Upstream - Documentary #5: The Call For A New Economy

Episode Date: March 21, 2017

Bellowing out in the songs of eco-village choirs and reverberating down city streets through the chants of the 99%, the call for a new economy echoes out over the dying gasps of late capitalism. From energy co-operatives in Spain that are literally bringing power to the local level, to a small school hidden deep in the English moors that is redesigning the study of economics, to a vast coalition in North America that is challenging domination by the 1%, this episode of Upstream explores the movement for a new economy. Our story begins in 1984, just outside of the G7 World Economic Summit in London, where a small group convened a counter summit to challenge the ideas and theories that dominated mainstream economics. We follow the ripples of this seminal event as they radiate out through the world and on into our current era of Trump & Brexit. This lineage traces back to the work of the renegade economist E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977). You'll hear from him, as well as many of the other people and organizations on the cutting-edge of this broad movement that is working to revolutionize the way we think about what the economy is, the way economics is taught, and the way we embody new economics in practice. Featuring: Tim Crabtree - Senior Lecturer at Schumacher College Aniol Esteban - Program Director of The New Economics Foundation E. F. Schumacher - From the archives of the Schumacher Center for New Economics Satish Kumar - Founder of Schumacher College & Editor of Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine Jonathan Dawson - Coordinator of the Economics for Transition M. A. Program at Schumacher College Kate Raworth - Author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist Katherine Trebeck - Senior Researcher at Oxfam Eli Feghali - Director of Communications and Online Organizing for the New Economy Coalition Andres Montesinos - Coordinator at Som Energia Isabel Benitez - Coordinator of the New Economy & Social Innovation Forum Music: Lanterns (theme music) Amonie Tapes and Topographies Owu Kou Woo Haunted Haus Cover image by Robert Raymond Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/upstream/id1082594532?mt=2 This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A radio documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Join us as we journey upstream.

To the heart of our economic system. And discover cutting-edge stories. Of game-changing solutions based on connection, resilience, and prosperity for all. The Group of Seven, or simply G7, is a group of the world's most advanced economies. The world's seven richest industrialized democracies. Now, the G7 summit. The G7 summit, which is still ongoing. Trade markets should remain open, not closed.

The G7 leaders conceded they'd failed to solve the problems of mass unemployment. After a final round of meetings, the G7 leaders posed for another family photo. To keep our economy growing and creating a job. A little economy and the need to boost growth globally. We've not yet shared your success in bringing down unemployment, although profits are well up. There was to be some hard bargaining ahead in talks on the world economy. Global economic growth is now so weak that the world could face another major financial crisis. ...shot in the arm for the world economy.

Protests against global capitalism. Pro-environment protests. Protests calling for debt relief for poor countries. The gross national product has been increasing. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets Saturday to oppose other issues on the discussion. Welcome to the protests against the G7 summit. So what's it all about? Well, first of all, the group of seven, the G7, that's a club of the leaders.

Talk about the massive protests that's going on outside, met by an even larger police presence. Outside the summit, protesters have been met by a massive show of police force. G7 protesters were able to march to... The G7 summit hasn't even started yet, so the protests are in full swing. ...and the leadership of our government. Are those fears warranted? And how serious is the threat of a recession

if something works? of a recession or something worse. Outside of the corridors of power and tucked beneath the sounds of flash grenades and riot police, there has been a more quiet, less covered form of resistance to the G7 summits. It started in 1984 and just blocks from the G7 meeting then in London.

And the name for it? The Other Economic Summit. This is Tim Crabtree. I'm a lecturer at Schumacher College on a master's program in economics. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the Other Economic Summit. I think one of the important things to remember is that the Other Economic Summit took place in a very difficult time in terms of the British economy and the global economy. So there was a serious recession underway. There was a great deal of strife in Britain. You know, we'd had the miners strike, strikes by public sector workers, the economy was really suffering as a result of the policies that the Thatcher government had introduced. And at the time, I was studying economics at Oxford, and I was having a terrible time. I really didn't enjoy studying economics at Oxford. It was a very

traditional course, and I found a lot of what was being taught very uncomfortable. found a lot of what was being taught very uncomfortable. So I came across a notice in a magazine. In those days, we didn't have the wearable email. So I just saw a notice about this thing called the Other Economics Summit. And I hadn't really heard about alternative economics, but I was very open to learning more. So the first summit was quite small, learning more. So the first summit was quite small, 60 people I read. So it had a really kind of intimate feel to it. It wasn't sort of big plenary sessions so much as, you know, smaller workshops and exploring particular themes. It was an amazing gathering, though. It was the first, probably the first gathering of a whole range of alternative economists from around the world coming together. The organisers had managed to book a place called the Royal Overseas League, which was just down the road from the official summit.

