We’ve compiled a selection of documents related to our research on sustainable capitalism and economic development below.

Commonwealth Development Organizations. Communities have the power to bootstrap their own economies. How they can do that is outlined in this document. It describes a multi-layered financial ecosystem, established with local control, that can reverse the economic doldrums facing most communities today. It does so by using a complementary currency.

The Wealth of the Commons and Public Benefit Financial Institutions. Our current financial institutions are failing us. This article explores a number of new public benefit financial institutions like a new stock exchange, public benefit banks, a new form of venture capital and the like. Each of these new models is designed to serve humanity and the planet, not the other way around. Published in OpEdNews, 2010.

OpEdNews author page for Michael Sauvante 

Capitalism 2.0:  7 Reasons to Believe the Transition has Begun. This article introduces the concept of small business holding companies (SBHCs) and how they can serve as a replacement for business development companies (BDCs) to serve the capital formation needs of small businesses. Published on LinkedIn Pulse, 2016.

Community Cooperatives An Alternative Approach to the Mondragón Model and Why We Need It, 2013. A community cooperative is an entity that would serve as the principal vehicle to help convert existing local businesses into worker-owned enterprises and to assist entrepreneurs who want to form new businesses using a cooperative framework. This entity would provide both financing and business coordination (training, supervision and guidance) and community-wide promotion (i.e., a “buy local campaign) and serve as the integrative mechanism for the entire effort within the community.

Rewiring Corporate DNA is a paper identifies the critical role that corporate statutes play in driving corporate behavior and makes the case that if society wants to permanently modify the behavior of corporations – to make them more socially, environmentally and economically responsible – then we must change those statutes to drive the behavior we would like to see. Published in the BAWB (Business as An Agent of World Benefit) Interactive Working Paper Series, Case Western University, 2008

The Triple Bottom Line: A Boardroom guide explains why and how a company offered returns on economic, natural, and social capital. My efforts to change California’s laws to make corporations more socially and environmentally responsible is highlighted in the book, “Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism,” by Patricia Aburdeen. I expanded on that topic in the aforementioned article by the one above titled Rewiring Corporate DNA. published in the National Association of Corporate Directors “Director’s Monthly, November 2001.

The Inevitable Future of Capitalism, 2008, captures and extrapolates the trends I saw occurring in the world and where I believed those trends will inevitably take us, as viewed from an unknown point in the future. These trends concern the world of capitalism and all the interplays between that institution and society and the planet. This article explores what forces will come into play that will bring about fundamental shifts in the brand of capitalism that was born and bred in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. It was followed by the Capitalism 2.0 article described above.

5 Proposals for Increasing Economic Growth and Workers Security  Filed with the United States Senate Banking Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 2017 along with this background material.

An Energy and Climate Bill for the Rest of Us details some critical shortcomings in the existing energy bill that need to be corrected. Our country will only become truly green when we make our communities green, something the current bill does not address. This proposed legislation fixes that and focuses on creating thousands of small green companies, not just big solutions, all across the country. That is how we can create the millions of green jobs needed. Published in OpEdNews, 2009.