Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins describes the late historian and green economist David Fleming as “one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, under-rated and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years.”
Fleming thought the globalised market economy would, in the not too distant future, begin to fail as it faces limits to growth from resource depletion, and said: “Localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility. But it has the decisive argument in its favour that there is no alternative.” And his work explores how we can create rich local cultures and economies as an alternative to global capitalism.
Fleming died suddenly in 2010, but his good friend, Shaun Chamberlin has recently turned a manuscript Fleming left behind, into two books: his magnum opus, Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, and a smaller introductory text, Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. We speak to Shaun by Skype from his home in Devon. Shaun’s also behind the website darkoptimism.org where you can read his rather impressive bio, which includes co-founding Transition Town Kingston, and authoring the Transition movement’s second book The Transition Timeline.
You can find out more about the books at the Fleming Policy Institute.
We also mention the Dark Mountain Project and Mark Boyle, the Moneyless Man.
The podcast contains a slightly extended interview than what went to air.
Teaser photo credit: By Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil – http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/cultura/foto/2014-03/ultimo-dia-de-desfile-do-grupo-especial-no-rio?id=906222, CC BY 3.0 br, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47101809