And it was actually inside the police cordon. So that was really nice that when you attended the summit in the morning, you would go through this police cordon. So that was really nice that when you attended the summit in the morning, you would go through this police cordon, you'd go to a counter summit, just a few hundred yards from where the real one was being held. And I'd have to say that attending those two summits, it kind of changed my life because it made me realize that actually economics could be interesting, it could be challenging, it was really important. Tim was one of my teachers on the Masters of Economics for Transition program at Schumacher College. If it wasn't for the Other Economics Summit, perhaps our paths would never have crossed. In this episode, we'll explore many of the ripples that have

come from this event that together have come to be known as the movement for a new economy. The New Economics Foundation started and was founded in 1986, and it started as the secretariat of what was called the Other Economic Summit, what was called the Other Economic Summit, which was being held in parallel as the G7 meeting was taking place. This is Aniol Esteban, Program Director of the New Economics Foundation, or NEF. After the G7, that secretariat continued to exist, and I think it went on for a few more G7 meetings, continued to exist. And I think it went on for a few more G7 meetings. And it gradually converted and transformed to a think tank, which is what we are today, a charity, which challenges the current way we do economics. It challenges conventional

economic thinking, basically. And what are some examples of traditional economic thinking? That wealth trickles down from wealthy people to poorer people, or that we have a free market where people operate with perfect information and perfect levels of power, or that we need to work more and more and more to succeed at having a successful economy. So the New Economics Foundation was born to challenge some of those assumptions and economic thoughts that has been at the very, very core of the way we've been doing economics for many years. And this means that through these 30, 31 years of history, we have had to come out publicly with some very bold messages. So just, for example, saying that GDP is not the best measure of progress, that you need to start measuring people's well-being and happiness, or that a shorter working week might be the solution

to the multiple challenges that we face today, or that you need to decentralize banks and go back to a model by which banks operate at a more local level and are better able to deal with the local needs and provide for the citizens which operate in that area. So this has been the story of the new economics. It's been about challenging conventional economic wisdom and coming up with new ideas. One of the great inspirations for the movement for a new economy was the work of a German man named E.F. Schumacher, who lived from 1911 to 1977 and is well known for the book Small is Beautiful, a study of economics as if people mattered. Schumacher was a traditional economist whose career was turned upside down when he went to Burma to promote Western economic development. While he was there, he realized that the Burmese people were actually attaining

well-being not by increasing their consumption, but by reducing their needs and wants, a very Buddhist perspective. Conventional Western economic theory believes that work is a disutility, a price we pay in order to get the goodies of consumption. But Schumacher found that in Burma, it was exactly the opposite. The high quality of life that he found there was based on the fact that people were doing work that was actually meaningful to them. Here's a clip of Schumacher speaking from the archives of the Schumacher Center for New Economics in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. We've got to come to something more rational than what we've got now.

And if we don't do it deliberately, it will be forced upon us through the facts of the universe. We'll have to adopt quite different principles in our thinking, namely that there is no virtue, no value in maximizing consumption. virtue, no value in maximizing consumption. You want to maximize satisfactions, and you want to get your satisfactions with a minimum of consumption to still get them. Now, this is what the voluntary simplicity movement in this country are beginning to discover. They're not dour-faced Puritans. On the contrary, they say,

God, I'm all burdened with all this clutter. In order to maintain this clutter, I have to make a big income. So I'm in the rat race. If I get rid of the clutter, I can get out of the rat race. And I can have a job, a modest job, which is enough to keep me going. And I'm a free person compared with what I was before. I'm here at Schumacher College, named after E.F. Schumacher, to speak with the founder, Satish Kumar, who's also the editor of Resurgence magazine. He's teaching in a class now. Let's go poke our heads in. He was conditioned in Oxford. Western economist. It was quite a revelation. I knew Schumacher quite well. We worked together. It was him

who really persuaded me to become the editor of Resurgence. So I had lots of conversation with Schumacher and that's one reason that we call this place Schumacher College because we wanted to honor his name. So it was a kind of revelation in Burma and he he said, Burma does not need, India does not need, Africa does not need Western kind of development. We have to free and liberate ourselves from the idea that we are consumers. We caught up with Satish after class. We have to move towards being makers and taking pleasure in less but better and have more time for ourselves. For time. Be time rich and goods poor.

