The stated aim of the annual CTRLshift gathering (that took place in Stoke-on-Trent recently) is to bring key people together to talk about practical steps to help shift power away from central government and multinational corporations, to communities and individuals. Well, you had me at ‘decentralisation’, so I went along. Read more …

Today, we’re talking with Hilary Wainwright – an academic, activist, editor of Red Pepper magazine, and a fellow of the Transnational Institute (TNI). Read more …

If this makes sense to you, you may well be working along these lines already – I hope it is encouraging. If it inspires you, then seek out others who feel the same, and rewrite it together. Make it yours. Make it specific. Publish it. Act on it. Forge relations with other groups. Federate and interact across the world.

This is the second part of an interview with Pat Conaty, senior research fellow at NEF and Co-operatives UK and author of the Resilience Imperative, with Michael Lewis. We’re talking about building a co-operative commonwealth. Part 1 is here.

So let’s start the year with a bit of optimism. Our last post was about the fact that there is a general lack of understanding of the implications of biodiversity loss, and the contribution of climate change to it. This post is for people who do understand what’s happening to nature, but can see no way to avoid catastrophe. Read more …

I’ve often suggested that Western states are beginning to resemble an admin department for the corporate sector. Read more …

Dear George,

Congratulations on your contribution to the Moral Maze last week – I switched on the radio just as your volley articulating the ideological differentiation between fiscal and legal rationing fairly seared the waves. Read more …

I’m using the original definition of the word, not its bastardisation that over the years has come to be used as a kind of insult in some circles. I’ve been called ‘too radical’, and I want to show why that’s an absurdity. Read more …

This is a conversation between Dave Darby of NonCorporate.org and Dave King of Breaking the Frame and the New Lucas Plan. Dave (K) is opposed to the ‘technocracy’ that he describes as the root cause of environmental destruction and lack of democracy. Read more …

I often trawl the web just speculatively looking for new people or new ideas, clicking on links from interesting sites. TEDx talks are a favourite. A few years ago I came across an intriguing TEDx talk by Professor Jem Bendell called ‘the Money Myth’. Read more …

Another of our interviews, first posted on NonCorporate.org, with people working on providing alternatives to multinational corporations – this time in the health sector. Read more …

Herman Daly has been one of my heroes since I read Steady State Economics as a young man. I’m re-posting a blog article of his, originally posted on the website of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) in the US, because it’s a simple description of how it concentrates wealth in very few hands by sucking it from the rest of us via hidden inflation. Read more …

We’re pleased to announce the launch of NonCorporate.org – our sister site, dedicated to helping people move away from multinational corporations (MNCs) for everything they need. Read more …

Jordan Peterson is provocative, interesting and a formidable opponent in debates and interviews. He doesn’t interrupt, he thinks carefully about people’s points, he doesn’t run away from difficult arguments (or difficult people) and he’s helped a lot of people to rescue their damaged lives. Read more …

You may remember that I was invited to take part in a public debate in London recently (see here) about whether capitalism is ‘the best system for a sustainable future’. I was asked to deliver the ‘no’ position. Read more …

I recently went to visit a friend in Germany by train, and as I packed my bag, I looked around for a book to throw in, to read on the way. The one I plumped for was the Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek, Mrs. Thatcher’s (and Ronald Reagan’s) guru. Read more …

If you’re in London on April 18th, there’s a public debate you might be interested in, upstairs in a pub in Tooting. I’ve been asked to put the case against capitalism. There will be initial presentations, rebuttals, questions from the audience, and then a summing up. Read more …

I’ve been working in the environmental field for over 20 years, and I believe, like the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, that we’re headed for ‘biological annihilation’, and like the good folk at the Dark Mountain Project, that a crash is coming that we may or may not recover from Read more …

Where is real ‘opposition’ in the West when all major parties support cancerous, perpetual growth? Surely it’s time for major political figures to stand up and say that the quest for perpetual economic growth is the engine behind the destruction of the biosphere, and will eventually kill us unless we stop. Read more …

On 18th November last year there was a one-day workshop in Sheffield called “Joy in Enough – Awakening to a New Economics”. It was delivered by Green Christian who are a multi-denominational charity that have been operating for over thirty years. Read more …