Protecting Progressive Policies

A Doughnut # research-for-action  seminar, entitled Protecting Progressive Policies with @Brett Douglas was convened by Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) on September 18, 2025.

The aim of this online seminar series, co-hosted by Andrew Fanning, DEAL's Research & Data Analysis Lead, is to connect scholar-activists worldwide in open and informal spaces around specific topics/initiatives related to Doughnut Economics research and action.

Summary

Brett brings an interesting mix of expertise. A member of the Doughnut Economics Scotland Network and the Scottish Green Party, he was an anti-capitalist activist in the 1980s. In the late 80s, he concluded that attempts to create socialist societies had all ended in failure. In his view, other anti-capitalist activists and he must not have really understood capitalism. Every activist he knew was an academic, teacher, government employee, trade union official or factory worker. He decided to leave a job as a college lecturer and instead work in capitalist companies - to better understand how capitalism succeeds. This provided an understanding of why policies, laws, regulations, rules and change of ownership cannot permanently control capitalist companies in the absence of systemic transformation.

After some brief opening remarks, Brett shared an insightful and engaging 20-min presentation on how progressive policy achievements will always be at risk of being reversed until we deomcratise the economy. Slides are available here.

Topics covered included the following points and issues:

Protecting progressive policies
- Policies, taxation, regulations and laws can be quickly rolled back when governments change
- The ultra-wealthy have economic power to support the election of their governments

Fool enough of the people
-The ultra-wealthy opponents of progress can’t fool all the people all the time
- But they just need to fool enough of the people enough of the time

Trump’s re-election as a classic example
- Only 33% of the total eligible citizens voted for Trump
- 26% were not registered to vote - barriers make harder for other candidates’ supporters to register
- 8% were registered but did not vote - falsehoods to put people off voting
- This left 66% who voted, and half of them voted for Trump -  - falsehoods to put people off voting for other candidates and persuaded people to vote for Trump

Controlling perceived reality
- Traditionally, the ultra-wealthy had influence through their ownership of newspapers, then television channels
- Now control is by social media, which has a greater reach than traditional mass media
- Mass media’s control of information in capitalist democracies is the counterbalance to universal suffrage

Capitalism is rule by the wealthy
- Control of a capitalist business is based on the amount of money invested by each shareholder
- Everyone that works for the company, works for the controlling shareholders
- Changing the owners of a capitalist enterprise will never make it anything but a capitalist enterprise because shareholder control is hierarchical

Democratic economy is distributive by design
- Progressive gains are temporary until we reduce the economic power of ultra-wealthy opponents of progress
- Wealth and economic power need to be distributed fairly throughout society

Examples of the democratic economy:
- cooperatives
- mutuals
- community enterprises
- social enterprises
- nonprofits

Growing the democratic economy
- How can scholar-activists support efforts to increase the democratic economy? What can be done without the need for new laws and regulations?
- Which innovations could enable the democratic economy to expand?
- What would a supportive ecosystem be like?
- What ideas do you have?

Brett's presentation was followed by a lively discussion, including the following points:

- Reservations with the use of the term ‘progressive’ as it is often used in a derogatory and adversarial term by the far-right.

- Democratic economy is great but scalability is an issue. Explore evolutionary approaches.

- Try to use less of ‘us and them’ and more ‘we’.  Really hard but finding common denominators is key.

- Community Wealth Building, such as the Preston model, is inspiring.

- ‘Capitalism’ is almost too abstract, and focusing our antagonism on abstract things is not a good strategy.

- Reforming shareholder-capitalism from within is not worth it.

- The shareholder model is irreformable.

- Social capital is being erased.

- Power needs to be discussed, even if it’s uncomfortable.

- How do we dismantle power, and dollar supremacy?

- All orthodoxies are a failure because some ideas are outdated.

- How do we treat this need for economic transformation as a campaign?

- We need to test the significance of how to transform structures effectively.

- The 4-day week formulation is significant.

- Governance and complex adaptive systems, it’s about information and communication.

- Some people are not willing.

- Cannibal Capitalism by Nancy Fraser is very interesting.

Next steps

Overall, this Doughnut Economics # research-for-action seminar was lively and engaging, which gives us at DEAL lots of energy to continue hosting these open and informal spaces for scholar-activists.

If you would like to stay up to date with this network, including future seminars, please join the 'Doughnut Research4Action' mailing list. Thanks very much to Brett for co-hosting this session, and to everyone who generously shared time and contributions.