How Shareholder Profits Conquered Capitalism: And How Workers Can Win Back its Benefits for Themselves

by Louis Brennan, Trinity College Dublin, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/how-shareholder-profits-conquered-capitalism-and-how-workers-can-win-back-its-benefits-for-themselves-103781

Wolves on Wall Street, but perhaps the time of shareholders’ rule is drawing to an end. robert cicchetti/Shutterstock

In the early days of industrial capitalism there were no protections for workers, and industrialists took their profits with little heed to anyone else. 

Following the growth of the labour movement, the establishment of trade unions and the founding of the welfare state in the first half of the 20th century, corporations in decades after World War II embraced a more open, stakeholder capitalism, where profits were shared between employees, managers and shareholders. This led to a flourishing middle class as workers and communities benefited from the success of the corporations of which they were part.

But since the 1970s the pendulum has swung back towards a system where profits are shared less widely, causing major upheavals in society and the fortunes of labour and the middle classes.

In the US, labour’s share of income had been close to 70% until the 1970s, but had shrunk by the beginning of the 1980s even as profits increased. In the 21st century this accelerated: in 2000, labour’s share of income in the US accounted for some 66%, whereas corporate profits accounted for a little over 8%. 

Today, labour’s share has fallen to 62% while profits have risen to 12%. The same trend is repeated in the UK, where labour’s share of income has reduced from almost 70% in the 1970s to around 55% percent today.

Where has the money gone? For decades, real incomes for workers have largely stagnated while those of top executives have skyrocketed. In 2017, the top executives of America’s largest companies enjoyed an average pay increase of 17.6%, while workers’ pay in those companies rose barely 0.3%. In 1965, the chief executives of the top 350 US companies earned salaries 20 times that of their workers. By 1989 that had risen to 58 times, and in 2017 the ratio was 312 times that of workers.

Not surprisingly, compared to the middle-class prosperity that followed 1945, recent decades have seen widening inequality in society. The status quo overturned, capitalism has been hijacked by a profiteering elite. The question is whether society can find an alternative approach that shares the wealth more widely.

Shareholders uber alles

This trend coincided with the emergence of shareholder value as the overwhelming corporate ethos, as the interests of shareholders take primacy over those of other stakeholders in the business. With executives incentivised to maximise profits, meet quarterly share price targets and ensure profits are returned to shareholders, they have been able to game the system to ensure they receive excessive remuneration, while at the same time cutting costs and squeezing wage growth in search of higher profits. British housebuilder Persimmon this year paid its chief executive a £110m bonus, decried by critics as “corporate looting”.

Outsourcing and offshoring have been examples of such cost-cutting, profit-driving initiatives: outsourcing low-skilled work is thought to account for one-third of the increase in wage inequality since the 1980s in the US. The percentage of US workers associated with temporary help agencies, on-call workers, or contractors increased from 10.7% in 2005 to 15.8% by 2015.

Pressure to maintain share prices and ensure profits return to shareholders have shrunk the share of company profits received by labour. Alf Ribeiro/Shutterstock

Economists have been puzzled by stagnant wages and increased inequality. But as I highlighted as far back as 2007 and repeatedly since, the emphasis on shareholder value has contributed enormously. Management and leadership consultant and writer Steve Denning wrote this year that “shareholder value is the root cause of workers’ stagnant salaries”, with a corrosive effect on societal cohesion and stability – he believes the current rise of populism is one example of the fallout.

Demands for greater profits continue, as companies are pressured by share portfolio managers and activist investors to increase their profitability and share price. Private equity firms, which invest in companies in order to maximise returns, have expanded into many sectors of the economy. Most recently, this has seen the doctrine of maximising profits enter the residential property and home mortgages market.

The pendulum swings back?

Despite the stranglehold of shareholder value on corporate thinking, events suggest the pendulum may once more swing back to favour workers and other stakeholders.

In the US, the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment warned that in its attempt to take over telecoms giant Qualcomm, Broadcomm’s private equity approach could compromise its target’s technological leading position in pursuit of value for Broadcomm shareholders.

In the UK, there was opposition to the takeover of engineering conglomerate GKN by turnaround firm Melrose. Airbus, one of GKN’s major customers, argued that Melrose’s focus on shareholder value and short-term returns meant it might not be committed to long-term investment.

A chorus of voices has emerged advocating alternatives to the short-termist and shareholder-focused model of capitalism. The chief executives of investment and asset managers Blackrock (the world’s largest) and Vanguard, global engineering firm Siemens, and consumer goods giant Unilever have pursued a more stakeholder-centric model of capitalism. 

For example, Unilever by measuring its progress against environmental and social as well as financial targets, and Blackrock by investing in businesses that favour long-term investment over short-term profits. Organisations such as the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, have emerged, seeking to ensure that all stakeholders in the business and their interests are included.

