Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good. Just as we have found means of generating useful energy that are better and less damaging than coal, so we need to find means of generating human wellbeing that are better and less damaging than capitalism.
The emergence of solidarity in labor comes to coincide with the broader process of recuperation of the rich meaning and content inherent to work itself.
In western Massachuetts, where I live, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares represents a creative mashup of the CSA farm model (community-supported agriculture) with concert production.
Our new framework – the Triad of Commoning — focuses on the commons in three interrelated aspects – the social, the political (peer governance), and the economic (provisioning).
The road from the reality of poverty to the solidarity economy is not opened by the poor alone in their efforts to address their needs and problems.
Of course the economic crisis was fundamental to the evolution of alternative economics in Greece. Although some thinkers have long advocated other ways of using and running currencies, most barter systems arise in times of upheaval where trust in the banks is eroded or they withdraw liquidity.
A healthy participatory democracy relies on forms of community development that support effective mobilisation at the local level and encourage advanced capacities for democratic decision making and critical thinking.
But by systematically presenting a degrowth theory from one particular perspective – an ecological economics perspective with anti-capitalist leanings – the book is a welcome addition to degrowth scholarship.
Here’s a fascinating sign that commoning is growing as a social and political form: new histories are being written to trace its recent evolution!  The latest example is a new book released by The Institute for Political Ecology in Zagreb, Croatia, has recently published.
That’s why the Totnes Pound was so powerful for me. It helped so many people to create memories of the future, lived moments of what a different, more hopeful, more delicious, more resilient future might actually be like.
The practice of commoning, and the idea that we might hold and manage land and assets together in common, holds a lot of appeal these days. To help us think forward as we do on this show, we have two world-renowned experts on commoning in the house.
We believe that growth is the costless, win-win solution to all problems, or at least the necessary precondition for any solution. This is growthism.
