‘The Prospects and Consequences of a Possible Syriza Government’

There are such things as pariahs in politics. It’s not unreasonable to draw distinctions between the mainstream and the fringe, and make it difficult to cross that barrier to become a mainstream political force. Which means, when you have a movement that achieves that, that is something to be taken seriously. It’s not a freak phenomenon, it’s not something which is achieved easily. It’s a process of years. And ... Read more

Taken For Granted At Davos US Run On ‘Legalized Corruption’

While there may be confusion among some in the US as to how the American political system operates, it is apparently taken for granted by participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that politics in America is based on bribery and corruption. By D S Wright at Firedoglake.com In an interview at Davos with Bloomberg News related to growing concerns about rising wealth inequality and its corruption influence on American ... Read more

Interview: Ed Whitfield of Fund 4 Democratic Communities

Democracy Collaborative researcher Steve Dubbs interviewed Ed Whitfield, the co-managing director of Fund for Democratic Communities, a private foundation that aims to promote economic democracy and cooperative economics in the U.S. South. Originally published in Community-Wealth.org Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Ed’s political activism started with attending Little Rock Central High School and beginning to do anti-war work as a ... Read more

Utility 3.0: How to Democratize Energy in the U.S.

A new model of energy is being developed — democratized energy. By relocating control and ownership from the utilities to their customers, John Farrell of the Institute for Self-Reliance, argues: Utility 3.0 allows communities to take advantage of the economic as well as the environmental benefits of the shift to clean energy. The five pillars of energy democracy are it is flexible, efficient, low-carbon, local and equitable. Farrell ... Read more

Solar Is Cheaper Than Electricity From the Grid in 42 of 50 Largest U.S. Cities

Now a new report called Going Solar in America, prepared by the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, shows how the plummeting costs of going solar could already make it the more economical choice for energy consumers in 42 of the U.S.’s 50 largest cities. It found that in those cities, a fully financed solar system would cost average residential consumers less ... Read more

Could Global Tide Be Starting To Turn Against Fossil Fuels?

From an oil chill in the financial world to the recent U.S.-China agreement on climate change, recent developments are raising a question that might once have been considered unthinkable: Could this be the beginning of a long, steady decline for the oil and coal industries? Alarm bells are ringing for the masters of the financial universe, too. The governor of the Bank of England, Canadian banker Mark Carney, warned repeatedly during 2014 ... Read more

How Cuba Is Using Cooperatives to Decentralize Its Economy

Worker cooperatives are nothing new in Cuba. Agricultural coops, which are responsible for 70 percent of the country’s farmed land, are a key part of the state’s subsidized food system. Until recently, however, worker coops were not found in other sectors of the economy. But in 2011, the Cuban Sixth Communist Party Congress approved a set of economic reform goals called the “Guidelines on Economic and Social Policy for the Party and the ... Read more

How the Great Food War Will Be Won

There is no global or regional shortage of food. There never has been and nor is there ever likely to be. India has a superabundance of food. South America is swamped in food. The US, Australia, New Zealand and Europe are swamped in food (e.g. Billen et al 2011). In Britain, like in many wealthy countries, nearly half of all row crop food production now goes to biofuels, which at bottom are an attempt to dispose of surplus agricultural ... Read more

Electricity’s Un-Natural Monopoly

The 21st century electricity system is radically different. The scale of electricity generation is rapidly shrinking, from coal and nuclear power plants that can power a million homes to solar and wind power plants that power a few to a few hundred nearby homes. Electricity demand has leveled off, so that every unit of new wind and solar power produced for the grid displaces a unit of fossil fuel energy. Batteries and electric vehicles ... Read more

Report: Fundamentally Unfair Tax System In Every State

A review of all 50 state tax systems finds: Virtually every state tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families; The lower one’s income, the higher one’s overall effective state and local tax rate; In the 10 states with the most regressive tax structures the bottom 20 percent pay up to seven times as much of their income in taxes as their wealthy ... Read more