Staff

The rise and fall and rise of great public spaces

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Public space is a literal commons: the common ground where people come together as friends, neighbors and citizens. Places we share together—parks, streets, sidewalks, squares, trails, markets, waterfronts, beaches, museums, community gardens, public buildings and more—are the primary sites for human exchange, upon which our communities, economy, democracy and society depend.

Towards an ecological macroeconomics

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As many have argued, modern macroeconomics has proved itself spectacularly unsuited to anticipate and understand the crisis. This is no wonder, considering that the majority of models – including the macroeconometric models of the main central banks – treat money in an unrealistic textbook way and don’t even consider the existence of private banks, which, instead, are the major players in the process of creation and allocation of credit in the economy, as nef’s recent “Where does money come from?” brilliantly explains.

Slapping bandaids on empire’s heart

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Kunstler has succinctly summed up the big picture for American healthcare. We are slapping bandaids on empire’s heart attack. I am revisiting healthcare reform for two reasons. First, healthcare’s complexity creates a good exercise in broadening our scale of view. Secondly, now that healthcare reform is law, the question is, what does this new law mean for individuals at the small scale, and for the country at the larger national scale?

Hope is for the lazy: The challenge of our dead world

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First, to be a hope-monger or a hope-peddler today is not just a sign of weakness but also of laziness, and sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. Don’t forget that, as good Christians, we try to avoid those.

Second, our world is not broken, it is dead. We are alive, if we choose to be, but the hierarchical systems of exploitation that structure the world in which we live — patriarchy, capitalism, nationalism, white supremacy, and the industrial model — all are dead.

What to do?

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When I share with people my assessments of where the Earthlings are stumbling rather blindly, my listeners often say: “Oh, you are such a pessimist! What would you do differently?” My short answer is: “Stop, face reality, and think. Facing reality is not pessimism. Do not try to be a better, more obedient sheep, whose sheephood is certified by a Harvard et al. at a huge expense.

Will Commoning in England’s New Forest Disappear?

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A thousand-year-old tradition of farming commons in southern England may be jeopardized as housing prices drive out farmers and render the commoning rights moot. Yes, there are still self-identified commoners in England. BBC radio recently interviewed a handful of the remaining commoners who rely upon the New Forest in Hampshire to feed their cattle, sheep and chickens. The 23-minute radio report focused on how the farming commons is a way of life that has preserved the distinctive ecological landscape – and how this future is now in doubt.