Defragmenting our selves
This was a book, much like America Beyond Capitalism, that I really wanted to like. I even did like parts of it. Unfortunately I only have time to list my problems with it right now, so I should add up front the corollary that I’m really sympathetic to any proposal for an alternative economic system…
I keep finding myself saying to people that I’d like to see a political culture in the UK. This is about developing the language to describe our situation and possible routes out, and about finding new ways of working together. You could contrast it to the NGO approach: trying to campaign and lobby government without…
My journey began when I pulled out of my driveway onto empty streets. Not completely empty you understand; just deadly quiet, like most streets in Britain. You notice it when you come back from, say, India, or Colombia, where the streets are often full of people socialising, selling, buying, praying, begging or otherwise lurking in…
I have not acquired any fortune but I have my paternal estate and the pension of a Subedar. This is enough for me. The people in my village seem to respect me, and are now fully satisfied with the ease and benefits they enjoy under British rule.[i] From Sepoy to Subedar is the autobiography of…
On a fine spring weekend I went for a long drive along the roads and lanes of southern England. The places I saw provided some insight into the way property works in Britain. The first stop was Savernake Forest, an ancient woodland in Wiltshire. It is the only major forest in the UK in private…
This post is about a new type of housing co-op, a Mutual Home Ownership Society (MHOS) only one example of which currently exists in the UK. That co-op is LILAC and I interviewed a member to find out more about it. I was particularly interested in whether it was suitable for small house-share co-ops, and…
[tl;dr for this post: consensus is often a fake consensus, not just because we’re doing it wrong but because we are trying too hard to make it happen and that creates certain pressures, social, animal or otherwise. Sometimes we just don’t agree, and we need to admit that and leave room for disagreement.] I wanted…
I made these videos from some road trips I went on. They are all incredibly amateur. The quality of the footage is not good either – you’ll be pleased to know I now have a (slightly) better camera. But I was experimenting with shooting and editing and it was fun. A walk in the…
My last post mentioned the US-based Democracy Collaborative, which advocates an economic program that it is possible to imagine being implemented. I think another route to the more cooperative economy they imagine would involve pushing, by a series of reforms over time, the current corporate system towards a more participatory model. The end would perhaps…
The rhetoric of TINA (There Is No Alternative) in the matter of economic organising still permeates British politics. We are offered markets or state control and told that markets are better. We are offered corporations or nationalised industry and told that corporations are better. We are offered private property or state ownership and told that…