Buddhist Economics: How to Start Prioritizing People Over Products and Creativity Over Consumption By Maria Popova Much has been said about the difference between money and wealth and how we, as individuals, can make more of the latter, but the divergence between the two is arguably even more important the larger scale of nations and the global economy. What does it really mean to create wealth for people — for humanity — as opposed to money for governments and corporations? That’s precisely what the influential German-born British economist, statistician, Rhodes Scholar, and economic theorist E. F. One of the most compelling essays in the book, titled “Buddhist Economics,” applies spiritual principles and moral purpose to the question of wealth. “Right Livelihood” is one of the requirements of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. Traditional Western economics, Schumacher argues, is bedeviled by a self-righteousness of sorts that blinds us to this fact — a fundamental fallacy that considers “goods as more important than people and consumption as more important than creative activity.”
Diego Mulligan - The Journey Home Radio Show - KSFR 90.7 FM - Santa Fe, NM Diego Mulligan is an avid explorer of new ideas, and unusual places and people. As a generalist, he sees and works to restore the subtle connections which transcend the separations in our culture. Growing up in the Bahama Islands as an American expatriot, he was part of a multi-cultural working class community of pioneers, land developers and seafarers. Diego, whose birth father is Alta Castillion Spanish, was seduced by the embracing beauty of Earth's oceans at an early age on the coral reefs of Grand Bahama. In 1968 Diego began his career in radio, hosting top-rated shows in small towns and major cities from Virginia's Shenandoah Valley to Miami's Gold Coast. Having protested the draft during the sixties, Diego was one of the first to join the all-volunteer military in 1973. After a near-death experience himself, Diego left ATC and entered the exciting new field of Sustainable Community Development. Medicine Reactions a Leading Cause of Death Heavy Metal Toxicology Site Link List
Grassroots Movements, Degrowth and ‘New Economies’ There are numerous grassroots movements and initiatives worldwide with the ambition to contribute to transformative change towards more sustainable, resilient and just societies. Many of them have a specific vision on the economy and relate to alternative visions of a ‘New Economy’. The research project TRANSIT highlights four prominent strands of new economy thinking in state-of-the-art discussions: degrowth, collaborative economy, solidarity economy, and social entrepreneurship. Taking a perspective of transformative social innovation, the study draws on case studies of 12 social innovation initiatives to analyze how these relate to new economies and to transitions toward new economic arrangements. All the networks we studied – including those not focusing on finance or economics – emphasize the need for a new economy. Different perspectives on changing the economy So we clearly see that the networks have very different narratives of change.
RESILIENT COMMUNITY: ENERGY/FOOD IRA/401K Here's a think piece on how to generate the huge funds required for a shift to resilient communities. Still need to work this through, but it offers some amazing opportunities for financially bootstrapping local organizations working on community resilience. The American consumer is likely dead. A new frugality has swept the nation in an attempt to ward off lower standards of living in the future. High debt (up to 375% of GDP, 85% over the peak in 1929, in the US and still growing) and the death of the American consumer will lead to slow or negative growth in GDP for years to come. A Real Ownership Society The judo move to pull this off is the creation of community -- county, town, neighborhood, etc. -- funds/mechanisms that enable individuals to move a portion of their tattered/depleted tax protected savings in IRAs/401ks into accounts that build/own/operate local solar energy production and food production. Cost per kWh: $0.20
The Exit from Capitalism has Already Begun However, despite many accusations of heresy, Gorz remained remarkably true in his social and economic criticism to the Marx of the Grundrisse, a book to which Jean-Marie Vincent introduced him in 1959.(1) In the words of Finn Bowring, his works of the 1980s and 1990s present “an understanding of capitalism as a system of hetero-regulation which aggressively de-civilized human beings, undermining their ability to look after themselves and meaningfully navigate through the social, economic and technological environments in a life-enhancing, self-determining way” (Bowring 2008: 53). It is this understanding that he was still developing in his last major work of socio-economic theory, L'Immatériel. Connaissance, valeur et capital (2003), which will be published next year in English translation by Seagull Press. « The question of the exit from capitalism has never been more pressing. It is posed today in a radically new way and with unprecedented urgency. Translated by Chris Turner 1. 2. 3.
About GEO | Grassroots Economic Organizing Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) is a decentralized collective of educators, researchers and grassroots activists working to promote an economy based on democratic participation, worker and community ownership, social and economic justice, and ecological sustainability--a "solidarity economy"--through grassroots journalism, organizing support, cross-sector networking and movement-building and the publication of educational and organizational resources. Since 1991, GEO has edited and printed a bi-monthly publication called GEO Newsletter, providing news, analysis and an open forum on grassroots organizing to build and finance worker- and community-owned, democratically run, solidarity-based, ecologically sustainable enterprises and organizations. In 2007, due to the increasing challenges of print publication and our desire to reach a wider audience, we shifted to an all web-based publication here at www.geo.coop. We welcome you to this website and invite you to participate! Our work.
