Monday, October 2, 2023
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Radical Ecological Democracy

Searching for alternatives to unsustainable and inequitable model of ‘development’

Analysis

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Marketing the planet: The financialization of nature

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As pressure increases on corporations to transform their business models to address climate change, their response has been a stealth move in the shape of a project, which aims to financialize nature. The power elite recognize that as ecological services regulating climate, and providing food, water, soil stabilization and cultural values become scarce and gradually degrade, they become more attractive to financial markets as economic assets for speculation and trade. Helena Paul discusses why this attempt at deflecting attention from the real need to change our current economic system based on perpetual growth would prove disastrous, and how “alternative” ideas and practices are contesting this nefarious design to perpetuate the neoliberal order.

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Indian farmers prevail: A conversation with Kavitha Kuruganti, a farmers’ rights activist

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No mass movement in India’s recent history has captured the imagination of the country the way the just concluded farmers’ movement did over the last one year period. After a protracted struggle the farmers were able to force the Indian government to withdraw three farm laws, which were aimed at corporatizing the country’s agriculture. In a wide ranging conversation with Kavitha Kuruganti, an Indian farmers’ rights activist, I discuss the implications of this victory for the Indian farmers, and how a sustainable and people-focused agricultural alternative could be constructed in the future.

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Caught in a rut?: How to stop resisting change and establish systemic “alternatives”?

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It has always been hard for societies to effect change. Even when it does occur, change is painfully slow, and often late. Clem McCartney explores the socio-psychological reasons behind this resistance, and advances a strategy for intervening in the moribund societal discourse on meaningful transformation.

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ANARCHY, SOCIALITY, AND THE WAY

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As we continue to interrogate the ideas of “alternatives” and “transitions”, John Clark offers a response to Ted Trainer’s comparative analysis of “ecoanarchism”and “ecosocialism”, featured earlier on the website. While stressing the common ground between the two ideas, Clark points out that the effort towards creating “communities of liberation, solidarity, awakening and care” has been “a mere object of ideological faith, detached from practical reality” for ecoanarchism, a failing, which needs to be redressed for it to contribute effectively to social change.

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The Prosumer Economy: Being Like a Forest

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“Transition” explorations are sprouting all over the world. In Turkey, the “prosumer economy” is increasingly gaining recognition and support among the people looking for “alternatives”. Uygar Özesmi explains the progressive environmentalism and egalitarian economic thinking behind this unique initiative.

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Ending systems of domination: Reclaiming our bodies and politics from global trauma

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COP26 is just around the corner, and the world is preparing for another bout of smoke and mirrors from the international ruling class – looking sincere while doing nothing with sincerity. People understand the need to create solutions to the climate and economic crises independent of the elite, and many initiatives are underway all over the world. Eva Schonveld and Justin Kenrick of the “Grassroots to Global” platform describe the thinking, and the preparations afoot to hold “Sunset” and “Sunrise” assemblies to advance solidarity and action on crucial socio-political and ecological issues.

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The many misunderstandings of degrowth: A response to Kelsey Piper’s “Can we save the planet by shrinking the economy?”

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The concept of “degrowth” is evoking interest in the mainstream media, but more as an exotic, impractical idea than a serious attempt at addressing the current environmental emergency and rising economic inequality. Carlos Tornel responds to a recent article on “degrowth” in the Vox Magazine to set the record straight.

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The path to a just and sustainable society

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If the current neoliberal dispensation continues to make the society increasingly unequal, and the planet progressively unlivable, how do we transition to a new system, which addresses these challenges with deliberate intent and assured success? In the second part of his discussion on “Eco-anarchism”, Ted Trainer lays out the core characteristics of a post consumer capitalist society, operating on the principles of “The Simpler Way”.

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We Thought It Was Fiction

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The recent revelations concerning Pegasus, the malicious hacking software developed by the Israeli tech firm, NSO, confirm the paralyzingly intrusive capabilities being developed by the State-Corporate nexus to surveil and dominate the increasingly connected world we live in. Alfredo Lopez, Melanie Bush, Hamid Khan and Ken Montenegro, our colleagues from ” May First Movement Technology” discuss how the progressive and “alternatives” communities should organize to push back against this steady erosion of people’s rights, and work to end tech dominance and intrusion into our lives.

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Eco-socialism vs. Eco-anarchism: Exploring “The Simpler Way”

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As the search for alternatives to the current neoliberal order becomes increasingly essential and urgent, analysts and activists are beginning to clarify their theoretical frameworks for crafting a new world. In this first part of a two part series, Ted Trainer discusses the idea of “The Simpler Way” to construct a sustainable future based on Eco-anarchism.

