Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Unless you read a book like The Case for Degrowth it is not obvious that some people are using the word to propose a radical policy package – qualitative, structural changes in ecological, social and economic relations as a necessary alternative to the economy growing quantitatively bigger.
David Graeber was a cruel loss in these already-difficult times. Graeber was only 59….he clearly had many more dazzling books ahead of him….and those of us questing for system-change as multiple crises converge, took great inspiration from his thinking.
We tend to ignore the racist history of trade when looking at trade issues. It’s complicated, uncomfortable and more convenient to gloss over it. The truth is the racism that underpinned colonialism and slavery continues within our global supply chains today.
Just as Indigenous wisdom is rooted in a myriad of complex and reciprocal interactions with the community, the land and water, the animals and plants, localizing makes visible the threads of interdependence that hold the living world together.
Unequal exchange—basically the notion that more labour is exchanged for less labour through international trade—was discussed by the political economists David Ricardo and Karl Marx in the 19th century.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) – a policy that would provide a regular, cash income to every citizen without means test or work requirement – is surprisingly inexpensive.
One of the early insights of the Strong Towns movement was that the way North American cities have been built since World War II resembles, more than anything, a massive Ponzi scheme.
Medialab Prado is helping citizens and society evolve together in more thoughtful ways. “A big question we should always be asking ourselves,” said García, “is how we want to be living together.
Transition leaders from across the country came together to explore how Transition US could deepen, shift, or adapt our analysis of the crises we face: away from an emphasis on peak oil & resource depletion, and toward a more nuanced understanding of the extractive economy and its connection to both social justice and ecological crises.
Economic justice cannot take root or flourish when the wealth, power, resources, news media, book publishers, educational curricula, technological surveillance, prisons, business capital, and all of our existing institutions are owned or controlled by a handful of plutocrats.
Property law as it is today systemically privileges the individual versus the collective, self-serving control over relationships, and exchange value over intrinsic or use value.
Cassie Chambers’s Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, like Smarsh’s Heartland, considers the dignity and resiliency of poor working-class families in this region of America.
