My friend Annette Aylward is trying to make a living as a crafts person. She makes beautiful handmade linen towels. She believes in craft. She loves to make these things. To make a living making handmade things woven out of linen she needs to charge a lot of money for them. And she is successful … Continue reading Making beautiful things where everyone gains and no one profits
Ten Ways to Challenge Capitalism’s Death Grip on Daily Life
In order to deal with the climate crisis and have more satisfying lives, we need to build economies that consume fewer natural resources. In other words, we need to build a "solidarity economy" based on worker-owned cooperatives, self-provisioning and barter systems, and gift-based exchanges. (1) To build popular support for a transition to solidarity economics, … Continue reading Ten Ways to Challenge Capitalism’s Death Grip on Daily Life
An End of Power?
We are entering a period where the social structures and mechanisms that have channeled and controlled power for the past few hundred years are shifting radically. In The End of Power, Venezuelan politician and former director of the World Bank, Moisés Naím, describes some serious ways in which the systems we have lived under for … Continue reading An End of Power?
Climate Action: Disrupting Business as Usual
Talk given to the California Student Sustainability Coalition’s annual convergence De Anza College Saturday May 21, 2016 We are at a time when we will probably see an increase in the use of civil disobedience, direct action and disruption. That’s because we are at a time when our political systems are increasingly controlled by corporate … Continue reading Climate Action: Disrupting Business as Usual
Breaking Our Dependency on the Old Economy as We Build the New
People all around the world are working to build solidarity economies, based on worker-owned collectives, the creation of local currencies, and making one’s own things and sharing them. Advocates of a solidarity economy claim that, as we build more of these kinds of economic relations, we will also build more satisfying lives and have a … Continue reading Breaking Our Dependency on the Old Economy as We Build the New
Cynthia Kaufman 