At the heart of the world’s problems lies an unsustainable economic system based on self-interest and competition that has failed to secure universal human rights for the majority world, and continues to inflict irrevocable harm on the environment. The international community must now unite around universal solutions based on the principles of cooperation, sustainability and economic sharing.
Before industrialisation, economy mainly
referred to local economy and household economy, based on cooperative
and competitive processes. How can we shift from today’s centralised and
global economy to a resilient local economy? By Bryan Innes.
If Mother Earth were a
patient in the hands of a good doctor what would the diagnosis,
treatment and prognosis look like? Can the planet be cured of its ills
at all and what would it take to achieve this? Is there an alternative
to the path of willful suicide forced on all life forms on the globe by
the blind greed and inhumanity of a few? By Satya Sagar.
We should jettison the assumption
that humans are selfish, first and foremost. Instead, we should start
from the assumption that most of the time, most people want to be
cooperative. This is far from being quaint and anachronistic, argues Charles Leadbeater.
'Occupy' and open-source models illuminate a new
possible reality, in which the democratic civic sphere, productive
commons and a vibrant market can co-exist for mutual benefit, argues Michel Bauwens.
The commons is a key piece of building a sustainable, healthy and
fair society. Shared things means we use less resources overall; that we can slow
down the frenzied work-watch-spend treadmill; and that we’re investing
in community rather than clutter and consumer debt. An interview with Annie Leonard.
A new study lays out a vision of the future where we get most of our resources from things we’ve already used. The one trick: It requires making things so they’re easy to reuse in the first place. But if we do, we could save billions. By the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
In the midst of Occupy Wall Street and thousands of other local initiatives, a different kind of progressive change is emerging that is based on collaborative ownership and democratic control, writes Gar Alperovitz.