Prominent US senator Elizabeth Warren recently introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act to Congress. This would require company directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders, not just shareholders, in company decisions. It requires that workers are given a stronger voice in decision-making at large companies, such as electing 40% of company directors. As a way of addressing self-serving incentives, executives would have to retain company shares for at least five years after receiving them, or three years in the case of stock buybacks.

Finally, we cannot ignore that business schools played a critical role in how shareholder value emerged as the overwhelming corporate ethos – and they continue to indoctrinate new generations of students with the dogma of shareholder value today. Business school deans and faculty members should urgently revisit their curricula to ensure graduates understand the damaging impact of shareholder value on society and to emphasise alternative approaches.

Almost ten years ago, Jack Welch, who for many years championed shareholder value while at the helm of General Electric, pronounced that:

Shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy … your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.

It is past the time that business schools should smarten up, jettison this “dumb” shareholder dogma, and start teaching a version of capitalism less damaging to the interests of society.

Louis Brennan, Professor of Business Studies, Trinity College Dublin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How City Squares Can Be Public Places of Protest or Centres of State Control

by Majdi Faleh, University of Melbourne, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/how-city-squares-can-be-public-places-of-protest-or-centres-of-state-control-102275

Seven years after Tahrir Square became the focal point of the Egyptian Revolution, towering metal gates now control access. Ahmed Abd El-Fatah/Wikimedia, CC BY

Today’s urban public spaces tend to represent governments and cities rather than people and citizens. In the past seven years, disturbing scenes of protests in city squares have been seen across the Arab world and Europe, but these public protests existed long before the 21st century. So how can city squares support or inhibit protests through their spatial characteristics and settings?

Public squares have been considered as places of encounter and exchange since the time of the Greek Agora and the Roman Forum. While often the sites of protest, these spaces also can reflect the idea of power and constrain revolutions and social uprisings.

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Read more: Neighbourhood living rooms – we can learn a lot from European town squares

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Design and scenography can be used to intensify agoraphobia, or a fear of public spaces. Thus these spaces of expression can, at times, be silenced, putting at risk the geography of freedom of speech.

Reminders of the power of the state

Public spaces around the world have been not only places for people to gather and interact but also to demonstrate and, at times, to face their death.

In 2014, Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev was at the centre of the Ukrainian Euromaidan Revolution. It was a deadly revolution of dignity. Yet the consequences of other protests largely attest to how the design of these spaces can intimidate protesters.

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Read more: Four years after the Euromaidan revolution in Ukraine: key gains and losses

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In 1989, students demonstrated in Beijing during the so-called Tiananmen Square protests, which ended in a massacre. This immense city square of the capital is now known for its “strange emptiness”, as Evan Osnos described it. Benches and shade trees have been removed to discourage public gatherings.

The monumentality created by the forbidden city and the government buildings, including the Great Hall of People, adds to the feeling of emptiness and intimidation. The 44-hectare public square is now considered “the opposite of a public space”:

Its totalitarian scale dwarfs the individual and forces people to feel subservient to the power of the state.

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Read more: Tiananmen 25 years on: CCP now fears the masses gathering online

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One can see striking similarities, in terms of scale and setting, with Red Square in Moscow. Red Square had been the scene of the 1968 demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a landmark moment in the Soviet dissident movement.

Red Square, Moscow, has been the scene of both public demonstrations and state parades.

In Egypt, seven years after the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, people tend to be cautious about expressing their views in public. Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the protests, is at risk. Towering metal gates have been erected around the square to avoid protests. These stand as a reminder of the powerful state control that the regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has reasserted over public spaces.

Protest in the Arab world: the case of Tunisia

Tunisia’s Habib Bourguiba Avenue was the main stage of the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. This public space, considered the historical, political and economic heart of the city, is broad and lined with trees and government buildings, hotels and street cafes. The two paved and heavily trafficked roads on either side of the median strip isolate the pedestrian “island”.

Habib Bourguiba Avenue. Majdi Faleh

This staging of the avenue reflects the power, control and prohibition of protests during 23 years of dictatorship. Other intimidating landscaping elements add to the obstacles for demonstrators who might wish to use the public space for political debates.

Despite intimidation through design, Tunis’s layout made L'Avenue, as Tunisians like to call it, the perfect place to stage the Arab Spring.

Police and protesters clash in the popular uprising that forced Tunisia’s longtime dictator to flee in 2011.

This avenue, planned in the time of French colonisation (1881-1956) for the city’s elite, resembles the Parisian Avenue of Champs-Élysées. Interestingly, even Haussmann’s celebrated Parisian boulevards, built under Napoleon III in the 1860s, were designed to help quell the city’s rebellious populace.

