'Going local' currently remains a fringe, grassroots process made up of small-scale initiatives. The real question is how to steer government priorities away from big business and global finance, and to gain political and popular support for an economy geared toward localisation, writes Anna White.
After the failure of the Copenhagen talks, the world's social movements united in Cochabamba to establish a radical agreement that calls on governments to combine meaningful emission cuts with a wholesale transformation of the global economy, writes Anna White.
After decades of failing to address the root causes of
poverty and inequality, the aid industry is bigger than ever. Is it time
for
some serious soul-searching on the value of ‘development’? A review of
Rasna
Warah's 'Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits', by Anna White.
The profession of economics requires a revolution in thinking if it
is to play a constructive role in solving the multiple and multi-dimensional
crises that so engulf our world, our species, and the fabric of human community. We are running out of time, write Kamran Mofid and Steve Szeghi.
Recent empirical studies suggest that people, far from being self-interested ‘rational maximizers’, have an innate tendency to share and cooperate. Could renewed scientific interest in the essence of human nature provide the building blocks for an alternative economic order? By Alexia Eastwood.
While the United Nations recently claimed victory for the Millennium Development Goal on slums, the global population of slum-dwellers continues to grow. It is time for governments and civil society to give the problem of urban poverty the attention it deserves, writes Adam Parsons.
In response to the current ecological and financial crises, the call for a more sustainable and fairer globalization is gaining momentum. Building this alternative must begin with a spiritual, moral and ethical understanding of our society and economy, says Kamran Mofid.
While the burden of debt is crippling poorer nations, cancellation of what is outstanding is not enough. There is an urgent need to restructure the current financial framework if a sustainable solution is ever to be realised, argues Justin Frewen.
The emergence of a significant middle class – who demand increasing space for their accommodation – means that the urban poor are everywhere being constricted to a decreasing proportion of land. In these city spaces they exist as a ‘fugitive humanity’, writes Jeremy Seabrook.
Growing global inequality presents a major obstacle in the
fight against poverty. Redistributing resources more fairly requires a greater
cooperation between governments that eschews the current ‘cut-throat’ nature of
international free trade competition, says Justin Frewen.
