Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The universal basic income has become a subject of increasing fascination across the entire ideological spectrum in recent years. Capable of much more than just a simple “employment fix”, basic income could help to create no less than a shared political vision for a future society.
Why are so many young people – even those with the “best” educations – almost completely ignorant about a huge ongoing threat to human rights, democracy and the climate? Well, I guess it’s not surprising.
Of all the problems facing parents, making sure our children have access to the highest quality childcare is one of the biggest. As studio members at Near Now…we have been working with #RadicalChildcare founder Amy Martin to research and prototype possible alternatives to current childcare provision.
There is no degrowth without climate justice. My argument, which I presented as someone involved not only at the theoretical level, but also in concrete efforts to bring degrowth and climate justice together in terms of practices and people, is presented here in a concise way.
Money creation, like alchemy, is shrouded in ambiguous language and yields eternal wealth! For most of history these secrets have been used to empower sovereigns to spend money without the painful business of taxing or borrowing.
In late 2015 the CSIRO released its Australian National Outlook (ANO) Report (‘the Report’) which outlined 20 future scenarios for Australia, exploring various global and national sustainability challenges…our new paper argues that even the Report’s most ambitious “green growth” scenario is incompatible with long-term sustainability and global justice.
It’s not often that a scientist gets to use the words love, creativity, and wisdom in a paper, especially when writing about economics. Perhaps that’s because economics, the dismal science, is obsessed with dismal systems — make that abysmal systems, relative to need.
Few books on economics and politics would foreground arguments for “a strong culture,” claim that “laughter creates insight and solidarity,” and advise that you should always “start with a party.”
What is at the heart of the problems erupting worldwide? Is anything good emerging from these multiple crises? Can a new system grow from within the old one?
The debates around post-growth transitions to just socio-ecological futures – while undoubtedly variegated – all emphasize that such a transition will involve a fundamental change in the way we organize economic relations and processes.
We have to be defensive, but I think more importantly we need to organise ourselves so that the ‘value’ of our work can be re-invested in our livelihoods, communities and resources.
If you’ve ever wondered about how a new, collaborative, sustainable, democratic economy might work the new book ‘Ours to Hack and Own – The rise of platform cooperativism, a new vision for the future of work and a fairer internet‘, is for you.