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Read more: Australians don't loiter in public space – the legacy of colonial control by design

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Strategically located near the end of Habib Bourguiba Avenue is the Interior Ministry, an icon of dictatorship and control. The “austere” grey facade and black wrought iron windows and gates create a sense of control. Its brutalist architecture, which has architectural similarities with the FBI headquarters in Washington DC, participates in shaping the public space. Razor barbed wire fences have surrounded the avenue during the time of protests. Landscaping around the ministry played a role in blocking protesters from getting closer to the monument of control.

Habib Bourguiba Avenue is named after the first president of Tunisia, a tradition for main avenues in Tunisian cities. A simple Google search produces a list of major and small Tunisian cities forced into this autocratic system of political nomenclature as an instrument of control.

The image of power and control starts with the name of the place. It continues at the end of the avenue intersecting with the previously known Place 7 Novembre, named after the date of former dictator Ben Ali’s ascension to power in a coup d’état.

Ibn Khaldun Fenced Garden with a banner of the dictator Ben Ali in the background (2009). In Arabic, it reads ‘In deed, all my ambition is for Tunisia’. Majdi Faleh

During the time of dictatorship, architects did not play an active role in shaping social, cultural and political encounters in public spaces. Contemporary public spaces in Tunisia were designed timidly or marginally, creating conflicts between architecture, the local people and the oppressive state. Even green spaces were planned but never designed, as per the planning policies. Many were replaced by commercial centres.

Metal fences are noticeable landscaping features around the Ibn Khaldun Statue, small gardens and public parks. The fences turned these spaces into enclosed and sometimes marginal parks. Large propaganda banners of the former dictator added an element of fear to these public spaces and helped deter protesters. The government gated property creates a sense of intimidation and constraint.

Designing for protests: an architect’s perspective

In designing public squares and avenues, architects should learn from these past dilemmas. The public square should not be represented as the city’s gated property or as a walled garden. It should be a space that provides citizens with opportunities to engage in political and social debates.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, rethinking spatial qualities of public spaces is crucial to provide “liberated” citizens with adequate places to communicate their political views and free cultural expression. In Tunisia’s post-revolutionary era, public spaces have increasingly become places for expression and social engagement.

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Read more: Why Tunisia's latest protests are about more than a hike in taxes

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Governments, not only in Tunisia but across all countries, should plan the streets for artists and protesters to create stages for their events and to communicate their ideas. Tunisia still has a long way to go.

Majdi Faleh, Teaching Assistant, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours: Melbourne moves into community-led housing

Members of Urban Coup (Image: Thomson Reuters Foundation/Handout/Urban Coup)

by Michael Taylor, This Is Place: http://www.thisisplace.org/i/?id=c27114d0-1598-4a0c-94be-be56fba3dbd3KUALA LUMPUR - In an ideal world, Alex Fearnside would cycle home from work, park his bike in the basement of his apartment complex in Melbourne city centre, then jog upstairs through a beautiful courtyard to his flat, stopping only for a quick chat with other residents in the shared dining area.Later, Fearnside and his wife would head down to the communal kitchen to eat a meal cooked by their neighbours.Fearnside's ten-year-old dream for life in the Australian city is nearing reality as it awaits planning approval. It is shared by 50 other Melbourne residents who belong to Urban Coup, a collective that wants to turn a disused button factory in an old industrial area into a co-housing community by 2020.

"What is driving us is we want to know our neighbours," said the 38-year-old environmental scientist. "We want to know that as we're growing old, we have people around us who have similar values to who we are and what we bring."

Urban Coup is one of five innovative housing initiatives that put community at their heart.

The projects are supported with expertise and networks mobilised by Resilient Melbourne, part of 100 Resilient Cities, a network backed by The Rockefeller Foundation to help cities deal with modern-day pressures.

This year, more than half of Asia-Pacific's population will be urban, and that figure will increase to two-thirds by 2050, the United Nations estimates.

But as the region's cities continue to expand, services and infrastructure are struggling to keep pace with rising populations and economic growth, while the effects of climate change have created additional challenges.

The Melbourne projects aim to help find solutions to the city's expanding urban sprawl, worsening traffic congestion and growing social isolation - all of which can contribute to problems like alcoholism and domestic violence.

And by building stronger community bonds, Melbourne should be better placed to recover from potential shocks and stresses, such as rising temperatures and droughts, infrastructure failures and potential pandemics, the schemes' proponents say.

"Many of the people who started Urban Coup remember growing up on streets where they knew everybody on that street," said Fearnside. "We wanted a building that would enable us to know our neighbours and allow us to support each other."

URBAN SPRAWL

In the past decade, Melbourne has topped various polls as the world's most liveable city, attracting new residents to Australia's second-biggest city.

Just under 5 million people live there, and the population is expected to double over the next 30 years, putting increased strain on infrastructure and housing.

As more estates have been built on greenfield sites outside the centre, the rise in urban sprawl has brought problems.

Housing developments have outpaced infrastructure, leading to dormitory suburbs, whose residents commute daily but enjoy few services, amenities and transport links.

