Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The value of the arts is as a natural, communal expression of meaning that is inseparable from our everyday lives, impulses and needs, existing in spite of the desires of capitalism and the hegemonic structures that enforce it.
Looting, it seems, has got a bad rap. Because to save the planet, we need to loot it. We must let nothing — not cultural artifacts, not ancient woodlands, nor even entire species — get in the way of this drive to save the planet from its number one threat: Climate Breakdown.
Not only were “modern” elements of enterprise present and even dominant already in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, but the institutional context was conducive to long-term growth.
Critiques of growth are often talked about in the West as an issue requiring economic solutions. However, it has also become evident that a break away from this model will require not merely an economic shift, but the root-and-stem refashioning of our very selves
Social coops offer a wholly new model of social care. They are community-led, multi-stakeholder, democratically governed, and highly relational. Community benefit, not maximum profit, is prioritized to provide high-quality care.
The changing context for enterprise through the centuries reminds us that business activities are not universal but fluid and alter according to society’s practical priorities and ethics.
Perhaps the major power of degrowth lies in providing a uniting thread between diverse movements, a platform that could enhance mutual understanding and learning, and in unleashing solidarity.
Where we begin to transform this system is in our own minds. This is where we stop accepting it as legitimate. This is where the system begins to lose its grip. This is where we begin to win.
Offshore banking and tax-avoidance centers are nothing new; they’ve been with us for millennia.
The solidarity economy (SE) is a global movement to build a world that centers people and the planet rather than maximizing private profit and endless growth.
Commoning honors wholesome values and different ways of being, knowing, and acting while allowing ordinary people to assert some measure of self-determination in the face of capitalist markets and state power.
Degrowth, I believe, is at a critical cross road – advocates must now choose to continue to regard degrowth as an unending thought experiment, or to take degrowth into communities of ordinary folks.