Green Taxi Cooperative: Building an alternative to the corporate "Sharing Economy" The “Sharing Economy” is comprised of corporations like Uber and Airbnb—that don’t actually do much sharing. But real alternatives that build community and cooperative ownership are under development across the country—like Green Taxi Cooperative, an emerging worker-owned business in Denver, Colorado that just received the regulatory approval they need to launch the 800-driver strong cooperatively-owned and union-organized company. As Nathan Schneider and Trebor Scholz put it in “The People’s Uber: Why The Sharing Economy Must Share Ownership,” the majority of the app-based services like Uber and Lyft provide a platform for “‘collaborative consumption,’ but not of control, real accountability, or ownership.” Green Taxi Cooperative, by rooting ownership and control with the drivers themselves, is helping bring equity and sustainability to Denver’s taxi scene. Why is worker ownership so important, and why are unions increasingly interested in supporting it?
The People’s Uber: Why The Sharing Economy Must Share Ownership | Co.Exist | ideas + impact Mayor Bill de Blasio recently discovered, during his short-lived campaign against Uber, that saying no to a popular, convenient new technology doesn't tend to win many friends—or win much at all. In just a few years, New York City's regulated yellow-taxi fleet has been outnumbered by a distant company with uncertain intentions. There are benefits to this, as well as mounting costs. But critics like Mr. De Blasio won't get very far until they have something to say yes to. Uber's ascent came in the midst of an idealistic surge of companies that dubbed themselves as being part of the "sharing economy." Companies like Uber now tend to describe what they do as the "on-demand economy" rather than "sharing." Taxi drivers in Denver and the suburbs of D.C., for instance, have set up cooperative companies and control their own hailing apps. The New York City Council has already made historic investments in developing sustainable, worker-owned businesses over the past few years.
Städte in Bürgerhand: Transition Towns und die ökologisch-soziale Revolution von unten Share: mp3 | Embed video Copy this code to embed the video on your website. <video width='640' height='380' controls><source src=' type='video/mp4'>Your browser does not support the video tag.</video> Some of our videos are available in 720p (high definition). Einleitung: Angesichts von Klimawandel, Finanzkrisen und knapp werdenden Ressourcen („Peak Oil“/“Peak Everything“) tun sich in immer mehr Gemeinden weltweit Menschen zusammen, um einen Wandel von unten einzuleiten. Gäste: Tony Greenham, New Economics Foundation, London / Transition Network Sarah Ackerbauer, Transition Town / Dresden im Wandel Benjamin Best, Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie Transkript: Fabian Scheidler: Welche Rolle spielen dabei lokale Währungen? Lokale Währungen sind ein gutes Beispiel für ein Werkzeug, das Gemeinschaften erlaubt, mehr Einfluss auf ihre lokale Wirtschaft zu erlangen.
Emanzipiert Euch! - Daniela Dahn über die Rückeroberung der Demokratie Share: mp3 | Embed video Copy this code to embed the video on your website. <video width='640' height='380' controls><source src=' type='video/mp4'>Your browser does not support the video tag. Some of our videos are available in 720p (high definition). Einleitung: Die Rede als E-Paper! Sie können direkt per PayPal spenden: oder überweisen Sie an: Kontext Medien e.V., GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG, IBAN: DE13430609671125911400, BIC: GENODEM1GLS. Auszüge aus der Rede Daniela Dahns im Nationaltheater Weimar am 30. Unsere Gesellschaft sei gefangen in inhumanen kapitalistischen Zwängen, aus denen sich die Menschen selbst befreien müßten, sagt die Publizistin Daniela Dahn in ihrer Weimarer Rede am 30. Gäste: Daniela Dahn, Journalistin und Schriftstellerin, Mitbegründerin der DDR-Oppositionsgruppe "Demokratischer Aufbruch", Buchautorin ("Wehe dem Sieger!" Transkript:
The Spanish Robin Hood Last week, and not for the first time, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo found himself in the Spanish headlines. Dubbed "Robin Hood" by El Pais, Sánchez Gordillo, the mayor of a small town in rural Andalusia, led farm labourers into supermarkets to expropriate basic living supplies: they filled trolleys with pasta, sugar, chickpeas and milk, left without paying, and distributed the loot to local food banks. His reasoning was blunt: "The crisis has a face and a name. There are many families who can't afford to eat." It's hard to overstate how close to the brink Spain is at the moment. In the heart of it all, like Asterix's village in Gaul implausibly holding out against the Romans, is Sánchez Gordillo's town, the self-described communist utopia of Marinaleda. Sánchez Gordillo was born in Marinaleda in 1949; back then, he explains, it was a town of migrant workers. After Franco's death in 1975, Marinaleda began struggling towards its own definition of freedom.
It's too late for hand-wringing – globalisation is already dead | Business The world is getting smaller. That is the unbidden meme of our generation, thanks to the juggernaut of growth unleashed by an outpouring of global bodies, free trade agreements, technology and international capital. Every business and person now has a global reach and audience. Today’s paradigm is globalisation and free trade is its evangelical mantra. But this narrative has become worn and no longer fits the facts. The hand-wringing is half a decade too late, because globalisation is already dead and we are already some miles into the journey back. Donald Trump and Theresa May are not flagbearers in the distance, they are catapults battering at the walls. Today, we have a new meme – deglobalisation – as people turn their backs on an interconnected world economy and societies turn iconoclastic. It is not for the first time. Globalisation may be defined as when trade across nations is growing faster than GDP. This is more than a sense of ennui. This is Deglobalisation 2.0.