Rather than goods rich and time poor. At the moment people and time poor. At the moment, people are time poor. They have no time to walk, no time to meditate, no time to read, no time to write poetry, no time to paint pictures, no time to dance, no time to see their older parents, no time even for their husbands, wives. They're all working all day.

They come in the evening, exhausted, watch television, go to bed. Is that good economics? That's a bad economics. Good economics should be economics of relationship, where we have time for ourselves and time for our friends and family and time for gardening and time for walking and time for reading and time for making. That is my vision of economics. So for you, the new economy emphasizes the more relational aspects of life. What do you see as some of the other attributes? The true economy is economy which is cyclical and which is always coming back to feed you, to nourish you, to sustain you, and then it's always returning back to the soil and soil is nourished and nurtured and

replenished and then soil can give you more food, clothes, houses, shoes, paintings, music, art, imagination, creativity, everything is there. So the new economics of Gandhian and Buddhist economics is economics of permanence but also economics of beauty and economics of sufficiency. Not efficiency but sufficiency. Enough. Good enough. If you have food and you eat twice a day or three days, that's enough. If you eat too much, you become obese and you become ill. So at the moment our society, the way it is growing, economics, society has become obese. We are suffering from obesity of economics and

therefore we are diseased. It's a diseased society, it's not a healthy society. Healthy economics will be enough, you have eaten enough, you have drank two glasses of wine, that's enough. Then you can have lots of bottles of wine, you don't have to drink it. If you drink too much you will have a sickness so at the moment our society is over drunk and over fed and there will be obesity and drunkenness and therefore in metaphorically and so so the true economy of sufficiency where everything is there enough enough for my need and my pleasure and my joy, but not for waste and not for pollution and not for discrimination and not for exploitation

and not keeping some people poor so the rich can become more rich. So the economics of today is a complete and utter kind of waste of time. waste of time. But we are caught in this, imprisoned in this because we are ruled by this 1% of very super rich and wealthy who control the media, who control the education and they control education because they say only purpose of educating you is so that you come out of university and work for us, become our employees and make us more rich. So we will pay you, we'll build universities, we will do everything just so that we can remain rich and rich. That is a kind of unspoken conspiracy of one percent. That's not true economy. I've just arrived at the Bowden House,

an intentional community here in Totnes, just a few miles from Schumacher College. The voices you're hearing are the residents who get together once a month to sing. I think one of those voices belongs to Jonathan Dawson, another teacher at Schumacher College, who I'm here to meet. Let's go upstairs and see if we can find him. Under my feet I hear your heartbeat Under my feet I hear your heartbeat Under my feet and I sing for you I am Jonathan Dawson. I'm the Head of Economics at Schumacher College.

I lead the Economics for Transition Master's Program. I've lived in intentional communities, ecovillages, for the last 20 years. I used to be president of the Global Ecovillage Network and I'm co-author of the Gaia Education Curriculum. So, Jonathan, let's start with what you see as some of the root problems of our current economic system. The current economy is based on transaction rather than relationship. Let me just explain that. Conventional economic theory tells us that we get satisfaction not from work as a negative in the formulas, work as a negative that we do, we're not supposed to enjoy it we do it in order to get money to be able to buy things and so economic systems are built around maximizing

the efficiency of production systems so that we can buy a maximum number of things at the lowest possible cost because consumption is consumption that gives us happiness is this a theory um and schumacher among others noted early noted early in 50, over 50 years ago, that actually what gives us meaning and well-being and happiness is quality of work and quality of relationships. And in our current system, we behave as isolated consumers doing work that we don't particularly enjoy. And this simply doesn't make us happy. So what would a more relational economy look like? It's clear, I mean, I find it interesting that much of my reading, much of my study

is in fields like anthropology and sociology where it becomes clear that for most of the life of our species on the planet, that provisioning, that economic activity that is part of that gift-giving and reciprocity were a critical part of the way that we undertook economic activities. And so this is like 99 plus percent

of our time on Earth as a species. You know, there have always been markets, but they've played a much lower role, lesser role than they have today. And a substantial amount of gift giving and reciprocity indicating that actually building relationship is critical to our well-being. It's kind of the glue that holds communities together. So from an anthropological perspective, it's kind of looking at how people in different societies have lived well over the centuries the very act of giving an exact sum in payment with cash is equivalent to saying i don't need a relationship with you

so for our ancestors and i mean this is most of the life of our species on the planet, the process of gift-giving and reciprocity has left a delicious ambiguity between people about who owes whom what. So when people, instead of, for example, paying an exact amount for half a dozen eggs, we're to receive the eggs as a gift and then return the gift of a cake, for example. This builds playfulness and relationship back into our activities.

