Imagining Other:
Alternatives... (*)
Links: Imagining
Other contents page
What is
'imagining other' (a bit of theory!)
New ways of
seeing (a bit more theory - and the arts are here)
(*) Explanatory Note:
- arising from my belief in libertarian socialism, I have always been
interested in ‘alternatives’ (to capitalism and its exploitation of people and
the environment). For me this includes:
(i) ‘alternative’ organisations that people have set up, and thus
“building the new society in the shell of the old”, and
(ii) alternative ideas (e.g. alternative technology, but also radical
political ideas such as anarchism – see anarchism
and radical/libertarian socialism – see socialism
before(and aside from) Marx and my notes on libertarian socialism and Castoriadis
– go to home page and click on the link to (v)
libertarian socialism).
- I do not believe that because a real alternative to capitalism seems a
long way off, there is nothing we can do. On the contrary, there are practical
alternatives, and even though some may seem to be like small drops
in a vast ocean, nevertheless they are beginnings. To extend the simile: water
dripping on rock will eventually wear it away.
It was when I taught at UEL, and had to engage with future engineers,
scientists and business people, that I realised the importance of not only
holding on to ideals such as socialism, but at the same time trying to give
people hope that change can begin now. This was especially true when I taught a
course on ‘social responsibilities of business’ – see the links below to some
of my notes on this, also Corporate Social
Responsibility - definitions (and many other sets of notes follow this
page!).
The most recent ‘alternative’ that has fired people’s imagination is the
‘Occupy’ movement. There is little visible activity now - 2013 - (in part
because the media are no longer interested), but the movement’s supporters are
still chipping away... Chomsky has argued that if the Occupy movement is to be
extended rather than collapse in on itself, these may be some of the paths that
could be explored: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/30/noam-chomsky-what-next-occupy?INTCMP=SRCH.
For further comments on this point, see Inequalities - updates
These notes are obviously ‘work in
progress...’ – and although they are incomplete and patchy I thought it better
to upload them now, otherwise there would be a serious gap in the notes on
‘imagining other.’
Alternatives... (i) Links to other notes on ‘alternatives’:
Alternative technology: go to Corporate
Social Responsibility Chapter 6 and Chapter 4
Co-operatives (including Suma): go to Corporate Social Responsibility Chapter 1 and Chapter 6 and Chapter
8 and Chapter 8 Updates
LETS (Local Exchange Trading
Systems) and Time Banks: go to Corporate Social Responsibility Chapter 8
Lucas Aerospace Alternative
Corporate Plan: go
to Corporate Social Responsibility Chapter 4
- on this there was also an article
by Anne Karp in the Guardian, Weds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/jobs-growth-workers-vision
- and follow-up comments at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/lessons-lucas-aerospace?
Alternatives.... (ii) recent ideas and articles (alphabetical order):
#Basque country(co-ops)
education: #independent working class education
#postcapitalism (Paul Mason book – links to reviews)
see also notes at: postcapitalism
#welfare state (origins!).
Basque country
co-operatives – Mondragon: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative
Community buyouts – in
the light of the difficulties faced by the Co-op: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/03/co-op-farms-sale-chinese-buyers
- an
article by Tracy McVeigh, referencing Martin Large, of the Biodynamic land
Trust.
‘Co-operative living’ at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/may/06/lifestyle-communities-hebden-bridge-todmorden
Tobias
Jones on communal living (New Statesman 23-29 Oct 2015): https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/10/end-alone
Ecological Football
team (!): from
Freedom, February 2012: Forest Green Rovers, a team based in Nailsworth,
Gloucestershire, players’ diet is meat-free featuring locally-sourced,
predominantly vegetarian food in accordance with the Soil Association’s gold
standard catering mark. Then they extended it to staff and fans. It is installing
solar panels to provide 10% of the electricity used in the ground. Plans for
low-energy floodlights etc. They want the pitch to be certified organic.
Inspiration from chairman Dale Vince, who also set up Sustainability in Sport,
and who founded Ecotricity, which now supplies 40,000 homes.
Education: the Independent Working Class
Education Network (originating with Colin Waugh) – see: www.iwceducation.co.uk
Ethical investment: it is now possible to invest in the
country’s first ‘wood fuel co-operative’ – join with an investment of minimum
250, and you could earn an average of 6.1% provided you stay for the long term
– www.woolhopewoodheat.org.uk
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jun/22/community-investment-schemes?INTCMP=SRCH
Other
schemes:
‘Flatpack Democracy’ in Frome,
Mindfulness: Madeleine Bunting has a thoughtful
piece - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/06/mindfulness-hospitals-schools
- and especially relevant is her warning that the approach/technique might be
used as mere ‘performance enhancement’ e.g. by the military!! It is also of
concern to me that she notes that the technique originated with Buddhism (see Buddhism and the peace movement and New Ways of Seeing), but has become
‘uncoupled’ from the ethics (compassion) of Buddhism. Her list of gains is
interesting: ‘greater creativity, more empathy, more patience, less judgment’
but to be honest I don’t quite see how these follow inevitably from mindful
meditation alone: it seems to me essential to link mindfulness with some wider
ethical beliefs.
