Green Shoots from the Greek Economic Collapse

originally published 3 July 2013

One of the first presentations we attended at the Findhorn conference was ‘The Crisis and the Emergence of Communal Experiments in Greece’ by Nicholas Anastasopoulos, lecturer at the National Technical University in Athens. He outlines how, in response to the Greek economic crisis, numerous collectives have formed both to maintain solidarity and provide for their basic needs.

“For many, resilience becomes synonymous with survival but several collectives choose to go beyond that by adopting active, sometimes genuinely proactive ways of dealing with the situation.” A story unravels “which indicates the emergence of a communitarian movement in the form of various initiatives, collectives and eco-communities, a repopulation of the countryside.”

This presentation has confirmed for me the relationship between communities and economies. Market systems and their associated supporting political and legal systems allow us to to believe we are independent of each other. With all our needs provided by the market, to a minimum standard guaranteed by government regulation, we feel independent. When these systems collapse it becomes necessary to rediscover our dependence on others and the community around us.

Nicholas has offered to connect us with some of the newly developing communities in Greece, which we are due to visit at the end of September. More on Greece and communal developments arising from the economic collapse to come.