Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Critiques of growth are often talked about in the West as an issue requiring economic solutions. However, it has also become evident that a break away from this model will require not merely an economic shift, but the root-and-stem refashioning of our very selves
Social coops offer a wholly new model of social care. They are community-led, multi-stakeholder, democratically governed, and highly relational. Community benefit, not maximum profit, is prioritized to provide high-quality care.
The changing context for enterprise through the centuries reminds us that business activities are not universal but fluid and alter according to society’s practical priorities and ethics.
Perhaps the major power of degrowth lies in providing a uniting thread between diverse movements, a platform that could enhance mutual understanding and learning, and in unleashing solidarity.
Where we begin to transform this system is in our own minds. This is where we stop accepting it as legitimate. This is where the system begins to lose its grip. This is where we begin to win.
Offshore banking and tax-avoidance centers are nothing new; they’ve been with us for millennia.
The solidarity economy (SE) is a global movement to build a world that centers people and the planet rather than maximizing private profit and endless growth.
Commoning honors wholesome values and different ways of being, knowing, and acting while allowing ordinary people to assert some measure of self-determination in the face of capitalist markets and state power.
Degrowth, I believe, is at a critical cross road – advocates must now choose to continue to regard degrowth as an unending thought experiment, or to take degrowth into communities of ordinary folks.
A political strategy that builds a future based on the common good beginning in the places where we live can meet this need, and potentially help avert worst case scenarios.
While to reap the benefits of cosmolocal production strong political initiative and institutional innovations are needed, the momentum behind these post-capitalist pathways signifies a growing potential for meaningful change in our approach to production.
How about it: Shall we leave the establishment of a steady state economy to the pro-growth “representative” democracies? Or should we sort it out ourselves?
