A ramble today about the miserable economy and potential alternatives thereto.

I begin with recent remarks by Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang. He has a book out in the UK, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism.

Plugging the book in the Brit daily The Independent, Chang’s alleged that the current global corporate system has turned us all into Matrix drones, sleepwalking through a fantasy world and incapable of imagining any other.

This is the ol’ Plato’s cave allegory, refitted to modern pop-culture references.

And I believe it’s only half true, at most.

Eleven years ago, thousands swarmed Seattle’s streets protesting just that system.

Today, you sure don’t have to be a political radical to see a lot of dysfunction in the way things currently are.

But what to do about it?

In this country, the Republicans only offer a return to the lobbyist-whoring ways of the Bush years. The corporate Democrats offer watered down Clintonian half measures, then dilute them further.

I’ve talked and corresponded with a lot of people who desperately want something better.

But what?

Third-world style dictatorship works at keeping a small elite in power, but it’s lousy for most everybody else. Central-state Communism sometimes worked a little better in regard to social services; but it could be brutally inefficient, where dictatorships were simply brutally efficient.

Besides, excessive centralization of capital and wealth is a lot of what’s wrong with the present system. We need more economic diversity and democracy, not less.

So I hereby introduce my own formula for a better, more prosperous tomorrow:

Economic MISCosity.

The elevator-pitch description: Try whatever works.

To hell with pure socialism, pure capitalism, pure anything.

Decentralize businesses and business units. More authority to those in the field. More co-op and worker-controlled enterprises.

Use public financing and/or administration for those social goods that often aren’t best serviced by the profit motive. I’d nominate health care as just such a sector.

Promote more and different metrics of economic success, other than just the Almighty Stock Price.

To my alt-culture pals: Can the square-bashing, the rural-bashing, and the working-class-bashing. We’re all in this thing together.

To my baby-boomer pals: This ain’t gonna be pretty, or laid back, or mellow. Be prepared for some heavy lifting.

To my NPR-fan pals: This ain’t gonna be easy to understand, let alone simple to accomplish. Beware of easy answers, no matter what they are. Our future is a messy, complex, complicated place, full of twists and seeming contradictions. Live with it.