helping the Rest
a. Improve access to education
i. Use public money to expand support for state and non-profit higher
educational systems and to provide scholarships to ensure the poor have
access
ii. Restrict predatory practices of for-profit educational institutions which have
failed to increase opportunity and have in fact been a major force dragging
down poor aspiring UK citizens
b. Help ordinary Brits to save
i. Give the poor similar incentives to those already enshrined in the tax system
for the wealthy which help them to accumulate and bequeath money to
their heirs
c. Stop the stealth privatisation of the NHS
i. Avoid moving towards a US style system which is the most inefficient and
poorest performing, overall, health care system in the advanced industrial
countries
ii. Protect our NHS from rent seeking by insurance companies and the
pharmaceutical industry that drive costs up for patients
iii. Ensure that access to medicine continues to be considered as a basic human
right
d. Strengthen social protection programs
i. Stop the mis-information campaign about the costs of welfare in the UK
and ensure that the most needy and vulnerable in our society are
adequately supported

e. Temper globalisation create a more level playing field and end the race to the
bottom
i. Regulate cross border capital flows, especially of the short term speculative
kind which can wreak havoc on national economies
ii. Fight for better worker rights and conditions, better financial regulations
and better environmental conditions
iii. Ensure that UK corporations are taxed on all profits made in the UK and not
just those they bring back home to stop encouraging the outsourcing of jobs
3. Restore and maintain full employment
a. A fiscal policy to maintain full employment with equality
i. Implement well-designed macro policies to lower debts and deficits, create
faster growth and employment and improve distribution of income
b. A monetary policy and monetary institutions to maintain full employment
i. Create a more accountable and more representative central bank
ii. Encourage a shift away from inflation focused policies to a more balanced
focus on employment, growth and financial stability
c. Correcting trade imbalances
i. Look at various means to increase exports and limit imports to reduce the
currently unsustainable government budget deficit
d. Active labour market policies and improved social protection
i. Provide active assistance to workers who are moving from jobs being lost to
new jobs that are being created
ii. Make investments in education and technology to ensure that the new jobs
are at least as good as the lost ones
iii. Reform our financial system to return it to its core function of providing
finance for the new businesses of the future or if this proves impossible,
consider government taking a more active role in financing new enterprises
4. Create a new social compact
a. Support workers and citizens collective action
i. Reverse rules that weaken the bargaining strength of workers vis-a-vis
capital
ii. Revert to a government that supports all people, rather than the special
interests that have captured it
iii. Support rather than vilify trade unions and recognise the important role
they play in countervailing other special interests and defend the basic social
protections that are necessary if workers are to accept change and adjust to
the changing economic environment
b. Affirmative action, to eliminate the legacy of discrimination
i. Ensure the implementation and enforcement of anti-discrimination laws to
improve our basic values, basic sense of identity and of nationhood
5. Restore sustainable and equitable growth
a. A growth agenda, based on public investment

i. Increase government investment in infrastructure, investment and

technology to expand the economy and make private investment even more
attractive
ii. Raise taxes on corporations that dont invest and lower taxes on those that
do invest and create jobs
b. Redirect investment and innovation to preserve jobs and the environment
i. Re-direct investment and innovation from saving labour to saving resources
ii. Force firms to pay for their full environmental damage
iii. Use investment tax credits to encourage investment that saves resources
and preserves jobs
iv. Discourage the type of growth in which most individuals are worse off,
where the quality of our environment suffers and where people endure
anxiety and alienation
6. Political Reform
a. Reform party funding to limit scope of corporate influence
b. Reform lobbying
c. Ensure greater access to less biased information by creating a more democratic
media
d. Provide public support for a variety of genuinely independent think tanks
e. Make voter registration and voting easier thus improving voter turnout
f. Reduce the scope for gerrymandering