That causes traffic congestion and longer commute times, as well as a lack of interaction between neighbours, experts say.

"We live in a really beautiful part of Melbourne but we don't really know our neighbours," said Fearnside, who currently lives with his wife in a townhouse 5 km (3 miles) north of the central business district.

In Melbourne's central areas, high-rise blocks have become more common in recent years. But as in many other Australian cities, first-time buyers and families have struggled to afford steeper prices stoked by overseas property investors.

And much new construction has been driven by developers, which tend to put profit before the provision of leisure or communal facilities.

On average, Melbourne property prices have doubled over the last decade, said Clinton Baxter, state director at Savills property agency in the city, and this trend is set to continue.

Central government efforts to help first-time buyers include a grant for deposits and stamp duty concessions, while state governments have sought to open up more land and fast-track approval processes for developments.

Despite this, the supply of new and affordable housing in Melbourne has struggled to keep up with demand. It is not uncommon to see would-be buyers camping out overnight ahead of a land sale to be front of the queue for their own building plot.

"The state government has struggled to keep up with the infrastructure requirements for such a rapidly growing city," Baxter said.

LIVING EXPERIMENT

The five projects supported by Resilient Melbourne will bring together developers, city and state government agencies, service providers and potential buyers and renters.

Each project is crafted around different community-focused models - some based on renewal of the inner-city and others starting from scratch on greenfield sites.

The projects will also be part of an academic study.

"We want this to be a genuine living experiment so that we can understand in deep ways what works and what doesn't work - and record it so the successes can be replicated in Melbourne but also internationally," said Toby Kent, the city's chief resilience officer.

The projects backed by Resilient Melbourne include a greenfield site for about 5,000 homes led by developer Mirvac.

It is working with local authorities to incorporate community aspects from an early stage.

Besides at least one new school, there will be a town centre with shops and a supermarket, and a hub to house programmes and events run by the council or residents, with a community-managed cafe and playground, said Anne Jolic, a director at Mirvac.

"Often people who move to some of these ... new housing (developments) will feel very isolated," she said.

Melbourne developer Assemble, meanwhile, plans to turn an old CD and DVD factory near the city centre into 73 flats.

The property will include communal spaces like a cafe, a co-working space, crèche and grocery store, and is consulting with potential residents and existing neighbours on the design.

When the final plans are drawn up, residents will pay a refundable 1 percent deposit to secure a place, said Kris Daff, managing director of Assemble.

Once built, they will move in and start a five-year lease with an option to buy at a pre-agreed price, or exit the lease and leave at any time.

Services and events on offer will include dry cleaning, apartment cleaning, dog walking, community dinners, walking groups and film nights in a communal room.

"There is a huge amount of research that shows that when acute shocks have struck in cities, communities where there are existing connections are better able to bounce back," said Kent, Melbourne's resilience chief.

Meet the German Network That Supports and Develops Sustainable Co-Housing Projects

by Nikolas Kichler, Shareable: https://www.shareable.net/blog/mietsh%C3%A4user-syndikat-fosters-self-organized-housing-projects

Here's the problem: The founders of "Mietshäuser Syndikat" (tenements syndicate), a network of cohousing projects in Germany, observed many self-organized cohousing projects struggle and fail. Some couldn't overcome the challenges in the critical early phases, in terms of dealing with legal issues, finances, and group dynamics, while others created commercially exploited housing projects against their original intentions. At the same time, many cohousing projects did not have the capacity to support each other.

Here's how one organization is working on the problem: The Mietshäuser Syndikat was launched to support self-organized, social housing projects. It connects successful, established projects with emerging ones to provide help, while at the same time reducing re-commercialization by ensuring all inhabitants co-own all real estate assets of all cohousing projects.

A legal construct stipulates that each cohousing project is considered an autonomous enterprise that owns its real estate, with the legal status of a limited liability company (LLC or "GmbH" in German). This GmbH consists of two partners: the cohousing association itself and the Mietshäuser Syndikat GmbH. The form of limited liability companies allows the property assets to be interconnected, since decisions cannot be made unilaterally. Finally, the single associate of the network’s GmbH is the MHS Association, which all inhabitants are part of.

For a cohousing initiative to join MHS, some requirements must be met: The cohousing project needs to be self-organized by its residents, and a house and a financing plan must be on hand. Once the cohousing project establishes a secure financial basis, it needs to support new projects that are in the critical, cost-intensive early phases, the same way it received help when it began. The MHS Association represents all inhabitants of all cohousing projects and has a veto right when it comes to reprivatization and commercial exploitation of individual projects. Regarding any other issue concerning the residents, loans, rents, and renovation, the co-residents themselves make decisions on behalf of their own cohousing association.

Results:

• Since 1983, the network has grown to consist of 111 cohousing projects with a total of about 3,000 residents.
• Twenty-one initiatives throughout the country are in the process of joining the network.
• Spin-offs like “habiTat” in Linz, Austria, have been established in other countries.