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Challenging colonization: Building sustainable human and natural communities in Palestine

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As resistance to Israeli occupation continues to inspire the Palestinian people, a search for “alternatives” is also emerging as a national imperative. In a two part series we explore how the universe beyond the political question is being imagined by the people of Palestine. In the first part, Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh gives an insight into the hard work of environmental conservation in a landscape battered by colonization.

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Great Reset and the global resistance to come

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Four decades of neoliberalism have seen a relentless push by the world’s mega corporations to capture global governance and the global commons. With the rise of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution,’ and the global crises unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns, they may have found their biggest opportunity. But resistance, too, is in the air. Sajai Jose analyzes the tussle for our future evolving and taking shape in the world.

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Quand vous voudrez…a 1976 poster which envisioned degrowth

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In 1976, a poster produced for a local election in Paris, France took an enormous leap forward to imagine a world defined by ecological sustainability and social conviviality. Christine Dann discusses the contemporary relevance of the Quand vous voudrez poster and the revolutionary idea of degrowth it envisioned far ahead of its times.

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From Political Ecology to Critical Theory, and back again

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As we look for societal alternatives to neoliberal fundamentalism, it is important to situate our search in a credible philosophical framework. Omar Dahbour takes a dive into the works of Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse to explain how “Critical Theory” could help conceptualize such alternatives by recalibrating the relationship between human beings and nature.

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Water, the driving force of Nature: Emancipation through popular consultation

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Water is under threat from commodification, as capital increasingly ensnares nature all over the world. But, a consolidated resistance comprising indigenous communities, environmental activists and left progressive groups is challenging those devious designs. Alberto Acosta explains how Andean communities are using referendums and popular consultations to push back on extractivist pressures, and exploitation of natural resources, to build a democratic firewall to defend water and the rights of nature.

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Dismantling “Power” by building “Democratic Autonomy”

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All across the world, the quest for socio-economic and political equality continues with varying degrees of success. Often, political transformation has occurred without any compelling changes in the structures of state and power. But, a decidedly meaningful effort at instituting a new framework of grassroots democracy is underway in the Kurdish region of Rojava (West Kurdistan). In this first part of our new series on “Power”, Şervîn Nûdem discusses how the concept of “Democratic Autonomy” is helping shape a novel societal framework consisting of local and regional people’s councils, cooperatives, academies and self-defense forces with the participation, and substantial leadership of the women of Rojava.

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The rising green tide: Fighting for reproductive justice in Argentina

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The recent victory for reproductive rights in Argentina was breathtaking for its spirited resolve as well as its organizational rigor. In this article, Ana Cecilia Dinerstein explains the genesis and the evolution of this struggle. She also speaks with Maria Alicia Gutierrez, a prominent leader of the women’s Campaign to explore what lessons could be drawn from its success by movements engaged in alternative politics in other parts of the world.

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More powerful together – Alternatives as Resistance (Part 2)

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The contemporary resistance to neoliberalism is searching for ways in which it can raise up the values and relations it is fighting for. It is also looking for low-carbon, ecologically sensible, culturally grounded alternatives, which would help stop the destruction of the planet. In this second part of her series, “More Powerful Together – Alternatives as Resistance”, Jen Gobby describes how movements in Canada are challenging the stale idea of making our existing systems work better. Instead, they are offering new societal alternatives by forging resistance to colonialism and resurgence of Indigenous economies, governance structures and ways of life.

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An economy that works for everyone

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Why does the current economic system continue to fail the vast majority of people all over the world despite the ostensible strength of the structures put in place to look after their welfare? How is it that while ecological turmoil and economic inequality continue to fester, the solutions provided by the ruling elite are always ineffective and mostly dubious? In this final part of the series on the “Shared Society”, Clem McCartney examines how the economy could be made to respond constructively to poverty, alienation and anomie affecting the world, and how people can proactively impact the process by which the economy is managed for the benefit of the majority, and ensure the survival of the planet rather than its annihilation.

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More powerful together – Integrating Resistance with Alternatives

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Societal discontent manifests itself in the shape of resistance to the existing structures and is channeled through people’s movements. Hope, on the other hand, propels the society to look for alternatives to the existing paradigm. In this first article in a two part series, Jen Gobby provides an insight into how “resistance” and the search for “alternatives” are coming together to shape the movement towards an ecologically sensible and economically egalitarian future in Canada.

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