TURNING THE ECONOMY AROUND
The Economy for the Common Good movement , active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and beyond, wants to build a third economic form beyond capitalism and socialism.
The Economy for the Common Good movement , active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and beyond, wants to build a third economic form beyond capitalism and socialism.
In Monquentiva, a village in the municipality of Guatavita in Colombia, three generations of farmers associated with the COLEGA de Guatavita Cooperative are demonstrating that their cooperative tradition allows them to face with optimism some of the great challenges posed by the global changes affecting humanity. The cooperative, managed by José Ignacio Tamayo and presided by Elías Romero, is celebrating its 24th anniversary, reaching higher and higher levels of welfare for its 50 members, thanks to a practical interpretation of cooperatives under its particular social, environmental, economic and political conditions.
To consolidate ecological and social awareness in retail, a vocational school in Hannover has placed fair trade at the center of its training. There will no longer be any unfair trade with these students.
What began in the 1990s in Peru, with the struggle against the indiscriminate use of pesticides, has not ended, but the Alternative Agriculture Action Network (RAAA) has combined protest with proposals in its actions, favoring dialogic debate with irrefutable arguments resulting from ongoing participatory research. Working in a network, articulating and bringing together many initiatives, Luis Gomero and the RAAA practice a fruitful alternation between impact, denunciation and protest on the one hand and dialogue, proposal and alternative actions on the other. The prohibition of the so-called “dirty dozen” in the 1990s, the moratorium and its renewal to prevent the entry of GMOs into Peru, the prohibition of highly dangerous pesticides and stopping the export of chemical precursors from some European countries to Peru, the foundation of the association of ecological producers of the Chillon Valley (APEVCH), one of the epicenters of the use of agro-toxics in the coun try, with its weekly bio-fair in Carabayllo and the organic point in Qatuna Markets are some of the defeats achieved.
The following text is a translation of Marian Díez’s impassioned closing speech at the recent convergence meeting of the World Social Forum for Transformative Economies .
In this interview with Louisa Clarence-Smith of the Extraenviromentalist collective , Donnie Maclurcan, co-founder of the Post Growth Institute, shares his vision for the future: a sustainable system based on dynamic cooperatives and nonprofits. He pays special attention to his vision of what a post-growth world would look like and the five key strategies for achieving it.
It is unavoidable to pay the debts contracted… isn’t it? David Graeber, an anthropologist and leading figure in the Occupy movement, believes it is time to question the validity of this moral claim. Graeber proposes a new perspective on debt and recovers the concept of the debt jubilee.
In the highlands, north of the Mexican capital, there is sun all day long, more than three hundred days a year. When Gregorio came from Germany to do a social year in the diocese of Tula, he only knew the climate of his home land. It became a lifelong challenge for the young man to discover and further develop ways to use the energy provided by nature. He man-aged to locally manufacture a solar heater, a pioneering model in its time that can still be found on the roofs of many hotels and residences in the area.
Since then, inventions have become the guiding thread of Gregorio’s life, a self-taught man with a long life. With his company Trinysol, he remains true to his motto: “Concentrated solar power for everyone and everywhere”, with unique approaches.