Alternative Economies

I am very interested in the idea of alternative economies. As a food systems scholar and social ecologist, it has become one of my central research interests. It may have started in the late 1990s, when I was introduced to a gathering that’s been happening every summer for over 40 years in the United States, drawing upwards of 50,000 people. Folks live together (anywhere from one week to a couple of months) creating a small world that includes fresh organic food, music, theatre, art, dance, family/kid events, education/libraries, health-care, religious/spiritual/healing centers, water systems, kitchens, and sanitation infrastructure (including composting and recycling). Unlike large concert venues or alternative events like Burning Man--which cost hundreds of dollars to attend--this event is 100% non-commercial. It is the largest free event of its kind, and it’s also so decentralized as to have no leaders.  This is a type of alternative economy--a solidarity economy (although by no means the only kind of solidarity economy).

Among our readings for this week is Betting on Chance in Columbia, by Ana Marīa Echeverry Villa and Coppelia Herrán Cuartas, which presents an interesting case study describing how through market services, people are creating an alternative to the traditional banking system in Medellin. The study ground-truthed how people are earning money and how they are saving, borrowing, and managing it outside the traditional banking system and within a highly volatile cash economy. This is still a system of capital, a market-based shuffling of social/institutional relationships, however it does present an alternative system that in many ways is emerging from the bottom-up (although this is a point I’ll look forward to talking more about in class!)

Both of these examples provide us with the knowledge that other systems can and do exist. As a country, the United States is quite mired in one-way of thinking about the economy. This can be credited, in large part, to the immensity of power and influence that Wall Street culture (which we dissected last week) has on us all. 

So to that end, understanding that our current global economic system is one that demands material growth that is unsustainable, and is at its roots, unequal, environmentally degrading, exploitive, and non-democratic, it becomes critical for us to examine the alternatives that are emerging from the people and to understand, in the end, we do have the power to make change.

Here's a link to another good resource: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/joe-guinan-thomas-m-hanna/democratising-capital-at-scale-cooperative-enterprise-and-beyon