Our Obsolescent Economy
In other words, the modern consumer culture was born – not as a response to innate human greed or customer demand, but to the needs of industrial capital.
Economy featured
A Working-Class Buffalo Suburb Retired a Coal Plant the Right Way
Sixteen months ago, the coal-fired Huntley Generating Station, which sits on the banks of the Niagara River, stopped producing power for first time since World War I. Erie County lost its largest air and water polluter. But the town of Tonawanda, a working class Buffalo suburb 13 miles downstream of America’s most storied waterfalls, also lost its biggest taxpayer.
Philadelphia’s Civic Commons Campaign: An Ambitious Campaign to Spread Opportunity into All Corners of the City
For decades the “Philadelphia Story” was about steady economic decline. That story is being rewritten today as many Americans rediscover the advantages of cities—inviting public spaces, rich cultural diversity and a creative environment that fertilizes start-ups and attracts talent.
From Growth to Degrowth: a Brief History
In growth-based societies, the cessation of growth means prolonged economic recessions, an explosion in poverty, an intensification of productivist or extractivist activities and setbacks in democracy. But social progress, prosperity and living well are possible without economic growth; in fact, they require a shift towards post-growth or degrowth societies.
When does the Commons Transition begin?
All of the above form a strategy for a multi-modal commons-centric transition, offering a positive way out of the current crisis and a way to respond to the new demands of the commons-influenced generations. The Commons and the prefigurative forms of a new value regime already exist. The commoners are already here, and they’re already commoning; in other words, the Commons transition has begun.
Patterns of Commoning: On Openness, Commons & Unconditional Basic Work
Van Bo Le-Mentzel has invented all kinds of useful things, among others, do-it-yourself blueprints for furniture and tiny houses. He has become known for social DIY projects such as “Hartz IV1 Möbel,” the Unreal Estate House,2 and the One-Square-Meter House.3 He is now transferring the concept of these projects – unconditional freedom to use something for one’s own purposes – to his own life and that of his family with a campaign called #dScholarship that he started in 2014.
Radical Municipalism: Demanding the Future
We’re aware that we can’t look to anyone but ourselves to start generating forms of political activity that both overcome the unwelcome return of nationalism, and that genuinely increase the prospects for just, ecologically sound and equitable ways of organising our societies. These will necessarily be aimed at the end of capitalism and the nation-state, and towards democratically organized societies held in common.
Building the Networked City From the Ground Up With Citizens
How can technology lead to more participation in democratic processes? Who should own and control city data? Can cities embrace a model that socializes data and encourages new forms of cooperativism and democratic innovation?
A Care Economy
There is a care economy out there. Many of the most important and fulfilling parts of our lives—such as parenting, neighbourliness and favours—are about care, even if they are not conventionally classed as economic activity. When people are motivated by a need that inspires care, whether unpaid or paid, there can be a richness in the motivation as it is needs-driven and sustaining of both people and society.
The Stratospheric Costs of The American Century
Guns, energy, money – each of these factors of power comes to mind in reading the recently released book by John Dower, The Violent American Century: War And Terror Since World War Two. This brief book keeps a tight focus: cataloguing the extent of violence associated with the US role as the world’s dominant superpower.
The Economics of Community
I’m not looking for Trump’s jawboning to bring back the manufacturing jobs that were lost to outsourcing. I’m not looking for governments to bail us out at all. I’m looking at what we can do for ourselves, working together in values-aligned cooperative groups—the same kind of entities that impressed Margaret Mead so much for their potential to effect world change.
Development for Whom?
But it is also evident that youth everywhere, forced to deal with a much more insecure and uncertain future, are also more open to creative approaches to change that recognize and seek to address various inequalities and injustices. I find evidence of such creative thinking among my own students, for example, along with a willingness to think beyond the immediate future to the medium term for change. That thinking and willingness gives me hope for the emergence of a Great Transition.
