As US Programme Director at Common Wealth, I work to develop the policy architecture and political programming to build a more productive state to address the crises of our age. We propose an interlocking policy architecture linking a Public Investment Authority, Public Health Care, and a Federal Grid Authority as the institutional and economic foundation for a high-investment, low-emission economy shaped towards democratic and productive ends. 

At Common Wealth, we argue that a Productive State is the institutional form necessary to coordinate investment, production, and provision at the pace, scale, and democratic character the green transition and other key progressive goals require. A productive state is one that uses the institutions and tools of public ownership to act as a core productive force directly undertaking economic activity — directly investing, producing, and providing — in key areas of the economy to organize economic transformation and ensure economic rights, like the right to universal high-quality affordable healthcare.

The Public Investment Authority would put long-term public capital into projects that stabilize and standardize the supply side, from grid equipment and next-generation steel and minerals to rural hospitals and urban childcare centers. A Federal Grid Authority would be empowered to standardize, rationalize, and decarbonize the energy system towards a goal of decommodifying basic access to energy and boosting economic growth. A publicly owned health care system where services are provided free at point of service would remove the most volatile share of household budgeting from affordability conversations entirely and curb one of the fastest-rising costs for businesses. 

I work on this policy agenda through my own research and by leading the design and delivery of Common Wealth’s US research programme and strategy. Our current flagship initiatives include: the Green Planning Commission —a multi-year project convening leading economists and policy thinkers to build the intellectual architecture for green democratic planning; and Forces of Production—a data product by our fantastic US Principal Economist Alex Williams providing conjunctural analysis of the supply side of the US and global economy.

Check out some of our other recent US programme work on decarbonization after fracking, Trump’s power grab, Medicaid and the struggle for universal health care in the Trump aftermath, and moving economic policy beyond Bidenomics to progressive economic reconstruction.

I'm keen to build collaborative relationships and partnerships across the US progressive ecosystem as this programme develops.