Tagged with Alternative Economics

While England and the other European nations saw exploitation as the natural scheme of things, America’s founders had a more enlightened understanding of how to thrive without exploiting or being exploited. What if each nation had a mission for maximizing happiness in the world, in its own unique way? (more)

Is capitalism the only system ever to support large-scale, sophisticated cultures? Hell, no! Gift economies have been doing that splendidly, throughout history. In Native North America, they were the right-hand of our constitutional democracies, and still flourish underground.  (more)

The tidal wave of globalization smashes all but the biggest boats. Local communities can regain control over their own welfare by encouraging human solidarity and private, voluntary initiative and creativity. The first step is to organize regional mutual credit clearing associations. (more)

The state, like the market, is nothing more than a human creation. And as human creations, they ought to be within our collective power to transform them. The bursting of the debt bubble has provided a once-in-a-lifetime opening to begin right now. (more)

We are watching a financial meltdown, but what's dying is not business itself, but a financial parasite. The future actually looks brighter unencumbered by an investment industry that is a drag on business. (more)

In the face of the impending crisis, people ask what they can do to protect themselves. "Buy gold?" "Stockpile canned goods?" I would like to suggest a different kind of question: "What is the most beautiful thing I can do?" This is an updated version of the popular article we first published on October 3, 2008. (more)

For seven years I loved and neglected my 1986 Chrysler Laser, and never once did he/she/it give up on me. When did it became normal for Americans to buy a new car every two to three years?  (more)

Imagine a world where we can choose to live productive, engaging, meaningful lives without having to use money. Today there are "early adaptors" who live modern lives with no money at all. (more)

Complementary currencies provide a systemic solution to the instability of the monetary system. Historical precedent has demonstrated that complementary currency systems have fostered stability not only during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but also during every subsequent business cycle of the economy. (more)

By modeling our financial system on nature's complex networks of interconnectivity, we can escape global financial meltdown by developing diverse complementary currencies and mutual credit systems. (more)

The breakdown of our financial system presents an opportunity to make a new start. We could develop a different intention for what we are supposed to be doing together on this swiftly tilting planet, and institute new social and economic infrastructure to support that intent. (more)

Open source software development has shown that allowing ideas to evolve based on their merit, rather than on a sales pitch, creates pathways to new innovations. Could open source, peer-to-peer distributed methods be the basis of our next economy? (more)

Capitalism meshed the world together through networks of trade and communication, while maintaining monstrous inequities and irrational misuse of resources. The question that faces us now is: what comes after capitalism, and how do we get there? (more)

Is the present financial crisis due to a system out of control and failing, or to a system that is being demolished to further enhance the power and wealth of a few? (more)

Open content encourages participatory social design and new alliances between technology and traditional practices toward a steady-state economy that can bypass the destructive practices of industrial-era modernism. (more)

Witnessing the unraveling of the global financial system, I find myself gripped by contrasting emotions. (more)

We are facing a difficult transition that needs to occur at a rapid pace if we don't want to experience dire consequences. The English "Transition Town" movement prepares local communities for the changes that are coming. (more)

Our political economy is based on a mistake – that natural resources are unlimited, and that it is an endless sink. This false assumption creates artificial scarcity for cultural resources, destroys the biosphere, and hampers a free culture. In a P2P-based society, this situation is reversed. (more)