NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.
This week PCI launches a new report, Weaving the Community Resilience and New Economy Movement: Voices and Reflections from the Field, based on a series of interviews and conversations with visionary leaders who are bringing to life a new economic vision with thriving, resilient communities at its heart.
A movement is emerging in many places, under many guises:New Economy (or Economies), Regenerative Economy, Solidarity Economy, Next Economy, Caring Economy, Sharing Economy, Thriving Resilience, Community Resilience, Community Economics, Oppositional Economy, High Road Economy, and other names. It’s a movement to replace the default economy of excess, control, and exploitation with a new economy based on respecting biophysical constraints, preferring decentralization, and supporting mutuality. This movement is a sign of the growing recognition that what often are seen as separate movements—environment, social justice, labor, democracy, indigenous rights—are all deeply interconnected, particularly in the way that the current economic system is a root cause of much that they seek to change.
Post Carbon Institute is an active participant in several networks that support these emerging concepts:
- building Community Resilience for a future of growing ecological, economic, energy, and social instability,
- bringing forth a New Economy that provides alternatives to the current exploitative, consumption-driven economy.
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Over time, we’ve recognized many overlaps and similarities between these networks, as well as other efforts with similar intents that could be ripe for engagement with some parts of the emerging movement. With support from the Threshold Foundation and encouragement and collaboration from the Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory and the New Economy Coalition, PCI launched a project to learn more about the visions and intentions of network leaders, and through dialogue and engagement help “weave the movement” more closely together by identifying synergies and making connections.
Throughout the course of this effort, we interviewed eighteen leaders and held group conversations with dozens more leaders by phone and via an in-person workshop at the New Economy Coalition’s CommonBound conference in June 2014. Our interviews gave participants the opportunity to step back and reflect on what is and has been “most alive” in their work, to dream about what “wild success” might look like five years from now, and to imagine the next steps we might collectively take to achieve that success.
What emerged was a portrait of a rich and vibrant movement, full of promise and hope for a better future—and still very much in formation—with many opportunities for creative engagement, collaborative movement-building, visioning, and developing strategy.
Politicians, pundits, and just about everyone else tells us that global capitalism’s rampant growth, over-consumption, gross inequality, and deep depersonalization are here to stay. There is no alternative, they say.
We say—we know—there are many alternatives. They’re being thoughtfully constructed in communities across the U.S. and around the world. We’ve seen them, we’ve heard stories from them, and we invite you to share in what we’ve learned.
Read the report, join the online discussion, or register to join us for (one or both) interactive conference calls on 9/18 & 9/25 (11amPT/2pmET).
