How Mesopotamia’s Urban and Industrial Revolution Created the Politics of Our Time
Giorgio Buccellati’s At the Origins of Politics takes readers to the early stages of a process that became the structure of modern life.
Economy featured
Local, Vernacular, and Alive
We should take inspiration from many brave, resourceful commons projects that are reclaiming the local from the neocolonial priorities of capital and nation-states. A big part of their work is recovering local ownership and use of land so that it can steward, and not exploit natural systems.
Assessing Local Good life: The Art of Prioritizing ‘What Counts’ Together
While existing initiatives show that indicators can serve the “qualitative”, policy-making, and the renewal of the concept of well-being, much work remains to better consider interdependencies among actors, countries, social/environmental aspects, and individual/collective factors.
Trade war danger: China could quickly strangle American tech with metals cutoff
The United States may soon find that those it has targeted with tariffs can fight back in ways that could cripple American industry.
Extractivism and Resistance: Gendered Perspectives on the Global Resource Economy
Women and Indigenous communities have long been at the forefront of these movements, resisting corporate exploitation while advancing alternative economic and governance models that challenge dominant paradigms of development.
The Banks We Deserve: Excerpt
Every neighborhood, every community, regardless of the race, ethnicity, or national origin of its residents, deserves to have this kind of access to credit that doesn’t depend solely on credit scores or personal wealth.
Welcome ‘Think Like a Commoner’, Second Edition!
Now that liberal democracy is under siege and a restoration of previous systems is likely impossible, I hope the book may also help expand people’s imaginations of what is possible.
Mutual Aid: Lessons from East Boston
Last fall, Tufts University Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Urban Environmental Policy and Planning, Penn Loh, hosted a discussion following the release of a new report, Mutual Aid lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic strengthening civic Infrastructure in East Boston through Community Care.
Trump Is Not a Localist
In the coming months, I worry that the list of Trump’s affronts to localists will grow significantly longer. Sure, there will also be opportunities for localists. And when they arise—crowdfunding reforms, for example—we will advocate for them. But right now, dear localists, we need hypervigilance and clarity of thinking. We still have 1,423 days to go.
What is Wealth?
Can we mature our understanding of wealth before it’s too late? Could we create regenerative cultures which transmute income back into wealth? And can we collectively recognize that true wealth cannot be found in our pockets but rather in the natural world we inhabit?
Put Your Money Where Your Principles Are
I have no illusions about what I can accomplish individually by not buying a Tesla or giving up my Prime membership. But as one of many – well, that’s a different story. There’s still power in the people.
The steps to an American oligarchy
One of the things that all of this reveals is that the dystopian world in which AIs have taken our jobs and left us all destitute is not so much a scenario which needs endless public policy discussion. Instead it is the return of the repressed. It’s the story that our tech billionaires wish for, but still have to pretend that they don’t.
