Aaron Fernando

While the dominant U.S. economic system operates on this principle of persistent financial coercion, there is (and always have been) an alternative way to organize individuals into collectives providing essential services, without the need for coercion: mutual aid networks.

That platform, Artisans Cooperative, just launched its marketplace in October 2023, ahead of the holiday season. It is a place where artists and makers can list and sell their goods, and collectively run a business. It is a place where customers can browse and find actually-unique items that they can trust are made with care and skill.

In the United States, the city of Portland, Oregon offers some leadership in terms of what this might look like in action. The city boasts a lively network of partnerships between nonprofits, businesses, civilians, and different bureaus and layers of government.

The Wiyot Tribe and Cooperation Humboldt are working together to form a type of Community Land Trust (CLT), Dishgamu Humboldt, the first of its kind, to structurally ensure that the Wiyot tribe will maintain decision-making power in this land trust, forever.

On July 3, the Co-operative Party in the U.K. launched a report at parliament outlining a strategy to double the size of the U.K.’s cooperative sector by 2030. The report, written by the think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), was commissioned by the Co-operative Party and comprises a vision of the party’s goals.

When we find ourselves in a world fully immersed in blockchain, we will find that it is a permanently transformed one — one where cooperatives, schools, and neighborhood groups have many of the same technological advantages as governments and multinational corporations.