So the transaction, the raw cash transaction actually breaks a lot of taboos in traditional societies by repaying with an exact equivalence. Can you tell us the story of eggs and cakes? Okay. So I mentioned before that I've lived in intentional communities, ecovillages, for the last 20 years, three different communities. And a few months back, my neighbor sent her daughter to borrow three eggs from me or to buy and she she came with a pond to buy the three eggs and I care for the eggs but told her I wasn't interested in taking the pound and later that afternoon she came back with a big slice of cake and a big wide smile and since then um

we've been in a kind of a playful dance of relationship around gift giving between arms race of gift giving exactly do you identify as an economist um i generally when people look at my direction and use the word economist, I tend to look over my shoulder to see who they're talking about. But only because the connotation of the word economist is so toxic because of the way we've practiced economics in recent decades. So I would, I mean, I rarely use the label. I guess the label I tend to use most is educator. Who is interested in helping to enable a regenerative society?

But I think an important part of that journey is deconstructing economics as we know it at the moment. So I think I'd probably call myself a post-economist. So what do you see as some of the root problems with the current education system and how does Schumacher College take a different approach? It's almost like an unquestioned assumption in our culture particularly in academia is that our job as scholars of the new economy is to stand apart from the problem using our intellect to try to understand this thing out there and i don't think there's anything wrong with that i think it's a necessary part of the process but it can make us in the words of david orr who's a sustainability educator as highly educated

vandals like he says that every every spring May, this is an address to a university crowd, that every May the earth shudders as yet another cohort of environmental studies graduate is loosed upon the earth to wreak havoc. Because of doing something to instead of doing something with? Indeed. So they're technically more competent, but the only bit of them that's been developed is the intellect. So the heart, the intuition, the... The hands, the craft. The hands, the craft remain not part of the learning process.

So in our education systems, there is a core basic unquestioned assumption that the intellect is the only legitimate source of inquiry. And we, of course, completely contradict this at Schumacher College, where we engage the body and the intellect and the intuition in the learning process as well. And as an educator, you see that as soon as you do that, as soon as students are allowed to respond to what's happening in the world, to respond to what's happening in the world not just as clever problem solvers but as grieving emotional beings

that it totally changes it moves from being a kind of a game a puzzle to be solved into a deep life's work and so the idea certainly what we do at the college where the students and staff and volunteers alike are involved in managing the college like as practically as growing the food and staff and volunteers alike are involved in in managing the college like

as practically as as growing the food and cooking the food and washing the dishes and also in deciding making decisions about how the community the learning community will operate it means that at the end of the year in the feedback sessions and of course the students are mentioning models and ideas and and concepts but probably even more prominent in the feedback is the value of actually having the experience of being a member of a learning community that has attempted not just to think about but to actually put into effect, ethical new economics principles. So when I was a teenager, I was a teenager in the 1980s, the TV news was the way I came to see the world.

This is Kate Raworth, educator and author of the book Donut Economics, Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. Economics, Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. I saw the Exxon Valdez spewing its contents out into Alaska's pristine waters. I saw the Ethiopian famine, a hole opening up in the ozone layer. And I think those images from the TV screen are the reason why when I came to the end of school, I wanted to work for say Oxfam or Greenpeace. I wanted to tackle the social environmental issues that I saw challenging the world. And I believe that if I was going to do that well, I needed economics because it was the mother tongue of public policy. It was the language of influence. So I thought if I learn

the toolkit of economics, I can apply it to these issues and try and make the world a better place. Very heartfelt, naive, open. That was where I was coming from. So I went to university, studied economics. But when I got there, the issues that I was studying, the theories we were taught, really frustrated me because most of the things I cared about were brushed aside or seen as marginal or externalities tangential to the main theory as if they weren't the major concern so I was really frustrated by what I was being taught and after four years of study economics I decided to walk away I didn't want to go on and in deep and into further studies because I just didn't feel connected to the underlying theory into further studies because I just didn't feel

