Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Cat Johnson Do more with less. It’s a popular refrain these days, and one that libraries are all too familiar with. Re-tooling the ways that they share information and resources while simultaneously juggling financial issues, the challenges before libraries are significant. But with the support of their communities, libraries are moving into the future.
Shareable publisher Neal Gorenflo and founder of the Foundation for P2P Alternatives Michel Bauwens talked with solidarity economy activist and organizer Mira Luna about the historical moment and what’s coming soon from alternative economies
This mini-doc shows in some detail how the general assembly – the heart of the occupy movement – operates. They make decisions by consensus and anyone can join the assembly. Through this process, the occupy movement models its own radically inclusive political economy and thus demonstrates that it’s more than a protest movement. It’s many things, but what may be overlooked is that it’s a social process through which people can experience being a fully heard citizen, and maybe for the first time. It gives an opening through which people can experience first hand what’s possible when a diverse citizenry works together.
Backyard gardeners and urban homesteaders are coming together to share excess produce in increasingly popular local meet-ups known as crop swaps, where neighbors exchange, say, beets and greens for apples and squash…..While the actual cash-free transactions can take place in mere minutes, in some cases, people linger long after the produce exchanges have taken place to visit with new friends, hang out with old pals, and pick up some pointers on cooking the goodies they scored, explained Carole Bennett-Simmons of Transition Berkeley, which runs two crop swaps in the Northern California town.
We all recognize that sharing is good. Sharing, lending, and borrowing help connect neighbors, encouraging isolated individuals to create community by consuming less. But most of the latest sharing projects focus on wealthy neighbors. What if I’ve never had too much? How do we address social inequity? How do we redistribute power to the majority who live without it? To transform an economic system which fails to meet community needs, we have to move from a sharing economy to a solidarity economy.
Have you heard? There’s a new hot-spot in town. It’s a museum, digital hub, community resource center, art space and provider of free and open access to information. It’s the picture of shareability and it’s right through the doors of a library.
Culture Kitchen is a San Francisco start-up on a unique mission to connect local experts at ethnic home cooking with food lovers who are interested in the people and the stories behind the food.
As long as communities still rely on centralized, fossil-fuel powered energy plants to generate power, democratization of the electrical grid will remain a dream. But the past 10 years have seen an exponential growth in the adoption of renewable energy alternatives, namely home solar and wind power, which presents an unprecedented opportunity for transformation.
Ask a headline writer at any paper of record and they’ll tell you that today’s young people are “The Lost Generation.” They tend to use this label as if Hemingway and Fitzgerald hadn’t stumbled their way through half the bars in Paris under the same flag. Unfortunately, the youths of today aren’t lost in a morass of sex, art, booze, and politics (not necessarily in that order), but rather can’t find a path through the haze of economic insecurity and impending ecological catastrophe.
While mainstream America is hoping for federal economic reform, some social justice organizations have a radically different idea, and are organizing low-income communities to build a new economy from the grassroots up. Tired of asking for change from the top down, they are taking their economy into their own hands. Social justice organizations, having a strong membership base rooted in community, are ideal spaces to cultivate alternative economic projects, as relationships of trust and solidarity have been nurtured over time through education and a history of taking action for justice. Here are some exciting examples of grassroots alternative economy projects for social justice.
In a time of layoffs and outsourcing, something surprising is happening in San Francisco and New York: manufacturing jobs are on the rise.
A society that is based on a multiplicity of interconnected communities and places will appear as a large ecology of people, animals, plants, places and products.
