Strategies for Change

In the 1970s, the accepted environmental thinking was that overpopulation was destroying the earth. Prominent economists and environmentalists agreed that the only way to stem the tide was to impose restrictions on how we used resources, such as land, water, and fish, from either the free market or the government. This notion was upended by Elinor Ostrom, whose work to show that regular people could sustainably manage their community resources eventually won her the Nobel Prize. Ostrom’s revolutionary proposition fundamentally changed the way we think about environmental governance.

E.G. Nadeau discusses what the cooperative movement could do to strengthen co-op development around the world.

Urban researcher Nikos Vrantsis interviews Yavor Tarinski, author of Common Futures: Social Transformation and Political Ecology, on the current bureaucratic state of cities and the democratic perspectives offered by autonomous urban movements. 

This report presents the results of a collaborative research project on the theme of cooperatives and youth, developed by the ICA and its four regional offices under the ICA-EU Partnership for international cooperative development (#coops4dev).

Matt Cropp talks about what the Oak Street Cooperative and Vermont Real Estate Co-op have been up to.

New Yorkers discuss the importance of economic democracy.

European communities are adapting the U.S. model of the community land trust to mitigate the housing affordability crisis.

The principle of spreading losses is important to expand upon to make the worker co-operative movement resistant to, and even benefited by, economic disruptions.

We don't need to be perfect to have solidarity.