Accounting for a new economy
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In the current crisis, we see the seeds of a new economy emerging: based on the common good rather than private greed, adapted to global climate change and the end of cheap oil, and promoting social justice. These seeds take different forms and use different ideas. We don't know which of them will bear fruit. However, one thing many of them have in common is that the standard accounting and business administration systems will either not work for them or will hinder their full development. We propose here that the accounting model that we use for Group Accounting - REA (Resources, Events and Agents) - will work for all of these approaches. REA can also help to make all of the groups using all of these different approaches compatible, that is, able to join with each other in community, regional and global economic systems. The seeds Another thing all of these approaches have in common is cooperative relationships among the participants, at least to some extent. (By "cooperative" here, we mean the common sense of the word, not necessarily the legal cooperative business form.) All of these seeds (and others we did not name) are small, and they need to operate within the existing system with all that entails. But a new economic system will not be built from scratch, it will adopt approaches that have been tried and found to work.