Learn more from:

• Mietshäuser Syndikat
• Habitat (German)

This case study is adapted from our latest book, "Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons." Get a copy today.

Header image of Berlin-Friedrichshain: Rigaer Str. 78, Hausbesetzerszene, by Angela M. Arnold

On Transition

clipartpanda.com

by Erik Lindberg, Resilience: 
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-07/on-transition/

I have just returned from the first Transition US National Gathering and then a subsequent Leadership Retreat and I have Transition on my mind.  Despite the demands of my work life and a multi-year home restoration project that gets delayed a tiny bit more with every word I put down, I’m going to try to write a series about Transition over the next couple of months.

My primary impression leaving the main conference and the retreat was the extraordinary quality of the people I met and came to know.  I witnessed levels of thoughtfulness, compassion, creativity, commitment and, most of all, astounding examples of emotional intelligence that I rarely see in any other facets of my life.  True, people are on their best behavior when in a Transition setting (in the way they aren’t at academic conferences or staff meetings, as one example); but this only suggests to me that Transition brings out the best in people and that we would be wise to look to the ethos of engagement that it inspires.

I am equally impressed with the leadership of the movement, both the small paid staff and directors and the regional leaders (and to be a regional leader, there is no test beyond a willingness to commit and engage).  Although I will suggest in this series that the Transition Movement needs to rethink itself in ways more radical (to the root) than it may recognize, this is not a problem of leadership, even if it may be a problem for leadership and everyone else who cares.

Before going any further, I need to be absolutely clear that these are my opinions, concerns, and beliefs.  Some people, I know, share some of them, but the majority may (or may not) see me as completely off-base.  I hope that they will respond to what I say if they read any of this.  I do not speak on behalf of the organization, but on behalf of my own love and concern for it.  These may be the rantings of a lunatic—I’ll let you decide for yourself.

The main problem, as I see, it is the difficulty of engaging enough people in long-term Transition projects and local initiatives to create a critical mass large and active enough to get our story and models out there with the force and consistency they deserve.  There is, I believe, a considerable drop-off from the deeply and fully committed cohort, many of whom were present at the conference, on the one hand, and the necessary (but small in number) “mass” of substantially committed people who have a primary identification with the Transition Movement, on the other.   If I may be pardoned the metaphor, it is as if we have bishops and cardinals aplenty, and some monks, and nuns, but hardly anyone else willing to show up once a week, attend committee meetings, rehearse with the choir, maintain the facility, host the potlucks, teach Sunday school, and give what they can when the hat is passed.  It is not so much that the pews are empty (for with that image the metaphor of Transition involvement entirely breaks down), but that it has failed to become a mini-mass movement in a way hopefully forecasted by the Transition Handbook—the sort of movement that might provide (and share widely) a legitimate alternative to perilous practices of industrial society.  This is not to fault the many people who have engaged with Transition a few times or for a few years before drifting away.  Transition did not provide what they wanted and needed.  And that is where my concern lies.

One of the chief arguments against this focus on the organization itself is that although Transition Initiatives have a habit of dissolving or going into hibernation, a lot of invaluable transitioning nevertheless keeps happening—some of it inspired by a Transition moment in the sun, some inspired by entirely other organizations or experiences.   This is certainly true in Milwaukee, which is full of transitioners—the vibrant food movement with its farmers and chefs and farmers’ markets, the victory gardeners and front yard permaculturalists, the local and sustainable businesses, the study groups, the healers and the healing groups, the dancers, singers, foragers, and tree-worshipers.

So why do we need an official Transition Movement?  Maybe it was meant to light the sky like a flare in the dark and then fade away leaving only the inspiring retinal afterimages.  Maybe the movement doesn’t need an organization.  Maybe it isn’t really a movement at all?

Perhaps.  But here’s why I think we need Transition as an organization: Transition brings together all sorts of transitional, sustainable, and resilient acts into a unified movement with a definable identity–or at least it might.  Transition with a capital T is what might provide a narrative and a set of unifying principles to all sorts of isolated acts that may help us power-down or build local resilience, and in so doing might also multiply their significance.  More important in my mind, Transition is one of the few organizations (outside a few underfunded think-tanks) that tells the truth about climate, energy, and our ecology, while at the same time connecting these truths to issues of social justice, economic inequality, a peace movement, and an understanding of complex international geo-politics, while at the same time yet again, rolling up its sleeves and building things.

Its message, in short, is that we need to power-down, rather than maintain our current way of life by plugging into an alternative power source while hoping for some new and magical levels of efficiency that are more or less mathematically and thermodynamically impossible.  It is the truth-telling organization that can remind those engaged in social justice, healing, or the protection of nature that unless we stop consuming at our current rate, any other kind of progress is temporary at best.  It is the truth-telling organization that can show, not just by charts and graphs but by models for a new culture, the interconnection between economic displacement and our changing climate, between inner turmoil and a colonial mindset, between our cultural traumas and our addictive consumerism.

