Public Policy, Community Ownership, and Clean Energy

Pollin considers policies for promoting productive investments in the U.S., especially as regards the project of building a clean energy economy. The four main policies examined are (i) expanding public investments throughout the economy and gaining the crowding-in benefits that will accrue from such investments, (ii) refocusing the successful, but ad hoc, U.S. model of industrial policies, (iii) advancing this agenda of public investments, industrial policy and cooperative/community ownership in ways that benefit all regions of the U.S. equitably and (iv) promoting cooperative and community-based ownership forms, as alternatives to the private corporation.