Briefing for CommonBound Workshop

Visions of the Future

We asked interviewees to tell us what the new economy looks like five years from now, in 2019. Here’s what they had to say…

"The way we talk about the economy has changed. We now integrate the environment, so we have a healthy place to live. We now have public banks, which are accountable and support local economies. The way we measure progress has changed, so we measure what we value.” Noel Ortega, Institute for Policy Studies

"There's economic power at the local level and more cooperation than competition. It's a mature ecosystem, symbiotic, and different organizations have their niches. In 2019 we see businesses are more locally owned. Most assets are held collectively since we've identified that that is the most advantageous way to live. There's a lot more interconnectedness and connectedness in our locales…community wealth is measured not by GDP but in the health of relationships of mutual support and cooperation, on the well-being of community." Carolyne Stayton, Transition US

“Across place, these new forms of economy are rooted in diverse forms of leadership. For example, immigrant communities of the South of the US have literally been at the heel of the boot of the dominant economy, but are now located at the center of these new forms of democratic governance. There is a truly multi-racial expression, a cross-class expression of leadership and creation and vision and application being manifested everywhere that gives life to what deep democracy means from the workplace up to the statehouse.” Mateo Nube, Movement Generation

"The community owns its own energy, owns common land together, has common telecommunications services. The commons has grown - it had been shrinking - and this network of [sharing] cities has really blossomed and is taking ownership of its own destiny. The models that are emerging are being spread through the network, virally and organically, replicating in a way that reflects each community's culture and goals. And when I say sharing I mean anything from public banking and alternative currencies, housing and food cooperatives, makerspaces and art collectives." Mira Luna, Shareable

"There are now hundreds of ‘Local Economy’ or ‘Livability Centers’ across the United States. They're in small rural towns, suburbs and neighborhoods in big cities--Chicago has five of them! They are physical centers and the go-to place for education, action and starting new local businesses. The Centers are the focal point for the sustainability movement in each location. And they ROCK! They are totally supported by a diverse array of income streams.” Kelley Rajala, Livability Project

Developing a Shared Narrative & Vision

Can we develop a shared narrative and vision powerful enough to engage millions of people in building new economies, while honoring a multiplicity of stories, strengths, and audiences?

Potential elements of a new economic narrative:

Historical perspective

Elements of the current economy that are dysfunctional

Elements/vision of the new economy

Many economies or one economy?

Community-based, mutual support

Equity & racial justice

Deep-rooted democracy

Ecological balance/sustainability

De-growth/steady state or continued growth?

Alternative economies, currencies, and indicators of progress

"We live in a world that's divisive by design, with an effort to split us into groups of 51 and 49% so that those in power can keep things the way they are. The more that we can find those 80/20 or 99/1 things that unite us, the better. A unified populous is a powerful thing.” Joe Grafton, AMIBA

"[We] need a story line tying the powerful work happening on the ground with the policy and governance piece that [either] gets in the way of, or can facilitate the work of families and communities building the life they want, and tying that to the paradigm-shifting work taking place in different realms." Heather Tischbein, Thriving Resilient Communities Collaboratory

"There's not one economy - that's a cultural construct that's been forced upon us. Really what we need is many economies.” Mateo Nube, Movement Generation

"…in terms of the national discourse, we understand that there's an issue of climate change and an issue of inequality… to address inequality sometimes it’s said that we just need to “grow the pie,” but that conflicts with the need for ecological sustainability." Noel Ortega, Institute for Policy Studies

"Community is a cultural value, not a political value." Sarah Baird, Center for a New American Dream

Questions

What is most alive and inspiring for you with regard to this focus area?

What tensions or edges are you grappling with?

How would you like to see the NEC engage in this area?

Connecting & Supporting Local Efforts

Many participants shared a future vision of community-based, localized economies rooted in local needs, culture, and resources, and we’ve heard countless stories of new economy successes at the local level. Connecting and supporting local grassroots organizers within a given community to facilitate collaboration and the flow of ideas, information and resources, could be one of the most powerful strategies for rapidly scaling up the new economy.

"What is the best, most effective, most elegant way of collaborating and working together for greatest gain, and what could those systems look like? What's that architecture and communications structure, that's as simple as possible but gives enough bones to the structure so it is coherent and strong? What do the groups on the ground want?” Carolyne Stayton, Transition US

“We've seen that our [Center for a New American Dream & Shareable] teams can come together and join forces, moving forward together, especially with Sharefest. Also, we have different "toolkits" we provide, and different backgrounds and resources, and those have crossed over and been shared between the two groups pretty well.” Sarah Baird, Center for a New American Dream

"As the network grows, the staff will step back and allow people to connect with each other. Otherwise it's just a nonprofit telling people what to do. A network helps people to share their dreams with each other, support each other. Initially we [may] have to broker relationships, but more and more those connections are being made, or after we broker them they take off on their own. It's a lot more authentic. The old organizing model is: ‘I go in with an agenda.’ [The new model] is empowerment, allow people to create their own destiny. It happens when a community is connected to itself, but also to other communities doing similar work." Mira Luna, Shareable

Questions

What is most alive and inspiring for you with regard to this focus area?

What tensions or edges are you grappling with?

How would you like to see the NEC engage in this area?

Race, Class, and Privilege

To build a just and sustainable future, we will need to address the legacy of centuries of structural racism, labor exploitation, and resource extraction. What steps can we take -- individually, within our respective organizations, and as a movement -- to facilitate equity?

