The Promise of “Open Co-operativism”

Is it possible to imagine a new sort of synthesis or synergy between the emerging peer production and commons movement on the one hand, and growing, innovative elements of the co-operative and solidarity economy movements on the other? By David Bollier in Bollier.org That was the animating question behind a two-day workshop, “Toward an Open Co-operativism,” held in August 2014 and now chronicled in a new report by UK co-operative expert Pat ... Read more

How Public Banking is Winning the West

You’ll read a lot about activism in this story, but most of it won’t sound terribly sexy or radical. There will be no black masks, no broken barricades or cops bashing skulls. Instead, what you’ll read about is hard work, lots of research about banks and economics and feasibility studies and cost-benefit analysis. There will be meetings, more meetings, and then more meetings. With people in suits even. By Matt Stannard in The Indypendent ... Read more

The Economics of Happiness Conference

February 27 to March 1, 2015 Portland, OR. ore than 20 speakers from around the world will be covering a range of interconnected topics – local food, technology, healthcare, local business, indigenous rights, environmental justice and much, much more. Read more

‘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