Info, news & debate

Philosophy

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Thinking of starting a community enterprise? Win a free place on a three-day workshop

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Our friend Jonathan at Stir to Action (incorporating STIR Magazine) is hosting a three-day workshop for people who are interested in starting a community enterprise, rather than joining the corporate rat-race. He’s offering one place on this workshop for free

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Review of Ralph Ibbott’s book ‘Ujamaa: the hidden story of Tanzania’s socialist villages’ and how I was lied to in Tanzania

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I have a special interest in this book. As a young man in the 1980s I’d read Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa (Swahili for “togetherness”, “unity” or “familyhood”). I was inspired by his vision of a co-operative, non-hierarchical society based on sustainable villages

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Mutualism: a philosophy for changing society with a difference – it’s implementable

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There are lots of ideas for changing the world – from voting to demonstrations, petitions, lifestyle change, incremental change, revolutionary change, or more of the same, only harder. The problem with many of them is that they are either ineffective or not implementable.

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Review of ‘Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi’ by Mark Boyle – part 2: the role of violence

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This is the second article generated from Mark Boyle’s book Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi. The first was about the ineffectiveness of reformism when faced with corporate capitalism – ‘The Machine’ as he calls it.

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Introducing the ‘How to do it’ conference on how to change the system from grassroots, London, April 9-10

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There are many ideas out there on how to change the world – but very few include a strategy for implementing those ideas. Implementation is key. I had a conversation the other day with Roger Hallam, who used to be involved with Radical Routes, has lived in various communities and now

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Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science

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I’m at the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, and I’m writing this as a session on GM food is taking place. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I fell into a conversation until it was too late to join the session. However, I know someone who attended that session, and she’ll hopefully write a

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Review of ‘Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi’ by Mark Boyle – part 1: reformism and the Transition movement

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This was a very challenging and thought-provoking read. Mark lived without money for three years, and wrote the Moneyless Manifesto, published in 2012. This is his latest book about the corporate ‘Machine’ and appropriate responses to it.

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What might poultry farms and human society look like if chickens and humans weren’t treated as machines to maximise profit?

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Making use of biological resources, or renewable resources and services as David Holmgren characterises them, is an important principle of Permaculture Design. ‘Renewable services (or passive functions) are those we gain from plants, animals and living soil and water without them being consumed.’

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To all environmental groups: lifestyle change isn’t going to be enough to avert ecological catastrophe

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Someone said to me the other day that he associated ‘low-impact’ with lifestyle but not with politics or economics. Someone else asked why we blogged about TTIP, economic growth or system change when we were ‘just’ an environmental organisation.

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Review: Julius Nyerere’s ‘Ujamaa’, why a beautiful idea went wrong and how it can be adapted for the 21st century

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This is a book that I discovered in my twenties, and it impressed me so much that I ended up making my way to Tanzania in 1991, and staying for a couple of months on two ujamaa villages. Ujamaa means ‘familyhood’, a concept that Nyerere wanted to extend to encompass the whole of humanity,

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What do you think about about this video by Rob Newman, and what does that say about you?

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This is ‘the History of Oil’ by comedian Rob Newman. You might have seen it already, but if not, have a look – it’s very funny, as well as spot-on. He mentions the Radio 4 news item – that there was ‘an American plan to bring democracy to the Middle East’, and marvels at the

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The Yamagishi Association: successful, moneyless, leaderless network of communes in Japan and elsewhere

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In the 1990s I visited the headquarters of the Yamagishi Association in Mie-ken in Japan. It’s a federation of intentional communities that is still going strong – but even then it comprised 3000 people in 30 villages all over Japan

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