connected to the underlying theory that it was all based upon. So I walked away and I wanted to immerse myself in the real world economy. I worked for three years in the villages of Zanzibar with micro entrepreneurs. Then I worked at the UN on the human development report. So at a very different angle, looking at the overview of human well-being. And over the years, I worked for Oxfam for a decade but over that time I realized I hadn't walked away from economics because you can't because the world is framed in economic languages and I realized that rather than fighting against it I wanted to walk back towards it and try and reclaim economics try and and reclaim its roots. I mean, economics from the ancient

Greek means household management. And when Xenophon first wrote a pamphlet called The Economist, he was talking about the management of a single estate. How should you manage your slaves and your vineyards? Should you allow your wife to be in charge or not? And towards the end of his life, he looked up to the next level. He looked at the management of the city-state, his hometown of Athens, and began to think about the economics of managing that. Then 2,000 years later in Scotland, Adam Smith raised our sights to the next level and said, actually, economics is about managing the nation-state

and asking why one nation thrives while another has not yet taken off. Well, I think it's time for us to move to the next level and go from the household to the city to the nation. Now it's the planetary household we need to think about. So to me, economics in the 21st century means managing our planetary household and there could be no more urgent and exciting cause to be involved in. We need a generation of household managers who are managing our planetary home in the interest of all its inhabitants. So in that vein, in that spirit, I've walked back towards economics and want to reclaim that word and broaden it so that we actually start to think about managing our household this century.

We asked Kate what her hope is for the field of economics. I come across so many students who study economics at university who say, it's all maths. Where's the politics? Where's the dynamism? Where's the real world issues? the real world issues, it's just turgid maths. And that's a devastating fate for a discipline that claims to be the mother tongue of public policy. So I hope that people say, actually, we can reclaim the meaning of economics, the space of economics. And you know what? I am an economist. I'm a household manager. If I set up an enterprise and I set it up in a new way, if I bank in a different way, I am a household manager in the way I lead my life because in this extraordinary complex system in which we all play a part, we're all redesigning it through our actions. So I hope many amazing innovators and doers in the new economic space see themselves

and say, I see how I fit into that and I feel really empowered by that because I know I'm contributing to something that we so urgently need. So for me, new economics is distinguished from, I guess, the old-fashioned notion of economics by its purpose, by what we are designing the economy to deliver. This is Catherine Trebek, a senior researcher at Oxfam, a charitable organization focused on the alleviation of global poverty. We're positioning the economy as a means rather than an end. And I think too often in orthodox thinking and orthodox policymaking over the last few decades, we've seen how the economy, and however people define that,

how the economy has come to be seen as the ultimate goal, when actually the economy should be just a vehicle to help us deliver good, sustainable, healthy, flourishing lives for people. And so in a way, New Economy is about putting the economy back in its box as a vehicle, but then saying if it's going to be a good vehicle, if it's going to be useful to that ultimate purpose, it needs to be designed very differently. And that means setting up the economy in a way that it's focused not on increased GDP,

but more socially justice and sustainability-aligned goals. Catherine explained to us how she thinks that the economy should be for the people and not the other way around. Why should we have to change ourselves to fit this broken economic model? Why should we run around and force ourselves into an economic model that is not delivering what we need it to deliver? Shouldn't we try to change the economy so that it really supports us in terms of living sustainably and lifting everyone above a social foundation? And rather

than constantly saying to individuals, you need to change, you need to become more employable, you need to become hypermobile. And in a way, it reflects the sort of political agenda that we've seen in the later stages of last century and early stages of this century, where it's all been about pointing the finger at individuals, saying, you need to become more resilient. You need to toughen up. You need to change so that you can fit with this economy that we've got. And in a way, it's also saying that the implicit assumption around that is that the economy is inevitable. The economy can't change. So people and communities need to change. When in fact, what Okafam is saying is that the economy is not inevitable, it's a creation of political decisions at all levels of society.

And so if we just stop and think about what sort of economy we need to create, how can we create an economy that is sustainable and delivers social justice? What policies do we need for that? What sort of businesses do we need for that? What sort of measures of progress do we need for that? What sort of decision-making mechanisms do we need for that? Then we're talking about an economy that works for the 99% rather than just the 1%. Some of Oxfam's work addresses dire situations brought on by things like drought, climate disaster, and famine.

