Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Cooperatives are a way of introducing people to a radical vision of the commons that also includes familiar stuff like Visa, Associated Press, and the credit union down the street. But I wouldn’t claim cooperatives are sufficient. They’re a starting point, a gateway to more diverse and widespread commoning.
The Brixton Pound (B£) was launched in 2009 by Transition Town Brixton to support local businesses with a local currency that would “stick to Brixton.”
But its that type of intended, broad, people’s participation and engagement – which is critical to making an assembly and is also critical towards reaching and politicizing people to be agents of their own self-transformation, which is what we are aiming for.
For industries to be run by ‘those who spend their lives with them’ means recognising the knowledge drawn from practical experience, which is often tacit rather than codified: an understanding of expertise that opens decision-making to wider popular participation, beyond the private boss or the state bureaucrat.
Andrea Fumagalli’s new book sharply distinguishes the common, a general counter-approach to neoliberalism and capitalism based on the self-organisation of life and work, as opposed to seeing the commons are merely shared resources.
Most of the component parts for ultra-light mobility ecosystems are on the table – from cargo bikes, to sharing platforms. Social and technical innovations are transforming relationships between people, goods, energy, space, and value.
Owing to the limits of eco-efficiency and the need to liberate environmental space for the global poor,, new policy instruments should be designed to bring about ecological fair sharing between countries and a new economy based on the concept of sufficiency.
The implications of the 2008 crash are still being keenly felt by those at the bottom of the economic pile, while the wealth of those who arguably created the conditions for the crash has surged to a point where in 2017, a new billionaire was created every two days, the biggest increase in history.
As a campaigner who has spent 40+ years on these issues, I’m not satisfied with just a problem diagnosis, I need a way forward, a credible path to success. When talking about risks to the future of civilisation, accepting failure is not really a strategic option.
Ann Pettifor has a 160 page book that all serious people— organizers and activists, farmers, workers, intellectuals, teachers and students—should read; it’s called The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of the Bankers.
Cooperative work structures promote ecologically sustainable farming and create sustainable livelihoods for farmworkers and their communities. Here’s a general blueprint for starting a worker-owned cooperative farm…
Here are ten things that have changed over the past ten years, including some huge achievements, that should be cause for hope and celebration.
