Pioneering Space for the Commons
In the city of Peterborough, Ontario, The Mount Community Centre is repurposing what was once home...
Tag Archives: Cooperative Economy
Debt and Usary in Islam
Islam has a powerful view on debt forgiveness and welcoming the stranger. Dr. Waleed El-Ansary shares...
Podcast: Freeing Yourself from Consumer Culture
What is the free market consumer ideology? How does its assumptions affect our lives? In this “The One You Feed” podcast, guest Peter Block discusses concepts from his book, An Other Kingdom, including the pillars of the free market consumer ideology: Scarcity, Certainty, Perfection, and Privatization. As people search for meaning and freedom, Peter shares how neighborliness and covenant are part of an alternative narrative.
Listen:
Quotes:
“Questions bring us together. Answers alienate us.”
“The scarcity mindset is a lie. There is enough.”
“The ‘how’ question destroys our faith in each other, as if the only thing that matters is how long, how much, how predicable.”
Related Read:
The Consumer Economy and its Crushing Assumptions
By Peter Block What assumptions form the dominant free market consumer economy? What is an alternative...
The Jubilee Campaign
What is a Jubilee Year, and how does this Old Testament idea relate to today’s economy?...
Jubilee Forum: Islamic Economics on Debt Forgiveness
Dr. Waleed El-Ansary will discuss Islamic Economics on Forgiveness of Debt and Welcoming the Stranger at...
Visions of a Just Economy
Jubilee is an attempt to be a “ray of light that pierces through the darkness of fear,” says Adam Clark. In this audio recording, Adam, Associate Professor of Theology at Xavier University, talks with Peter Block about the modern vision of Jubilee – a biblical metaphor based on a period of economic re-distribution where slaves are set free, land is returned to its original owners and debts are forgiven.
Adam talks about the ideology of consumerism as a form of religion, the politics of disposability, distributing ownership and more in this radical conversation. Listen here:
Quotes:
“What’s so kind of remarkable about the consumer religion is that it’s not attached to any place. It’s all over. Any place is interchangeable . . . . The religion is something that thrives in homogenizing global culture.” – Adam Clark
“A beloved community is where everybody has some control over their economic lives and participates in the economy. That’s just never happened.” – Peter Block
Related Links:
View these videos of Adam Clark in conversation with Peter Block:
https://www.restorecommons.com/jubilee-professor-adam-clark/
https://www.restorecommons.com/professor-adam-clark/
A Case for Empathy
Trenton Davis with his Guatemalan family on a Habitat for Humanity trip in 2016 By: Trenton Davis This...
Did You Know There’s a Union Co-op Movement?
What possibilities do worker-owned co-ops hold for an alternative economy? In the Basque region of Spain, Mondragon is the world’s largest group of industrial worker-owned co-operatives transforming the region from poverty to thriving and resilient communities. In Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Union Co-op Initiative (CUCI) is doing the same.
Michael Peck, co-founder of 1worker1vote.org and a North American Delegate for Mondragon, and Kristen Barker, president and co-founder of the CUCI, join Peter Block and John McKnight in a conversation about union co-op possibilities, successes and struggles. Listen to the full conversation:
Quotes
“This integrated network of co-ops is one of the exciting things that is now coming to life in a much bigger way in the United States because of this Mondragon union co-op.” Kristen Barker
“Stakeholders are coming together who have decided that it’s time to re-own their own economy. It’s time to take their economic sovereignty back and they look to us as a way forward to do that, not just a pathway out of poverty, but a pathway to actual prosperity.” Michael Peck
More Resources
Mondragon: http://www.mondragon-corporation.com/eng/
Cincinnati Union Co-op Initiative: https://www.cincinnatiunioncoop.org/
Upcoming event: National Union Co-op Symposium
Sanctuary as Jubilee: March 16 Community Forum
The Economics of Compassion Initiative is hosting a free “Sanctuary as Jubilee” evening Community Forum and...
Change Thoughts about Money … Change the World
Robert Thompson of leadersinsideout.com sits down with Tim Soerens and Kevin Jones, founders of the SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) Conference, to discuss money and how it is not working for us in a way that creates the kind of lives we should all be living.
SOURCE: leaderinsideout.com
Restorative Community
Peter Block and Walter Brueggemann discuss the toxic effects of privatization and overconsumption and call for...
Gar Alperovitz on Cooperative Economy: “I’ll bet my life on it!”
Gar Alperovitz was in Seattle for the annual meeting of the National Cooperative Business Association and...