“What's really alive for us is to anchor ourselves in the the pillars of the economy we're trying build out, and in thinking of those five pillars, to root ourselves in an understanding that:

The resources...in this economy need to be created through regeneration.

The labor needs to be applied though cooperation.

The purpose should be collective well-being, and the limits should be truly defined by ecological systems, which...should be defined by boundaries instead of borders - embracing ecological concepts of boundaries like watersheds, foodsheds, energysheds, etc. and rejecting the arbitrary nature of borders.

The culture of this economy should be one of sacredness.

The governance should be...deep democracy, from the workplace to statehouse.”

Mateo Nube, Movement Generation

"We're trying to bring a class and race lens into everything. One thing about class culture and working class organizations - people who are attracted to the idea of Transition & resilience tend to be a college-educated constituency, which can be class-diverse, but there's a difference between being attracted to the concept as an idea vs. as a source of livelihood. So part of our constituency is future-oriented: thinking about climate change, resource depletion, etc. And part of our constituency is attracted to our projects like the time circle because they can get trade for a free haircut, and they are underemployed. And we always have really good food - part of our organizational commitment is to feed people quality food. People can come and eat, we're constantly breaking bread together. We honor that people are coming in through different portals, and try not to be so abstract. We'll be more relevant as we do more stuff around livelihoods - moving money, moving consumer power to the local economy." Chuck Collins, JPNET

“...we need to raise the bottom to meet basic human needs, but also bring down the top (by restructuring the money system, worker ownership, and new forms of ownership).” Noel Ortega, Institute for Policy Studies

Questions

What is most alive and inspiring for you with regard to this focus area?

What tensions or edges are you grappling with?

How would you like to see the NEC engage in this area?

Communications Network

A collective communications network is developing to support movement-wide connection and coordination, and to foster broader awareness of the possibility of building a new economy.

"What's most alive in my work...is probably the virtual connections between our members. Since we've stopped doing conferences (due to cost), the primary means of communicating with members is virtually: website, electronic newsletters, social media, and some in-person gatherings. We've invested what time and money we can into improving our electronic communications...my big dream is to improve our database with member's interests and needs and opportunities...customizing our online membership to deliver the kinds of resources and info our members need, and profile their work to reach a broader audience." Michael Toye, Canadian Community Economic Development Network

"...massive change requires speaking to more than middle- and upper-class people." Joe Grafton, AMIBA

“…if we share resources, co-promote events, etc. we can support each other rather than compete with the mainstream economy." Mira Luna, Shareable

"One of the complexities is taking these "new [social] technologies" (the sharing economy, for example), and figuring out how to teach them and make them accessible to the mainstream." Kelley Rajala, Livability Project

"The NEC gathered a lot of groups and built it to a scale that involved almost everyone. The most exciting thing was a system/mechanism to share information rapidly throughout the network. The more that happened the more real it became. People built stronger relationships and connected, building the foundation for a stronger movement. People were very dynamic, able to respond quickly to different issues but at the same time very focused. As things progressively got worse, the NEC was there as a solution. When the country was ready, NEC had already built the system to transition to, and we [did] that without society collapsing." +Noel Ortega, Institute for Policy Studies (Speaking from 5 years into the future)

"What was exciting about the five years following the NEC conference is that there was a real concrete effort made to articulate a vision, a sense of a shared horizon about where we wanted to go and how all these different pieces of the new economy fit together.... Having effective networks to actually communicate that proved to be really essential in helping these developments accelerate each other." John Duda, Democracy Collaborative

Questions

What is most alive and inspiring for you with regard to this focus area?

What tensions or edges are you grappling with?

How would you like to see the NEC engage in this area?

Shifting Capital & Resources

Scaling up our work requires shifting significant capital and resources out of the current economy and into the new economy. There already exist diverse pathways for moving resources into the new economy, including:

Divestment (from fossil fuels and from the dominant economy in general)

Localization and local investing

Alternative currencies and timebanking

Reclaiming the commons

Changing policy (redirecting government resources)

"We don't need to identify and move trillions to identify to create a new [economic] center of gravity, just billions into new regenerative forms of production and creation. We can create many more jobs and many more opportunities for healthy livelihoods than the old dominant economy. One of the primary indicators of success will be identifying the pathways that enable capital to start moving into these news forms of infrastructure and production." Mateo Nube, Movement Generation

"An "anchor Institution" is a large non-profit institution, classically a university or hospital that is bound by place, unlike a corporation which has a lot of resources, but is not bound to place or community. It's those resources and long-term perspective on relationship to place that offers some long-term possibilities for building the new economy... [W]e're seeing that these anchor institutions, which control huge amounts of resources, are starting to get very intentional about how they're spending their money and using those resources…toward sustaining the community instead of continuing in an exploitative and unsustainable economy." John Duda, Democracy Collaborative

"In Greensboro, NC we're launching a community grocery store in a longstanding food desert in an urban community...and last week, I was meeting with a County Commissioner. They're trying to figure out how to move county money to help open the grocery store, and to have an ongoing piece of the public health budget directed at food deserts. The reason they are taking this seriously is because of all the people power generated through two years of work. It's not uncommon for 150 people to show up at a City Council meeting… just building momentum around a shared goal, stating the need, providing technical assistance, etc." Marnie Thompson, Fund for Democratic Communities

Questions

What is most alive and inspiring for you with regard to this focus area?

What tensions or edges are you grappling with?

Generally, resources expect some kind of return (however defined). Should a new economy depend (at least in part) on financial returns? What kind of returns should we project if we’re in a "low/slow/no-grow" economy?