Our Common Wealth

12Accounting forCommon Wealth

America’s economic accounting is a lot like Enron’s before the dam broke. There are missing ledger pages that would show a hemorrhaging of debt, and a special entry called “externalities” into which hidden obligations are stashed.

Virtually all forms of accounting today overlook these liabilities, and a trove of hidden assets too. A report called The State of The Commons evaluates the current management of America’s common wealth and finds that maintenance is terrible, theft is rampant, and rents often aren’t being collected. In other words, our common wealth—and our children’s—is being squandered, and we all are poorer as a result.¹

Consider, for example, water. All told, America is taking 75 gallons of groundwater ...