Info, news & debate

The ‘democracy problem’

Could you be part of a team working to challenge pro-corporate bias in UK trade deals?

Can you offer your IT skills to help build a website to challenge the pro-corporate bias in UK trade deals?

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Website help needed: with Brexit, the UK will be heading into international ‘trade’ deals, which are likely to be as much about establishing corporate rights and diminishing democracy as the EU/US TTIP – a deal that is now on the back-burner.

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Post-Brexit trade deals explained: how they will hand more power to multinational corporations – at our expense

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With Brexit the main aim seems to be to have trade agreements with as many countries as possible and as soon as possible. Little attention is paid (none?) to the content or purpose of those post-Brexit trade deals – and for whose benefit they would be.

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The Trump administration is going to attack us if we try to restrict the imports of US genetically-modified food in any way

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Linda Kaucher of Stop TTIP UK recently alerted us to the fact that the US government is determined to go into battle with any country that tries to restrict imports of its genetically-modified food.

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Can you imagine a world without money?

Can you imagine a world without money? Summary of the ‘credit commons’ idea and how it could be achieved

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Last week I blogged about a potentially world-changing idea that could be labelled ‘credit commons’, or the catchy ‘global mutual credit system’. It’s a system of exchange that involves no money. It’s difficult to grasp at first, but the more you think about it, the more you realise that a) it’s implementable, and b) if

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How money causes poverty (plus war and ecological destruction), and what could replace it

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Exchange has always been part of the human story, whether between individuals, tribes or nations. Some people have what others don’t, due to geography or skill, and exchange is a means of getting what you don’t have, and giving what you have a surplus of.

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Time to ditch the corporate sector in favour of the solidarity economy

Why an economy that’s not dominated by the corporate sector would be much better for individuals, communities and nature

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Lowimpact.org is an organisation that was founded by two people in 2001 because of concerns about ecological damage and what that might mean for the future of humanity. The focus has always been on individual lifestyle change

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Examples of organisation within the non-corporate sector

Let’s build a sustainable, non-corporate world; but what exactly does ‘non-corporate’ mean?

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This is the first of two articles examining the non-corporate sector, and its advantages for ecology, democracy, communities and individuals. Here’s a checklist of the benefits of reducing the reach of the corporate sector, but first, let’s work out what kind of organisations comprise the non-corporate sector.

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'Feeding the beast': is democracy obsolete?

Is democracy obsolete, and can we ever achieve it as long as we have to keep feeding ‘the beast’?

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In the West, there’s a word that usually accompanies ‘democracy’, and that word is ‘liberal’. Liberal democracies – that’s what we have in the West. That’s liberal, as in liberty / freedom; and that’s certainly what classical liberalism stood for in its infancy.

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On the Wealth of Nations by P.J. O'Rourke

How to misrepresent Adam Smith: review of P. J. O’Rourke’s ‘On the Wealth of Nations’

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I don’t know if you’re familiar with P. J., but he’s an excellent writer, and he’s extremely, acerbically funny. With this book, as with his Give War a Chance, several times he made me spit my tea out and have to stop to wipe tea off the page.

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Is there common ground between right and left thinking?

What are the roots of right and left thinking, and can we unite left and right against corporate power?

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Why do people who consider themselves ‘left-wing’ seem to embrace a raft of policies that appear unrelated? For example, if you’re of the left, and you believe in (say) progressive taxation, why should that also mean that you believe in gun control, or

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Fairphone - designed to open

Companies like Fairphone, Ecotricity etc. are doing great things, but could easily be picked off by the corporate sector; why aren’t they co-ops?

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Body Shop, Green & Blacks, Ben & Jerry’s and Innocent Drinks represented a Brave New World when it came to doing business – Fair Trade, sustainable, (slightly) less hierarchical, informal, friendly.

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