The Great Near (& Far)
Fair credit, employee ownership, divestment, & Netflix's racial equity commitment...
Hey folks. This is the 15th edition of The Great Near. I’ll be re-launching “TGN 2.0.” in 2022 with a refresh and a bit more regularity. In the meantime, I’ll be sharing a weekly curation (read: no more long-form posts for a bit) of content that might push your thinking about power and the systems that shape our lives. I’m talking about the economy, public policy, finance, capitalism, the social sector, and more. Follow along for new research, op-eds, hot takes, my favorite explainers, the best learning resources, and fun nuggets so that our heads don’t explode.
What fires you up? What questions do you have? Drop a note in the comments to start a conversation.
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The Great Near (& Far) 👀 ✨
A few takes on fair credit: Community Credit Lab breaks down the “5 C’s of Credit” (capacity, capital, collateral, conditions, and character) that are used by lenders to assess a borrower’s creditworthiness. They present an alternative view that supports character-based lending. Follow this up with Emily Stewart’s piece in Vox asking if credit scores are a necessary evil. She makes the case that credit scores aren’t neutral: one in five consumers have reported an error on their credit reports and most credit bureaus have been the subject of major scandals. Proposals have been made to fix this, like the Comprehensive CREDIT Act, which would give consumers the right to dispute their credit reports, ban employers from accessing credit scores, and shorten the time negative information remains on a credit report. Other advocates have suggested using an individual’s rental payment history or utility bills as credit factors. In support of reimagining a system that de-prioritizes credit, Rodney Foxworth, my colleague and CEO of Common Future argues that “there’s already character-based capital in other forms. There’s no credit scoring in venture capital.”
A solution to close the wealth gap: Diane Ives at Kendeda Fund offers a compelling case for expanding investment in employee ownership: when employees have an equity stake in a company as full or partial owners (think cooperatives or employee stock ownership plans). This article highlights the key investors and nonprofits advancing employee ownership, but for a deeper dive, you can check out this report by Democracy Collaborative. Two of my takeaways? First, the net wealth of the bottom half of Americans would quadruple if only 30% of all businesses were employee-owned. Second, businesses with majority employee ownership outperformed others during the pandemic in job retention, pay, benefits, and workplace safety. 👀
Someone you should know about: Nadra Nittle profiles Julian D. Miller, co-founder of Delta Fresh Foods in CivilEats. “Delta Fresh uses mobile markets sourced by community farms to expand access to locally grown fresh food, improve diabetes and obesity, and increase economic opportunities for local farmers.” Delta Fresh has supported 5,000 residents of Bolivar County, in northwestern Mississippi, with fresh produce since 2010. Something I love: they take a holistic approach to community food systems, which means also addressing health equity. Currently, they’re exploring how to work with physicians to provide prescriptions for fresh food to treat chronic illness. They’re looking to expand production, scale to more counties and grow their youth program.
Something that shifted my perspective: This summer, I wrote about questionable corporate commitments to racial equity. My team tracked twelve commitments from companies shifting deposits into Black-owned banks, credit unions, and other minority depository institutions. Victor Luckerson profiled one of those commitments in WIRED: a $10M deposit in Hope Credit Union from Netflix. Though I remain skeptical about pledges in the long term—Mehrsa Baradaran, author of The Color of Money, speaks about a similar period of corporate support for racial justice in the late 1960s when direct action was ignored by companies in favor of job training and hiring pushes—this piece convinced me that these pledges weren’t all talk/no effect:
“Hope Credit Union has said that within two years of the deposit, it should be able to support financing for an additional 2,500 entrepreneurs, home buyers, and consumers of color.”
Propeller Capital, a business incubator in New Orleans was able to connect entrepreneurs of color across the city with Hope to process dozens of PPP loan applications ignored by traditional banks. But… as much as I want to celebrate this, this perspective is revealing: “As noble as Netflix’s 2 percent pledge to Black economic initiatives might sound, it isn’t even large enough to merit a mention in the company’s filings to the SEC. Netflix is rich enough that Alwyn, the treasurer, can categorize a $100 million investment as “excess cash.”
Some good news: Harvard (finally) divests from fossil fuels. 👏 Student activists attribute this to movement building (there was no single student leader but a community that grew over years), narrative change (students took control of the public narrative through op-eds and digital campaigns), and a commitment to creativity (perhaps it was the financial negligence complaint to the Massachusetts attorney general that set this one over the edge…).
On local politics: (If you’re lamenting last night’s election results, you may want to skip this one.) I recommend this New Yorker profile on India Walton, who seeks to become the first Black woman and socialist mayor of a major American city. While early results don’t look good for Walton, this profile reveals what is at stake for Buffalo, her unlikely candidacy, and what it looks like when activists size up the status quo. Buffalo is the third poorest city in the U.S, led by Democrats for four terms under Byron Brown, and Walton launched her campaign on a platform of change. Having lost the primary in an upset, Brown launched a write-in campaign to defeat Walton and early results seem to be tipping in his favor. I highlight this race in the spirit of reimagining alternatives for our cities, and because the outcome is already offering insight into larger political shifts. Follow this up by getting to know PUSH Buffalo a local economic development organization known for their green development zones that helped secure a “Tenant Bill of Rights” in Walton’s platform.
A myth that has survived far too long: What does “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” really mean? Once you think about it, it makes no sense at all. As Talib Visram explains in Fast Company: “It was intended as a metaphor for something that was absurdly impossible: In this case, the image of a man trying to haul himself across a river simply by tugging on his bootstraps.” A new report argues that this satirical phrase from the early 1800s seeded our misunderstanding about a meritocratic system, where government help has been afforded to some groups (without question) at the expense of others. Yet, many continue to believe that meritocracy, not generational wealth, is the key driver of success. Follow this up with Michael Sandel’s 2020 book, The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good? Sandel explores meritocracy from another angle, arguing that our political divide stems from a “rhetoric of rising,” or the idea that hard work = success. For a quick glance at Sandel’s ideas, here’s a great review in the Guardian.
A debate about language: If you’re confused about new terms like BIPOC or critical race theory, you’re not alone. This NYT article breaks down the nuance and argues that these subtle shifts in language influence cultural change. But the communities encompassed by new language aren’t always at the helm. Latinx is a good example of a word that grew from academia and social justice circles seeking inclusive language for non-binary individuals. Some argue it hasn’t been widely adopted because of these origins, or that Latinx has no Spanish pronunciation. Though language is important, activists emphasize the difference between awareness and action:
“Such observations are borne out in a national survey this year by Jennifer Chudy, a political scientist at Wellesley College. Even white Americans with the highest levels of concern about racial discrimination, she found, ranked activities like “listening to people of color” or “educating myself about racism” as more important than “choosing to live in a racially diverse community,” “bringing racial issues to the attention of elected officials,” or voting.”
Something I return to: Maria Popova has been helping me make sense of the world for over a decade. I am in continuous awe of her ability to connect ideas and wisdom across, what feels like, hundreds of thousands of pages of text. To honor the rebirth of her popular blog Brain Pickings as The Marginalian, here is a piece I return to often. New Year’s Resolutions from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds pulls together ideas from two millennia aimed at cultivating personal growth and refinement. I’ve been ruminating on this quote by Henry David Thoreau on walking and being present amid the pressure of productivity:
Quote: Henry David Thoreau, Walking. Image: The Marginalian
until next time,
Caitlin