America Should Sprawl? Not If We Want Strong Towns
We need better places. And those places don’t emerge from assembly-line development on the edge. They come from communities that are built to rapidly adapt, mature, and endure.
Economy featured
Stocks only go up…until they don’t: A history lesson and a forecast
fantasies of perpetual economic growth have lulled us into thinking we are entitled to perpetual financial gains. I believe those fantasies are about to be tested in the near future.
The Liberating Power of the Commonsverse
The great challenge, then, is to learn how to see, name, and reclaim the commons as significant forces in life – a powerful social phenomenon that is not just at play in the Global South, but everywhere.
Josh Farley — The Myths Shaping Our Economies: The Disconnect between Economic Theory and Reality
In this conversation, Nate is joined by ecological economist Josh Farley to explore the persistent myths taught in business schools, and the disconnect between economic theory and reality. Building on Nate’s recent Frankly episode, they unpack topics like the misconception between value and price, how GDP is a flawed measure of well-being, the truth about debt, and the ripple effects these have across market dynamics.
On Abundance
What model could make us more resilient, more comfortable, and more likely to survive a global ecological meltdown? The answer is low-tech library socialism.
In the Poconos, They’re Keeping Carbon County Great
In Carbon County, Pennsylvania, the conservation ethic runs deep. It manifests in the county’s comprehensive plan, its “return on environment” analysis, and most recently, a fund to preserve open space, which voters overwhelmingly supported.
Acquainting Ourselves with Collapse
When things fall apart, we’re going to have to do it together. There’s a lot to learn about togetherness, slow living, and patience. What resources do we have available to us that are beyond financial? This is for us to find out and this is why I have this practice of micro-dreaming.
The trouble with copper tariffs
Tariffs on copper imported into the United States will not result in self-sufficiency for the country anytime soon, if ever.
“We invent nothing, or only very little.” A portrait of Les Soulèvements de la Terre and some reflections
Although the movement’s actions are based on local struggles, it is part of a broader post-capitalist and post-development struggle. The movement aims to abolish the patriarchal, colonial, racist, and extractivist growth regime while building a new world here and now.
Cecosesola and the Art of Commoning within Capitalist Markets
One of the most singular and accomplished commons I’ve ever encountered is Cecosesola, a federation of Venezuelan cooperatives. The remarkable federation artfully manages multiple ventures as commons while deeply immersed within a system of capitalist markets.
What many environmentalists get wrong about the money system, and why it’s important
Perhaps the best you and I can do towards a better system is to stop believing in the current one, to withdraw from it (to a greater or lesser extent), and create new, gangster-free informal economic contexts.
Think Like a Commoner
The commons is essentially a parallel economy and social order that quietly affirms that another world is possible. And more: we can build it ourselves, now.
