Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Chuck Collins New research suggests that the super-rich are hiding their money at alarming rates. A study by economists Annette Alstadsaeter, Niels Johannesen, and Gabriel Zucman reports that households with wealth over $40 million evade 25 to 30 percent of personal income and wealth taxes.
A managed decline of the tar sands isn’t a popular idea in Alberta, or in Canada for that matter. The idea of sunsetting the tar sands industry is about as polarizing as it gets. The problem is that people have been led to believe that a managed decline undercuts a booming oil industry that is on the cusp of bouncing back after a few bad years. It’s not. The only real alternative to a managed decline is something much worse: an unmanaged decline.
After a decline of nearly $10 a barrel since mid-May, oil prices rebounded sharply last week with New York futures climbing from below $43 to close at $46 a barrel. Although many are still worried about excess oil inventories, most traders are optimistic that the worst is over and that higher oil prices stemming from the OPEC production cut are ahead.
We’re aware that we can’t look to anyone but ourselves to start generating forms of political activity that both overcome the unwelcome return of nationalism, and that genuinely increase the prospects for just, ecologically sound and equitable ways of organising our societies. These will necessarily be aimed at the end of capitalism and the nation-state, and towards democratically organized societies held in common.
The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades. Having constructed food scarcity as a justification for a second Green Revolution, Big Agriculture now employs its unethical marketing tactics to selling farmers “climate-smart” agriculture in the form of soils, seeds and chemicals.
Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth (Chelsea Green, 2017) is an interesting book that goes in the right direction in the sense that it promotes a circular economy, but it leaves you with the impression that it missed that extra step that would have lead it to define the goal in the right way. Bridging the gap between standard economics and biophysical economics is still far away.
I’m digging through reports and punditry to make sense of health care reform when I realize that while we’ve been debating single-payer systems and high-risk pools, no one’s talking about the most serious health threat: climate change. I know what global warming is doing to our ecosystems. My Twitter feed is a stream of climate disaster revelations. Given the serious implications droughts, floods, and fires pose to our health, shouldn’t climate change be part of the health care discussions?
A People’s Food Policy – a ground-breaking manifesto outlining a people’s vision of food and farming in England that is supported by over 80 food and farming organisations was launched on 26th June, 2017. The report draws on 18 months of extensive, nation-wide consultations with grassroots organisations, NGOs, trade unions, community projects, small businesses and individuals. It has resulted in a set of policy proposals and a vision for change that is rooted in the lived experiences and needs of people most affected by the failures in the current food system.
How can technology lead to more participation in democratic processes? Who should own and control city data? Can cities embrace a model that socializes data and encourages new forms of cooperativism and democratic innovation?
My approach, as always, is to try and understand the way past societies prospered despite being comprised of flawed humans—people with all the same shortcomings we have today. When we do that, one thing we quickly realize is that the Traditional Development approach – the way we built cities for thousands of years prior to the past century– was a good party, while our modern approach, what we call the Suburban Experiment, is a really bad party.
Within the context of capitalism, collective joy through dancing and other forms of expression is already subversive. Back in 1905, the German sociologist Max Weber warned of an “unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual” that accompanied the “spirit” of modern capitalism. In a capitalist society founded on competition, privatisation and small family units, collective joy—as opposed to individual happiness—signals both personal resilience and political rebellion. The very act of relishing in a shared connection is a triumph in a society that seeks to divide us.
The Minga, or as I like to call it, Ancestral Placemaking, has been in practice in the Andean highlands of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia for hundreds of years. It is a voluntary, collaborative effort in which townspeople of all ages and genders contribute with their work, their motivation, their knowledge or their wit to finish a project of collective interest.
