The Sideworks plan doesn’t come complete with a bunch of numbers to support a vision of everyone improving their material well-being.  All we have to offer is our common sense.  Common sense is a spirit, it respects the past, it pays attention to the present and it can imagine a more workable future.  Common sense is the power of the mind which perceives the truth.  People who have it choose to know.  They know contradictions, they know inconsistencies, they know B.S.

The globalized economy propagates the myth that the boats of all people will rise on the tide of perpetual economic growth.  Common sense knows perpetual economic growth on a finite planet is impossible.  Common sense knows the planet has her limits and we may very well be exceeding them right now.  Common sense knows the economy is a sub-set of nature and that it’s not the other way around.  Common sense knows the human economy is embedded in and dependent on the natural systems of the planet.  Common sense knows we need a world to live in and that the planet herself has to be our ultimate priority.

The globalized economy is built on the false promise that the whole of society will benefit if the rich get richer.  Common sense knows the globalized economy is dividing us into winners and losers.  The gap between the rich and the poor grows larger everyday.  Common sense knows that people know intuitively where they stand in the globalized economy and it matters to them where they stand.  Commons sense knows the billions of people living in the slums and ghettos of the planet didn’t migrate to those places because they were excited about their opportunities there.  Common sense knows a winner take all economy will be unstable and insecure.  Common sense knows the current globalized economics has become unworkable.  It may be meeting the economic goals of those that designed and promote it but it has failed in its purpose, to serve the common good.

Time has found us.  Common sense tells us the guardians of the status quo won’t be providing any solutions to our economic problems.

Common sense is demanding a localized economy.  A needs not a wants economy.  An economy focused on the quality of life, not the quantity of goods.  An economy adapted to the planet not the other way around.  An economy whose cause and effects are felt locally.  An economy where the capital is rooted in its place and its control is local and distributed to as many people as possible.  An economy with a face on it.  An economy where the markets are regulated and restrained by the public opinion of the community.

Conventional wisdom will say our vision is utopian.  Common sense says the globalized vision is utopian.  Conventional wisdom will say the Tranquille Initiative can’t be done.  Common sense says we’d be foolish if we didn’t try.