Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Capitalists, at least those at the pinnacles of their industries, may have a distinct aversion to being subject to market rule, as Doctorow writes. But as Battistoni writes, they show no such ambivalence about class rule, which gives them non-democratic control over where and how investments are either made or not made.
Not every important metal comes from its own mines. Here’s why that’s important.
How long can we live in the strange world of President Donald Trump and his version of what might be thought of as Defeat Gardens before we figure out a better way — how to truly feed and care for ourselves and one another? What are the systems that we need to build to replace the distinctly broken and shattered ones in this world of ours?
Why is it so difficult to find a job or to buy products that align with our values? Why is it difficult to even know whether our personal choices might have effects in the right direction?
The frustration is reaching critical mass, and it will drive change. The question is what type, and direction, of change?
Working at smaller scales means that the benefits of additional crop rotations, processing mills and artisan-micro-maker labs could be spread throughout the country, bringing greater resilience and livelihoods to rural areas. Energy demands would be lower and distributed as processing would be localised and require limited transport.
How would a job guarantee disenshittify the labor market? The job guarantee means a “permanent, publicly provided employment opportunity to anyone ready and willing to work, it establishes an effective floor for the entire labor market.”
Political economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth century employed a curious phrase to denote the source of wealth at the base of the economy: the “free gifts of nature.” Alyssa Battistoni, a political science professor at Barnard College, believes that careful attention to the meanings of this phrase illuminates many aspects of the world we inhabit today.
Given the gravity of the present situation, we should be very careful about what we think we know about growth. if I’m wrong about degrowth, then you can kick-start the economy back again to continue growing business-as-usual. If Daniel Susskind is wrong, on the other hand, it will cost us the biosphere.
Once we recognise the principles of commoning, we start to see them everywhere: neighbours sharing childcare or tending a community garden. Local repair cafés and tool libraries. Digital communities building and maintaining open-source projects on the Internet.
We must engage in a deliberate act of political imagination: to recognise that AI’s path is not predetermined by Big Tech, but is contested terrain – a technology that can either concentrate power or strengthen democracy, accelerate ecological collapse or support sustainability.
It is our task, now, to bring our economic system into alignment with the regenerative process. When we do, like turning a canoe downstream after a long struggle against the current, our journey will be lightened, our destination assured.