Although it has not managed to cross the racial divide—something that leadership is painfully and actively aware of—Transitions principles of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share situate it in a place where it can begin meaningful work on white privilege while it renews the invitation to those who, I believe, will never feel invited to the table of the Sierra Club or 350.org or the Nature Conservancy—the sort of traditional environmentalism that has white privilege written into its DNA.  Not only does Transition understand the recent rise of nationalism, moreover, it might provide concrete ways of building institutions of acceptance and understanding in our very neighborhoods.  The yard-signs and protests are a start, but Transition is committed to building concrete alternatives that are at once practical yet tethered to a very unique kind of whole-system thinking.  It is to this message and its practical manifestation that I am most committed.

One of my main suggestions, in light of my perceptions of Transition’s problems as well as its importance will strike many as heresy itself and as an affront to many of the stated principles of Transition and Permaculture.  But I nevertheless want to offer-up the proposition that Transition should remake itself closer to the model of a political party or a church (or temple or mosque)[i].  I hope that by the end of this series this proposal will either make more sense or that it will have been revised into something more palatable to those who might have a visceral reaction to this suggestion at the outset.

I’m going to leave off here for now, though with some parting thoughts about the concept of a “movement,” a concept whose assumptions are quite different than those found in political parties and communities of love and faith.  A movement, as historian Richard J. Evans suggests, implies “dynamism and unceasing forward motion.”  “It also more than . . . [hints] at an ultimate goal, an absolute object to work towards that was grander and more final” than the goals either of a political party or a faith-based community.  A movement transcends politics and culture and has an implied teleology.[ii]  If this teleology remains unrealized, the movement might be deemed a failure.

There was a time in which the Transition Movement maintained this sort of grand and final goal.  Now, it seems to me, the credibility of this goal has either been lost, or has been suspended on a timeline far longer than the brief one necessary to incite the urgent goal-based commitment upon which many Transition initiatives were born and then floundered.   A political party, in contrast, provides identity, holds space (over the long haul), and articulates interests in a way that Transition might, especially if we consider the holding of space and the promoting of interests in a rather figurative way that is at least partially removed from the crude struggles of politics.

Likewise, in some ways, is what I am perhaps misleadingly referring to as a “church”–a community that is focused on love, support, and spiritual nurture, that is committed to acts of kindness and love, and that bears witness and mourns on one day, and celebrates on the next.  Such a “church” may aspire to bring about a vast cultural change; but its being-in-the-world makes complete sense even if it does not precipitate this change.  Transition as a church doesn’t need to “succeed” in order to be successful and fulfill its mission.   It thrives in static and dynamic historical moments, alike, with or without progress towards its goals.  It provides us vulnerable, frightened, and flawed human being with some of what we need to survive great and uncontrollable changes.[iii]  As the great literary critic Kenneth Burke once said of poetry, Transition might also provide “equipment for living.”

I hope that readers will keep in mind that I am at this point using the concepts of political party and church mainly as metaphors and that I am offering them as possibilities for discussion rather than dogmatic conclusions that I am working towards.  In my next installment, either way, I will put on my critical thinking cap and perform a difficult analysis of the narrative that the Transition Movement has been using in order to define itself as a movement, with all the qualities of a movement that Evans describes.

Endnotes

[i] Part, but not all, of my reasoning comes from this:  that work, church, and politics are three of the things that many, many people identify with and attend regularly and attentively.  Religion, moreover, is one of the few forces behind any voluntary relinquishment of consumption or privilege (which isn’t to say that it does this reliably).  Transition has worked valiantly at work, and should continue to do so.  But many of us will need a great deal of time and assistance to meaningfully untether ourselves from the growth economy.  Thanks also to Vicki Robins for her forceful articulation of this.  See also, my http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-09-06/earth-church-2/

[ii] Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 173.  Don’t read anything into the fact that this is drawn from a history of the Third Reich.  It was just the most accessible (i.e. I could find the right page) definition of a movement from books I’ve recently read.

[iii] Shaun Chamberlain’s excellent talk at the Transition Conference (webcast from England) poignantly makes a point similar to this.

Erik Lindberg received his Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature in 1998, with a focus on cultural theory. After completing his degree, Lindberg began his career as a carpenter, and now owns a small, award-winning company that specializes in historical restoration. In 2008 he started Milwaukee’s first rooftop farm, and was a co-founder of the...

Slow Science, Slow Food, Slow Down

by Francisco Ramos-Stierle, "Transformation" on Open Democracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/francisco-ramos-stierle/slow-science-slow-food-slow-down

When we rush, we make decisions that lack information, lack proper reflection, and ultimately make the problems of humanity worse.

Credit: Flickr/Innovate Impact Media. Some rights reserved.

