In the USA, for example, there are more than 1,400,000 nonprofit organizations with total combined assets of more than $500 billion. The expenditures of these third sector organizations exceeds the gross national product of all but seven nations in the world. The third sector contributes more than 6 per cent of the GNP and is responsible for 10.5 percent of the total national employment. More people are employed in third sector organizations than work in the construction, electronics, transportation or textile and apparel industries.
The opportunity exists to create millions of new jobs in the civil society. This could be done by taxing a percentage of the wealth generated by the new high-tech, network-based economy and redirecting in into the neighbourhoods and community of each country, to the creation of jobs and the re-building of the social commons.