An Open Letter to Research and Degrowth
Research & Degrowth should shift trajectories, dramatically, as soon as possible. In what direction? Political science research, and direct organizing.
Why?
We are running out of time.
Economy featured
How the Twin Disasters of Climate Change and Covid-19 could Transform our Cities
It’s often been said that we’re living through an unprecedented moment. But in city centres, the coronavirus crisis has merely accelerated trends that have been unfolding for some time.
Resources for a better future: Offsetting
Learning to live without the myth that we can keep sailing forever may be daunting, but it’s the only way to keep from drowning. In the end, it may not be so bad to live in a world that is more than the sum of its parts.
What if every city used Doughnut Economics?
Doughnut Economics is rapidly moving from the fringe to the mainstream. Amsterdam in Holland was recently confirmed as the first ‘Doughnut City’, using the model to underpin its economic development strategy.
‘Affective Labor’ in Community Forests in India
In other words, the inner lives of commoners, as commoners, have direct consequences for the external, material world. They are engaged in a symbiotic dance with living natural systems, a call-and-response conversation with the more-than-human plants and creatures of the forest.
Bridging Social Justice & Community Resilience
On June 23rd, 25 Transition leaders from across the country met virtually to share and explore strategies for bridging community resilience and social justice. Our conversation focused on strategies that align with Transition’s approach of systemic–yet localized–solutions, and fall into two main categories: healing the damage of systemic racism and building equitable new systems.
Repaying the Debt owed Black People Requires a Democratic and Reparative Economy
The more important conversation is not how much must be paid, but rather how much must change. To be frank, all of it ultimately has to change. In other words, the entire system that continues to exert violence against and extract labor and blood from Black lives and communities must go.
We are Doomed if, in the Post-Covid-19 World, We Cannot Abandon Non-Essentials
If there is one lesson all of us should have learnt during the Covid-19 crisis, it is about how to separate the ‘essential’ from the ‘non-essential’.
Thinking Outside the Ring
I grant that at this moment in our converging health, societal, and economic crises—including the equivalent of a 32.9 percent annual decline in GDP—words discouraging economic activity probably come as unwelcome (especially from the jewelry store owners and the malls that lease them space).
How the Coronavirus is Forcing us to Think beyond Market and State
If we focus only on keeping distance but not at the same time on closeness – on taking care of the many relationships that support us – then we lose sight of important courses of action as well as the people needed to undertake them.
The Frontier Beyond Open Access Publishing? Commoning
This piece is a gust of fresh air – a much-needed, long-overdue challenge to the corporate and university powers that control academic publishing. Through inertia, ignorance, and sometimes complicity, universities are not challenging the distinct limits of corporate-controlled “openness” and defending the ideals of academic scholarship.
In a Pandemic, Billionaires Are Richer than Ever. Why Aren’t they Giving More?
We should reorient the rules governing taxes and charity to discourage the concentration of power and decision-making. Taxpayers should not subsidize private fortresses of wealth and power that will exist for generations, controlled by the same families and their professional advisers.
