Raúl Carrillo: ““When people think of Brixton, too many think of gangs, drugs, and riots. We’re trying to turn that notion on its head.” That’s what Tom Shakhli, the general manager of the Brixton Pound, told me when I visited the team office at Lambeth Town Hall. A storied district in the middle of South… Continue reading
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Citizen currencies strengthen agricultural supply chains
Republished from Ripess.eu by Antonin Calderon & Jean Rossiaud (Leman Currency / APRES-GE in collaboration with Gaëlle Bigler (FRACP / URGENCI) This is the third issue of the series we started in October, on the theme of “local currencies”, after a general presentation of the advantages and challenges of local currencies through the example of the… Continue reading
Personal currencies: Hayek’s wet dream or Spaghettinomics?
Over the years I’ve come across a few proposals that any person or entity should able to issue their own currency, and I’ve always struggled about what that would mean and how it would work. This is relevant for recursive currency systems like the Credit Commons in which theoretically any member could create a currency… Continue reading
Cooperation Jackson’s Kali Akuno: ‘We’re trying to build vehicles of social transformation’
Cross-posted from Shareable. Robert Raymond: We are witnessing the rise of a solidarity economy movement, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including organizations like Cooperation Worcester in Massachusetts, Cooperation Humboldt and Cooperation Richmond in California, and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi, among others. One of the leaders of this movement is Kali Akuno, co-founder and co-director… Continue reading
Call for Papers: Social Solidarity Economy and the Commons: Envisioning Sustainable and Post-capitalist Futures, Lisbon, Portugal, 21-23 November 2018
International Conference: “Social Solidarity Economy and the Commons: Envisioning sustainable and post-capitalist futures”. 21-23 November 2018 ISCTE-IUL, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa Organiser: CEI-IUL, Centre for International Studies With the support of the Department of Political Economy (ISCTE-IUL) and Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (CE3C), Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon In response to… Continue reading
Social Transformation Through ‘The Commons’ with David Bollier
We’re talking about a different mental register of paradigm for understanding the world. For so long, we’ve had this presumption of fiction that the homo economicus, the utility maximizing individual, is the chief agent in the way to see the world. The commons says there is a different way to see humanity—not simply as a notional… Continue reading
Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 3 – FairCoop
Third of a three part series, Niko Georgiades takes on a journey through Greece’s post-capitalist alt. economy, this time by analysing the latest developments around FairCoop. Originally published in Unicorn Riot Ninja. Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure… Continue reading
Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 2 – Kenya’s Sarafu-Credit
Second of a three part series, Niko Georgiades takes on a journey through Greece’s post-capitalist alt. economy, this time by way of Kenya. Originally published in Unicorn Riot Ninja. Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – Experimenting with alternatives to capitalism has continued to become more popular as huge wealth divides devour chances of relieving poverty across the… Continue reading
Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 1
First of a three part series, Niko Georgiades takes on a journey through Greece’s post-capitalist alt. economy. Originally published in Unicorn Riot Ninja. Niko Georgiades: Athens, Greece – While capitalism and consumerism dominate the culture of the United States of America and the Western world, community currencies are creating a buzz elsewhere. The radical need for… Continue reading
Patterns of Commoning: WIR Currency – Reinventing Social Exchange
James Stodder and Bernard Lietaer: The Swiss WIR (“We” in German) is the longest surviving social or community currency, sometimes called a complementary currency. (This last name reflects an ambition to supplement rather than replace a national currency.) WIR is not a physical currency per se, but a system of credits and debits. Once a… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Mutual Credit Cryptocurrencies – Beyond Blockchain Bottlenecks
There is no doubt that humanity could use universal ledgers like the blockchain, to manage more efficiently its agreements and transactions. But just as bitcoin is misconceived as a currency that is extractive to both humans and natural commons, so there are serious issues with how the blockchain is currently conceived. This very clearly explained,… Continue reading
Essay of the Day: Libre-Currency for Sustainable Social Change
An article by Sybille Saint Girons and Carole Fabre, presented at the “IV International Conference on Social and Complementary Currencies: Money, Consciousness and Values for Social Change” in Barcelona. The article was originally published at Regles de Jeux. Abstract “Libre-currency proposes a self-issuance, or co-creation of units by the people of the monetary system for… Continue reading
Toward Post-Capitalist Cities? Reporting Back From The Global Social Economy Forum 2016
An article by Mike Sandmel, originally posted at New Economy Coalition: “In the US, it’s not uncommon to think about cooperatives and non-profit social enterprise as something wholly outside the realm of conventional politics. Yet, in many parts of the world, and increasingly in some corners of the US, government, especially at the local level,… Continue reading
CIC’s economic ecosystem: Community exchange networks and local currencies in Catalonia
A characteristic of healthy social movements is that they create the “structures” and the “tools” that are most appropriate to their needs and goals. The economic model of the Cooperativa Integral Catalana (CIC), which aspires to “bring together all the basic elements of an economy such as production, consumption, funding and a local currency” (“What’s… Continue reading
Reclaiming the social commons: converging labor and the commons
This is a review by Birgit Daiber on the conference, “Transform! Europe, Seminar on “Production and Common”, held in Rome, on March 11-12, 2016. Birgit Daiber: “With the Workers Recuperated Companies (WRC) and self-organised post-labour-projects as common goods a new colour integrates into the spectrum of Commons. The reports of some of the initiatives in… Continue reading
Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm
Every so often I am invited to write a piece that in effect answers the question, “Why the commons?” I invariably find new answers to that question each time that I re-engage with it. My latest attempt is an essay, “Commoning as a Transformative Social Paradigm,” which I wrote for the Next System Project as… Continue reading