We asked Catherine how Oxfam balances the need for immediate intervention as well as deeper systems change. The difference between surviving today versus changing the system for tomorrow, and it goes back to your priority around the notion of upstream change. A lot of work that people can be drawn to and people who have got a passion for making the world a better place often translates to help humanizing the current system and helping people survive tomorrow. And I would never want to undermine that or say it's not important, but the challenge is if that's all that we are doing, then we will never be changing the system and we will never be eradicating the need for that sort of survival.

And so I think where I've got to in my sort of ripe old age and after all these various different jobs and roles within Oxfam and outside Oxfam is a sense that we need to really call things out for what they are. We need to be honest with ourselves about, is the activity or the policy we're advocating for or the initiative we're involved in, is that about humanising the current system?

In which case, you know, it's really important tomorrow and the next day and next week. Or is it something that is starting to embody and starting to pioneer the sort of change we need to see to get us to a profoundly new economy? And I think the more honest conversation we have about that, the sooner we will be able to really prioritize those policies that will help us move to a new economy and move away from the need to constantly focus on just survival, urgent and important though that is. Hello? Hi, is this Eli?

Yes, it is. We made a call to Boston, to Eli Fogali, to learn about the New Economy Coalition, or NEC, a collection of over 175 groups building the new economy in the U.S. and Canada. What's very unique about NEC is that it's the largest collection of organizations that are united behind this idea that we need systemic change of our economy and are focused on the kind of visionary strategies that can get us closer to that point. Strategies like cooperatives, organizations or businesses that are owned and controlled by their members. One member, one vote. Community and public ownership. At a city level, this is how do communities,

how do cities own the critical infrastructure that their cities and their people in their cities need, like the internet, like the electricity, like the energy supply, and how do they make sure that those assets are actually generating wealth for future generations as opposed to that wealth going to corporations that exist for the benefit of their shareholders or a small number of owners. Other strategies include community land trusts, which are like nonprofit entities that own the land and then lease it out at an affordable rate to people in the community. We asked Eli what led him to want to build a new economy.

I think I would just start at the fact that I'm an immigrant. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon. My family immigrated to the United States, to New England during the Civil War to escape from that violence and to raise me somewhere where there was more stability and opportunity. And so that's been a part of a driving force in my life and shaped kind of like how I see the world. We are the 99 percent! We are the 99 percent! to the world. It was during his involvement with the Occupy movement that Eli was first introduced to the idea of the new economy through the concept of worker-owned cooperatives.

Even though I had like studied social change and whatnot, like no one told me that this was a thing, that co-ops were a thing, that you could have a business that was run by its workers democratically. That just kind of, a light bulb went off in my head, and I got inspired and kind of led me down this path into realizing that there are other strategies that bring power and control back into the hands of people and communities. And that, to me, is what new economy work is all about. This lightbulb moment eventually led Eli to his current role as the communications director of the New Economy Coalition. This coalition has its roots in the same movement that created the

Other Economics Summit, the New Economics Foundation, as well as Schumacher College. But it wasn't until Occupy that the seeds of this particular manifestation began to grow. Remember, 2008 was like right at the start of the financial crisis. There was a demand for alternatives, a demand for solutions to the financial crisis. So there was this conversation about how do we start this? How do we do something bigger that's nationally focused? As the communications director, we asked Eli for his thoughts on language and using the term new economy, particularly as it relates to the concept of the solidarity economy. Well, I think solidarity economy has a history that's more rooted in social movements.

I mean, it comes out of Latin America and social movements there. I mean, if you want to look at some of the most powerful examples of the new economy around the world, you're not going to look in the U.S., you're going to look in Latin America, you're going to look in Italy, you're going to look in South Korea and Japan and Canada. And if you ask those folks the work that they're doing, a lot of them will call it solidarity economy work or social and solidarity economy work. And that's because that was the global phrase and terminology that emerged in the 80s and that latched on in those parts of the world. Now, new economy, as I understand it, emerged out of the UK, and that's actually the