‘What
mindfulness slowly brings to our understanding is how much our experience is
shaped by our minds. To have that insight as a personal experience rather than
something one reads in the growing body of scientific literature on the subject
is transformational. It loosens that reactivity which can trap us in a limiting
loop, and allows for very different responses which can manifest in all
kinds of ways – greater creativity, more empathy, more patience, less judgment.
Mindfulness is derived from Buddhist
meditation, which at its heart is revolutionary in its emphasis on compassion
and non-harm. It is profoundly counter-cultural in its asceticism. But this
derivative has been meticulously framed as secular by a generation of
scientists.
They identified that the Buddha's insights
into the behaviour of the human mind was resonating with breakthroughs in
psychology and neuroscience. Delinked from Buddhist ethics, mindfulness could
become a form of performance enhancement – some of the enthusiasm coming from
the corporate
sectors and military
leads it dangerously in this direction.’
Optimistic scientists (Observer magazine
15.11.15): Ruth DeFries,
Max Roser, Oxford Uni: the ‘news’ is always
negative – but when you get to statistics it’s hard to keep being negative.
Runs ‘Our world in data’ which gives statistics – facts – showing how global
poverty is falling and standards of living, health and education are rising.
Matt Ridley (see notes on climate change...) and Steven Pinker (The better
angels of our nature). Hans Rosling: TED talk: the best stats you’ve ever seen
How to end poverty in 15 years – also Gapminder, source of data on trends, by
country. ‘It appears [to be] good news because the default world view has so
much negativity.’ Promoting ‘factfulness’ (However, Population Matters disagree
with him...). Rosling also says: ‘good governance, and quite large governments,
are really good for economic growth and freedom (vs. libertarians – e.g.
Ridley!).
The number
of locals (?) with sewers has doubled within 7 years; rate of road-building has
increased five-fold; tax evasion has fallen (people can see where their money
is going). 15,000 locals take part in the ‘orcamento participativo’ each year,
and one in ten citizens has taken part at some time or other.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/10/participatory-democracy-in-porto-alegre?INTCMP=SRCH
PostCapitalism: Paul Mason’s book: PostCapitalism:
a Guide to Our Future (Allen Lane 2015) has received much interest... Here is a
link to a Guardian review:
www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/15/post-capitalism-by-paul-mason-review-worthy-successor-to-marx?
(by David Runciman) and one by Diane Coyle:
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/08/postcapitalism-dreams-big-its-theories-tend-towards-vague
(from New Stateman).
And some
notes of my own are here: PostCapitalism....
Small is Beautiful: http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/perils-thinking-too-big
- John Burnside on a 1980 classic: Human Scale, by Kirkpatrick Sale. The human
scale should be the basis of sustainability, appropriate technologies, and
participatory dwelling ‘in which creaturely being is prized, nothing is merely
a resource and the environment is deemed beyond further compromise. Warns
against the appropriation by business and industry of the term ‘sustainable
development’ – it is a ‘convenient industrial myth’ unless kept to a human
scale.
‘Social Credit’ – from letter, Brian Leslie,
Freedom Nov 2011: demanded distribution of ‘the wages of the machine’ as
‘national dividends’ – i.e. introducing ‘economic democracy.’ It was widely debated between the two world
wars, and its supporters predicted a second world war if its ideas were not
taken up. Since the war it has not been
discussed and ‘mention of it was banned from the mainstream media’ (!). Leslie ends: ‘The basic source of most of the
current world problems is the debt-generating ‘fractional reserve’ system of
money-creation. Virtually all the money present society uses enters circulation
when banks create it by making interest-bearing loans – which therefore require
an ever-growing money supply to ‘service’ these loans, leading to continuous
inflation; failing this, recession...’
[Don’t know if any of this makes sense, though!!!].
Summerhill school: Letter in Guardian, 31st
May 2013
from David Gribble, points out that there is an International Democratic
Education Network, with a conference each year attended by up to a thousand
people from 30 or more countries. Examples of ‘Summerhill-type’ schools: Moo
Ban Dek in
Via Campesina: the movement of peasants – i.e.
small land-owners – now has more than 200 million members in more than 80
countries, and an English group, the Land Workers Alliance, with some 70
members, has joined. Observer
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/16/peasants-revolt-to-change-food-production?
And see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jun/17/la-via-campesina-henry-saragih
Welfare State: David Brindle claims that the origins
of the welfare state concept lie in Archbishop of York William Temple’s book
Citizen and Churchman, 1941, where he contrasts the welfare state with the
fascist ‘power-state’... See article by David Brindle: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/31/welfare-state-upheaval-spiritual-intervention?INTCMP=SRCH