Profit AND Purpose: Leaders Making the Shift to a New Economy
This article contains the content from the 7/30/2020 Bioneers Pulse newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter straight to your inbox!
The current economic system is one of cannibalistic capitalism. As corporations serve their own bottom line, communities and ecosystems pay the price. But what if the system encouraged a more symbiotic relationship between businesses and the world around them?
The calls to balance profit with purpose are getting louder, and visionary leaders across the nation are answering. Academics, activists and more are reimagining our guiding economic principles, and by putting alternatives into place with innovative projects, they’re showing how a new economy is already starting to take shape.
This week, we learn from some of these new concepts, and contemplate a more equitable economic future.
The Great American Sci-Fi: Utopia or Dystopia?
In this piece, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson examines the possible outcomes of our current economic system, and offers avenues toward a utopian future.
“I think it’s very important to point out that we have the technical capacity, the social skills and the knowledge to create a sustainable and just civilization for all 8 billion people on the planet, and all the rest of the biosphere’s living creatures, including the large mammals that are most endangered. It’s not fantasy to say that; it’s an extrapolation of already existing things that we know. The technology is not the hard part. It’s already invented, but we have to pay ourselves to install it fast. That’s an economic question, and it doesn’t work in capitalism. We have the means right now to arrange for everybody alive today to have adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and healthcare, within the biosphere’s carrying capacity. One of the oldest maxims in the English language is ‘enough is as good as a feast.’ In fact enough is even better than a feast, because feasting makes you sick. We can create enough for every living creature.”
New! The Latest Bioneers Reader: Our Economic Future
Record-setting income inequality. Stagnating wages for the middle class. A non-existent focus on work-life balance. Businesses built on resource depletion.
The U.S. economy is standing on shaky ground, built by exhausted, underpaid workers on stolen land. It’s time to create solutions that shift our economic ideals away from profit at any cost and toward prosperity for all.
Our brand new Bioneers reader is a premium collection of wisdom from leading figures in progressive economic thought and action, beautifully packaged for easy on-the-go reading.
Owning Our Future After COVID-19: A 5-Point Plan for U.S. National Economic Reconstruction and Community Transformation
COVID-19 poses a dual challenge: a terrifying public health emergency, and the unprecedented economic shutdown. At the same time the pandemic is once again making obvious the racialized nature of our political economy. It is no coincidence that Indigenous, Black, and Latinx peoples are bearing the brunt of the disaster, in general suffering much higher morbidity rates and health and economic pain than white communities. This underscores a truth that long preceded COVID-19: the real virus is our undemocratic, inequitable and ultimately destructive economic system that attacks the vital organs our lives depend on: our communities, how we relate to each other, meaningful work, how wealth is produced and enjoyed, and even nature’s capacity to sustain life.
The Democracy Collaborative and The Next System Project have outlined a 5-point plan to lead us toward a better economic future.
brandon king: Making the Transition from Extraction to Regeneration
Given the existential threats of climate change, economic inequality and ever escalating political instability, we need concrete, integrated solutions to our shared problems. An inspiring model of what such an integrated approach could look like is Jackson, Mississippi’s Cooperation Jackson, an emerging network of worker cooperatives and solidarity economy institutions working to institute a Just Transition Plan to develop a regenerative economy and participatory democracy in that city. brandon king, Founding Member of Cooperation Jackson, shares his experiences helping conceive and build these extraordinarily promising strategies and social structures that reveal that we can put our shoulders to the wheel and build a truly just and sustainable future.
Join A Livestream Screening Event of “The Wild” August 6!
Aug. 6 at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST
This online gathering serves as an urgent call-to-action to tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pause the permitting of a Canadian mining company to excavate North America’s largest open-pit copper mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska — home to the last fully intact salmon run in the world.
This livestream of THE WILD is not just a screening, but an experience, and will include live conversations with luminaries from the film, calls-to-action for participants and more. 25% of ticket sales go toward the work to save Bristol Bay.
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- We Are Not A Mascot: A Big Win in the Fight Against Anti-Native Racism | Earlier this month, the Washington NFL team decided to change its racist name and mascot. American Indian rights advocate Suzan Shown Harjo reflects on the long road to get here.
- Interview with Merlin Sheldrake, Author of Entangled Life | Bioneers sat down with the author and biologist to discuss his latest book and what fungal networks can teach us about the world around us.
- James Nestor: How Breathing Exercises Can Change Your Life | In his new book, Nestor tells the tale of exploring ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, the smoggy streets of São Paulo and beyond — all to learn the hidden science behind ancient breathing exercises.
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This article contains the content from the 7/30/2020 Bioneers Pulse newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter straight to your inbox!