organizational history of NEC. And so that's kind of some of the reasons why we're using new economy, as I understand it, emerged out of the UK, and that's actually the organizational history of NEC. And so that's kind of some of the reasons why we're using new economy has to do with that history. It also has to do with decisions made around strategy. And, you know, I think it's also true that the solidarity economy movement is more explicitly anti-capitalist. And that's such a front and center thing for how they frame their work. And increasingly so, folks in the new economy movement are doing that as well. But there's a lot more debate and there's a lot more groups that are not comfortable with that, that are comfortable using new economy language. it's a strategic decision that some groups make, but also has to do with the peculiarities of organizational history. But as I see it, the way that I think about new economy work, I don't see much distinction. I hope there isn't, because at a fundamental level, I do think this is a movement

about transforming capitalism and upending capitalism. There are also some, uh, the, the, the environmental movement in the United States and the UK was a little more present in the early days of the new economy movement. And so there's some more of that conversation about growth and like post growth and, um, in the context of, of climate, that was probably a more present conversation and frame a few years ago. But now I think that with climate change being on everybody's front and center radar, that's no longer a massive distinction either. you know at a baseline level new economy is about building an economy that puts people and planet before profit now that's a pretty blanket statement. I think anyone who identifies as progressive believes in that.

I think what makes New Economy special is that it actually focuses in on transformative strategies that get at the root causes of the power imbalances in society that prioritize profits over people and planet. We asked Eli what he saw as those root causes. I see a system of domination that through an economist or historian's lens, you might call that capitalism, modern day capitalism, neoliberalism, but a system in which a small number of elite folks that are largely white, by the way. I mean, I think the racial dimension of our economic crisis cannot be ignored.

And that's actually one of the critiques of new economies based globally, is that generally it's like not put racial justice front and center. And that's been something that at the New Economy Coalition we've been working on internally and in our communications is to acknowledge the racial dimension of the economy. And that's certainly the case when you look at the root causes of our economic problems. I mean, racism is right in there. But, you know, economic inequality, environmental injustice, racism. To me, any societal problem, if you really drill down to the reason that it exists, you're going to end up looking at capitalism and even deeper than that,

you're looking at a system of domination where a small number of people dominate a large number of people. And so we need to figure out how do we flip that and how do we actually build that future here and now and not just say, you know, not just speak rhetorically like this is what we want. Give it to us elected officials.

We have to actually demonstrate that you can a grassroots new economy Initiative in action. So Aníol Esteban, program director at the New Economics Foundation, told us a story from his home country. La cooperativa de ámbito nacional Som Energía, con más de 25.000 socios. Som Energía. Que es una cooperativa. Som Energía. Som Energía. It's a cooperative. We are energy. We are energy. Reus.

Local de Barcelona, de la cooperativa Som Energia. Som Energia is a cooperative of production and consumption. La cooperativa Gironina d'Energia Verda Som Energia. Som Energia. About a few years ago, a group of citizens realized that the energy system in Spain is broken. It's just favoring a few big companies and it makes it extremely difficult for individuals and small companies that want to generate renewable energy to sell their energy to the grid. that want to generate renewable energy to sell their energy to the grid. The original group, made up of alumni and professors from the University of Girona, joined together to create the cooperative Som Energia, or We Are Energy, literally giving themselves power at the local level.

Here's Andrés Montesinos, the coordinator. Here's Andrés Montesinos, the coordinator. We were able to tackle great problems from our own perspective. Think globally, act locally. From this point of view, we wanted to act locally as a cooperative that aimed to change our energy model. The cooperative started small, supplying solar energy to just 44 families with 150 members. It has since expanded into hydroelectric energy, wind power, and biogas, and as of March 2017, had over 33,000 members. Members contribute 100 euros to JOIN,

which provides them with access to locally generated, clean, sustainable and affordable energy. Members can also financially invest in new renewable energy projects at a 4 to 7 percent return rate. For one hydroelectric power plant that the cooperative wanted to buy, they were able to raise the investment needed in only an hour and a half. 800,000 euros in only 90 minutes. Here's Andrés again. We have power. We don't need big companies or banks to lend us money. We only need to believe in something and seize the opportunity.

Here's Aniol again. You don't have to wait for things to change at the highest level. You don't have to wait for the prime minister to do what you think should be doing or for a minister to take a particular decision which could be very unlikely that he or she takes. You need to realize that you have lots of ways to start doing things differently. You can take control over your energy system, over your food system, over your work, and start organizing together with many other people in your community to do things differently.