“Where ignorance is your master, there is no possibility of peace.” The XIV Dalai Lama.

The scientific contributions of Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman were fundamental for the construction of the atomic bomb. Today, their reflections on the subject are also fundamental for the survival and evolution of our species. Conversations with both scientists after the Manhattan Project indicate that each felt remorse for their involvement. They wished they had thought through their direct and indirect involvement more thoroughly, and said that if they had known what their work would lead to they might have acted differently.

These quotes from Einstein are glimpses of his perspective:

“I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made. Had I known that Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I never would have lifted a finger. The unleashing of the power of the atom bomb has changed everything except our mode of thinking…Science has brought forth this danger, but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men. We scientists must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power to prevent these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented. Non cooperation in military matters should be an essential moral principle for all true scientists.” 

Feynman joined the Manhattan Project as an enthusiastic and energetic 24 year-old. Later in his life—after recovering from a severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—he said this:

“One should reconsider perpetually one’s reasons for doing something, because it may be that the circumstances have changed… I don’t guarantee you as to what conclusion I would have come to if I had thought about it, but nevertheless the fact that I did not think about it was, of course, wrong.” 

What I hear when I translate the language of these two geniuses into my perspective is this: we were going too fast. We are still going too fast. When we rush, we make decisions that lack information, lack proper reflection, and ultimately make the problems of humanity worse.

Now is the time to slow down, to take a pause, to rethink the purpose of science and education and to cultivate our critical thinking—and our critical feeling. It is time to combine science with the soul: science as the sustainable, collective and critical development of knowledge; soul as the individual and collective capacity to make wise use of that knowledge; ultimately, the ability to rejoice in the welfare of all living beings. Bertrand Russell echoed this postulation when he wrote: “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” 

As a scientist, I am not against science. I am against the unethical applications of science. I represent a new generation that rescues the best of previous generations. Formed by millions of citizens of the World, this generation wants to be part of the mass that weighs on the positive side of the balance of the survival of our species. It’s a generation that cares about our planet; a generation that cares about the future of humankind; a generation that sees the big picture and the interconnectedness of our magnificent cultural and biological diversity.

We, the new generation, believe that the purpose of education is to help students to become more fully developed human beings, to help students discover meaning and passion in life, to develop critical minds and sensitive hearts, and to become knowledgeable about the peoples, inherited wisdoms, and subject matters that will help them find their path in the creation of a more peaceful, just, sustainable, and diverse World.

For us then, universities must be not centers of military recruitment or corporate indoctrination, or obedience to totalitarianism and support of the (dis)order of the non-egalitarian status quo, but they must be epicenters of critical thinking, inspiration, creativity, imagination, justice, freedom and true democracy.

The support of the development of weapons is an example of the contradiction between the purpose of education and the decisions made by some of the regents of the University of California (UC) in the history of this institution: since the Los Alamos Laboratory opened its doors in 1943, every single nuclear weapon built for the United States arsenal was designed at a UC managed weapons laboratory. 

A nonviolent generation with many perspectives.

Paraphrasing Gandhi, to overcome the greatest destructive weapon humans have invented one needs the greatest power humankind has been endowed with: nonviolence. Just as peace is more than the absence of war, nonviolence is more than the absence of violence. It is not simply the negation to cause harm, but it is something infinitely more: it is when one’s heart is so full of love, so full of courage, forgiveness, generosity, kindness and compassion, that there is no room for hatred, resentment and violence. It is not a double negative but a superlative positive.

Nonviolence is a call to disobey inhumane laws and treaties; it is a call to obey the law of love; it is a call to not control anger but to express it under discipline for maximum effects; it is a positive force; it is a way of life: the thoughts we have, the things we say, the food we eat, the cloths we wear, the things we do. The members of this new generation are pragmatic idealists who try to “walk their talk.” Their means are their ends. They are trying to embody what Martin Luther King Jr. called “love in action.” 

This young generation is formed by conservatives, liberals, moderates, anarchists, religious and secular people. We all are catalysts who honor all perspectives to be closer to the truth. I am a progressive, a conservative, a liberal, an anarchist, in short: a perspectivist. In other words, our generation is formed by citizens of the world who promote dialogue, tolerance and rooted values. In most respects, I continue to align with what I grew up believing to be conservative values. Yet I find I have nothing in common with extremists of the far right who advance an agenda of class warfare, fiscal irresponsibility, government intrusions on personal liberty, and reckless international military adventurism as conservative causes.

At the same time, I have nothing to approve of in extremists of the far left who advocate violence and a new way of totalitarianism which keeps attacking the human spirit. At the same time too, I’m not an anarchist as defined in the encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. written by the hierarchies and their corporate media, I’m engaged and in love with the voluptuous authority of collective intelligence; with her hugs of education, respect and peace; and with her kisses of justice, true democracy and freedom.

