STWR - Share The World's Resources

The inequitable way in which six billion people are using the world's limited resources is a tragedy of the global commons. Radical behavioural changes and unprecedented international cooperation is needed if we are to preserve the natural environment, says Barry Schwartz.

Commons-based societies flourished for centuries until they were destroyed by the privatisation of formerly shared resources. Modern technology is creating new commons based societies like the free software community - indicating a renaissance of 'commonism', writes Christian Siefkes.

To get ourselves out of the financial crisis and create the world we want, we must reboot the economy with a new values-based operating system designed to support social and environmental balance - one that is locally rooted in strong communities and distributes wealth equitably, says David Korten.

The global financial crisis has cleared intellectual space for new ideas on economy, ecology and well-being. We need to urgently reject our policymakers addiction to growth and promote these alternative, localised economic systems, argues Peter A. Victor.

Rather than continuing to pay off the very people who created this financial crisis, it's time to bite the bullet and start building an economic democracy featuring public banks and mutual funded holding companies, says Gary Dorrien.

As the pursuit of material prosperity becomes increasingly unsustainable, a new vision is needed which measures a society's wealth in terms of well-being, social values and the dispersal of economic power, writes William Greider.

In the Great Depression Frederick Soddy criticized economists' unfaltering belief in the 'invisible hand' of the market to harmlessly generate infinite wealth. Although hesitantly received then, today his ideas are echoed in the alternative proposals of ecological economics, argues Eric Zencey.