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Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

local living economies

September 5, 2022

Our Business Schools Have a Blindspot

Though co-operatives exist throughout Australian society, making a hugely valuable economic contribution, their distinctive nature and management requirements are largely ignored by university business schools.

June 30, 2022

This Southern Appalachian town uses co-ops to build new communities around old industries

In the foothills of western North Carolina, the small town of Morganton is home to a growing co-op movement that’s reinvigorating the region’s once-struggling textile and furniture manufacturing industries, and refashioning them around egalitarianism and localism. 

Citations

Anja Lyngbaek (2022).  The Global Movement for Localization:  A beautiful and potent paradox.  Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO).  https://geo.coop/articles/global-movement-localization

May 26, 2022

The Global Movement for Localization

Across the world, a quiet revolution is emerging. Countless grassroots groups, civil society organizations and individuals are coming together to forge a more hopeful path to the future: away from the destructive global consumer culture, towards healthy communities grounded in strong local economies.

cover of The Nature of Order
January 19, 2022

Reading "The Nature of Order: A Vision of a Living World"

For some time now I have been reading, a page or two at a time, Christopher Alexander's four volume work The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe, which is marvelous, idiosyncratic, visionary, and practical, the product of deep collaborative experience and a free mind.

The third and fourth volumes are more focused on architecture, which is Alexander's field. Not being an architect, I discovered that one way to regain my concentration/curiosity when reading his description and analysis of the process followed in contracting and carrying out particular building projects is to imagine that he is describing the process of organizing a cooperative, or some other social movement-building project. I can then see how the deep patterns and principles are relevant to the work.
 

July 1, 2021

Rethinking the Farming Economy

A Vermont nonprofit is connecting independent farms with buyers and distributors, reducing food surplus and working to eliminate food insecurity.

February 26, 2021

Organizing for food sovereignty in Boston

Organizing for Food Sovereignty in Boston: A Personal History” with Greg Watson.