Here's Jonathan Dawson again from Schumacher College with a global temperature check on the movement for a new economy. Just as there are tipping points in climate systems and biophysical systems, there are clearly also tipping points in terms of human culture and economy. So for example, Occupy Wall Street, the whole Occupy movement, very often you hear people say even within the new economics community it failed and I mean it's far too premature to say it's failed

or rather the ripples that were created by that particular movement are sweeping across the globe and in retrospect we'll be able to say wow we were on the crest of a total transformation so I think

what is clear is that we live in a moment of extreme crisis and opportunity and it's a period where extraordinarily unpleasant disagreeable negative things are happening in parallel with extraordinarily positive, generative, imaginative things happening. I think what's exciting today is that while we might not see another Toes conference again. Here's Tim Crabtree again, also from Schumacher College, who we heard from at the beginning of the episode. who we heard from at the beginning of the episode. What we have seen since the financial crash is much more widespread questioning of the economics profession and the kind of theories that it had been coming up with. I think particularly with economics students really questioning the economics that they're being taught at university. I think you see it in the development of new curricula for economics. And I think you see it

also on the ground. I think there is a plethora of people actually putting new economics into practice in a way that, you know, 30 years ago with the other economic summit, the examples that could be pointed to were quite few and far between. But I think what we've seen in the last 30 years is both the maturing of those critiques of economic theory, such that mainstream economic theory really just does not stand up anymore. But I think even more importantly, we now have 30 years further experience on the ground, a plethora of successful initiatives. So whether you could bring So whether you could bring all the new economic theorists and the people doing this work on the ground together into one space now, well, you couldn't. But I think that's just an indication of how far the new economics movement has come in the last 30 years. But what I always say to people I work with, students and others, you know, it may take us another 30 years really to make the change that we need to see. You know, we're up against very serious vested interests. We're up against, you know, Trump and Brexit and all the rest.

But I see those as kind of the last gasp of this kind of neoliberal economics movement. And there has to be a better alternative. And we'll see that continuing to emerge over the next 30 years. Although the Other Economics Summit stopped in 2000, there have been many gatherings and conferences since that have brought together folks from different new economy spaces, such as the New Economy Coalition's Common Bound Conference for New Economy Leaders in North America, Schumacher College's Generation of the New Economy Youth Economics Festival, and the Global Social Economy Forum, an international association of local governments and civil society actors.

And now, there's a new gathering in the works. Early morning meeting with Diego to talk about Nessie. I'm so excited. It's just a month ago. months ago. This is Isabel Benitez, who along with Diego Isabel La Moneda and a team of others are putting together an event called the New Economy and Social Innovation Forum, or NECI, which is taking place from April 19th to 22nd, 2017 in Malaga, Spain. What makes NECI different from any other events is the fact that it's getting all the new economy movements together in just one place. And it's giving them the opportunity to share ideas, to feel inspired and to find ways to work together and make the most of their strengths. So it's just about putting cooperation, which is usually a common value, into practice. We asked Isabel how it felt to be part of the planning process.

I must say I feel very proud of being part of this project. And I'm just curious. I'm just really looking forward to see what happens in Malaga. Because even if we are all working towards the same goal, getting all the new economy movements together is a lot of a challenge. So I cannot wait to be there. We also asked Isabel what her hopes are for the future of the Forum. The idea is that the Nessie Forum goes a bit beyond Malaga and gets bigger and gets stronger

and a bit more global and international than it is. And to be honest, what I would like to see is lots of NECI Forum happening all over the world, in lots of different places, all throughout the years years so that we give people a chance to to get to know the new economy movements and to find out what they are doing to make the world a better place someone said that to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing. And I think that's exactly what we are doing, what Nessie Forum is doing and what all the new economy movements are doing. Because they are showing that change is possible and it's happening already. And that's the best thing we can contribute to the society.

thing we can contribute to to the society. Thank you to all of our guests, to Amini, Tapes and Topographies, Owu Kulu, Haunted House, and Lanterns for the Music, and to all those who contributed to our campaign to help Upstream be a media partner at the Nessie Forum.

We will be joined by many of the folks you heard in this episode. We're honored to be campaign to help Upstream be a media partner at the Nessie Forum. We will be joined by many of the folks you heard in this episode. We're honored to be able to strengthen this movement and celebrate the important work that's being done. For more from us, please visit upstreampodcast.org. The The The The The Flowers blooming from our hopes that break

To the morning we run to shoreline Calling us to speak of sin Waves under the earth and rocks Casting ghostly shadows Tall like giants As we step back to the sea As we step back to the sea