To be consistent with this new generation, one of my contributions is that I did not want to receive a title from an irresponsible institution that is putting at risk the survival of our species. Hence, this semester, after almost four years of interacting with the amazing and beautiful people of the Astronomy department as a graduate student and instructor—after seven years of following the fascinating path of Astrobiology—I withdrew from the University of California at Berkeley and will have nothing to do with that institution until it stops being involved in the research, production and manufacture of nuclear weapons.

In evolutionary time scales, I believe that violence and science are mutually exclusive; the two cannot coexist in the long run. Vinoba Bhave was quite aware of this: “Violence must be done away with if science is to survive," he wrote, "If both are sought to be retained, mankind, along with its science also, would be destroyed.” This disastrous combination inhibits the development of critical inquiry, he explains, because “our thinking becomes narrow and circumscribed if we are associated with any organization which will not be fully conductive for the quest of nonviolence.” 

If we want to stop the proliferation of atomic bombs, it would be a good idea to stop producing them ourselves. If the government of the United States justifies nuclear weapons for its national security, why wouldn’t other countries construct atomic bombs for their own national security? This is not about “national security” but Global Security, Human Security—reconciliation and mutual respect between the peoples of the Earth is what really makes for peace and security in the long run, each country can be secure only when all are secure: the Earth is but one country and all living beings her citizens.

The political and intellectual prestige of the UC can be used not for justifying annihilatory purposes but for creating an artistic-scientific-spiritual-rational and humanitarian society. Just because we are students studying art, economics, engineering, peace and conflict studies, landscape architecture or astrophysics that doesn’t mean that we have to be part of an institution that develops new “safer weapons of mass destruction”. What if, rooted in the purpose of education as true seekers, the citizens of the World decide to noncooperate, according to their capabilities, with the UC until this institution stops being involved in the research, production and manufacture of nuclear weapons?

But this is not just about finding ways to abolish nuclear weapons and move on from this survival crisis. We are missing a great opportunity to convert swords into plowshares. We must divert their purpose into something constructive for humanity. What about protecting us from the impact of a large asteroid or comet to avoid a mass extinction of life on the Planet? We might be able to use nuclear explosives for a near asteroid burst to ablate surface material and nudge the body to a safer orbit, or a direct sub-surface burst to fragment the body.

That’s the difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing.

As a starting point we can slow down, pause, rethink and heal from the cancer of violence which starts to disappear from our minds. Eknath Easwaran, a disciple of Gandhi who brought many of his teachings to the West, said: 

“It is essential not to confuse slowness with sloth, which breeds procrastination and general inefficiency. In slowing down, we attend meticulously to details, giving the very best we are capable of even to the smallest undertaking.”

That is exactly what we need to do.

A longer version of this article was published on Earthling Opinion. 

How to Set Up a Community Co-op

by Stir to Action, on Shareable: http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-to-set-up-a-community-co-op

Before joining the Institute for Solidarity Economics recently, I spent the last five years working for rural communities charity the Plunkett Foundation, an organization which supports the establishment of community co-operatives. Community co-operatives are businesses which trade primarily for the benefit of their community. Controlled by the community themselves, they have open and voluntary membership and, crucially, they encourage people to get involved – either by becoming a member, or by volunteering time or getting involved in another way.

By encouraging widespread involvement from their local community members, community co-ops play a really important role in helping to overcome issues like social isolation and loneliness, which can be prevalent, particularly in rural areas. Community co-operatives are set up on a one member, one vote basis, rather than one share, one vote. This is important because it means that all members have an equal say in how the co-operative is run, regardless of how many shares they’ve bought or how much money they've invested. In this way, they are truly democratic forms of business.

People choose to set up community co-ops for a variety of reasons, from safeguarding local services which may be under threat of closure, like the village shop or local pub, to wanting to establish a new service that meets the needs of local people. In all cases, the result is usually a thriving local hub of activity which meets a broad range of social needs.

There are now hundreds of community co-ops thriving all over the U.K. One example is the co-operatively owned George and Dragon pub in Hudswell, North Yorkshire, which recently won the coveted 2017 CAMRA Pub of the Year Award – a brilliant example of a local becoming so much more than a pub. Around 200 people came together when the pub closed nine years ago and reopened it as a co-operative, recognizing that if they were going to save one of the only community spaces left in the area, they’d have to do it themselves. Today it's a busy community hub that contains the village library, a community shop and community allotments, and the pub caters to both locals and visitors alike.

Recently celebrating its 15th birthday is Dalwood Community Shop in Devon. The shop is entirely manned by 45 volunteers and is open 363 days per year. It's one of 31 such community shops in the county, all of which are safeguarding these vital village services and making a real difference to the lives of people who live there.

Here's an outline on how you can set up a community cooperative. Please open the infographic below in a new tab to view a larger version:

This piece was originally published in STIR to Action Magazine.

Header image by Rebecca Siegal via Flickr