The New Economics Institute is launching two projects in 2012.
The first is “Strategies for a New Economy” -- a conference at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, June 8-10, 2012 with eighty workshops and special guest plenary speakers. The Strategy Themes represent the positive spirit of the conference and the optimism that a new kind of economy, reflecting our highest aspirations as a people, is possible.
1. Banking and...
In September the European Spirituality in Economics and Society Forum (eurospes.be) convened "Responsibility in Economics and Business - The Legacy of E. F. Schumacher" in Antwerp, Belgium -- one of many events marking the Centennial of Schumacher's birth. We have posted keynote talks by Simon Trace, Barbara Wood, Susan Witt, and Stewart Wallis at our website: neweconomicsinstitute.org/schumacher
SIMON TRACE, Executive Director of Practical Action spoke...
On Saturday we received a copy of a letter from one of our members to his grandson. The twenty-two year old had just left college to join an Occupy group full time. The grandfather wrote:
"Dear Sam, I think the various Occupy Wall Street groups have been effective in highlighting an unjust condition. I was wondering what actions they might recommend when I received the enclosed booklet in the mail from the New Economics Institute. I believe it...
Our members helped build a voice for economic change.
Past membership support of the E. F. Schumacher Society, a small organization founded in 1980, allowed it to develop a solid theoretical and practical base of work, positioning it to offer positive solutions when the need for change became broadly apparent.
That time has come.
The deepening environmental crisis is now recognized as an economic...
Last week, the staff at the New Economics Institute’s New York City office returned to Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street has been based for over a month. We brought a selection of the thirty years of E. F. Schumacher Lecture pamphlets (neweconomicsinstitute.org/publications) to contribute to the growing OWS library on new economic issues. And we had a chance to speak with participants.
As occupations spread across the country and world...
In June 2011 Gar Alperovitz wrote: “as citizen uprisings from Tunisia to Madison remind us, judgments that serious change cannot take place often miss the quiet buildup of potentially explosive underlying currents…there are reasons to think that new economy efforts have the capacity to gather momentum as time goes on.”
As Occupy Wall Street enters its fifth week, inspiring protests from Charlotte to London and captivating audiences across...
August 16th is the 100th Anniversary of E. F. Schumacher's birth. Together with his family and other organizations around the world (www.ef-schumacher.org), we are celebrating his legacy.
Posted online at www.neweconomicsinstitute.org/schumacher are:
...
In a recent issue of "The Nation" (www.thenation.com), New Economics Institute's board member, Gar Alperovitz, describes the growing movement for a new economy (see text below). His optimism about the future, generated by this movement and its possibilities, has landed him on talk shows to explain (see truthout.org for example).
To gather elements of the movement together and further leverage its...
In October 1981 I attended the first annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, the propitious beginning of a tradition that has lasted for thirty years. Although I was already heading in the right direction, hearing Wendell Berry, Hazel Henderson, and Wes Jackson speak that day opened my mind to a larger, more promising view of the world as it could and should be.
I mention additional names to illustrate the lecturers' wide range of background and subject matter:...
“. . . it is hardly possible to promote the effective governance needed for a successful implementation of development policies without establishing domestic ownership over our policy agendas.”
Rehman Sobhan, Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Bangladesh, 2011
A New Economics will not be shaped from the United States and Europe alone. Nor will it be envisioned and realized only by economists. It will emerge in country after country...
The Laurel Hill Association in the town of Stockbridge in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts is the nation's oldest Village Improvement Association. Founded in 1853 and still operating, its members pulled weeds, laid sidewalks, installed lamps, planted trees, and helped construct the town library. It owns the park-like Laurel Hill near the center of town and maintains the trail at Ice Glen.
In the period following the Civil War,...
By Richard B. Norgaard
The economy is our new cosmos. Stars may still shine, but few now tend sheep under a starry night sky. In fact, half the world’s population seldom sees stars through the smog and artificially lit megacities of industrial civilization. Artifacts of the economy define our lives —buildings, vehicles, highways, processed foods, and electronic gadgetry. We are caught in a web of market relations that determine how we interrelate with one another and with...
In considering the characteristics of a new economy, the question of money arises: What is the appropriate role of money? What entity or entities should govern its issue? How much should be placed in circulation and on what basis? What determines its value once in circulation? How might its very structure favor financing for regionally-based businesses producing goods in a sustainable manner for local markets?
As a global financial crisis continues, economists are...
In 1976 the economist Fritz Schumacher spoke at Findhorn in Northern Scotland in an address as relevant today as it was then. Historically, he noted, we are at the end of three distinct eras -- first a Descartian informed world view which valued what was known through the senses above spiritual knowledge and encouraged an accumulation of things as a path to happiness; second a sociological system shaped by the industrial revolution's division of labor which led to the degradation...
The 30th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on November 20th brought together three strong voices calling for change in our economic system and outlining strategies for that change. It was a remarkable gathering.
With appreciation to Peter Montague, the talks by Gus Speth, Neva Goodwin, and Stewart Wallis may now be viewed online:
http://vimeo.com/channels/...
In June of this year, James Gustave Speth addressed a group of foundation professionals on the topic of "Towards a New Consciousness in America: the Role of Grantmakers." He invited those in attendance to help him change America's mind. By which he meant changing long held beliefs and habits that prevent us from conducting our economic lives in a way that supports both people and the environment.
As former Dean of Yale School of Forestry, former...
If you have seen the name of Neva Rockefeller Goodwin in the news it is probably for her shareholder action at ExxonMobil, intended to help the company to anticipate and take leadership in ushering in a post-carbon economy. But on October 28th visitors to Britain's House of Commons could have heard Dr. Goodwin, an economist and Co-Chair of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University (http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/), addressing an All-Party Parliamentary...
The men and women of the United States were once builders of boats, weavers of fabric, turners of pots, crafters of furniture, keepers of bees, operators of mills, welders of steel, creators of new technologies, and in general makers of the goods used in America. Entranced by the doctrine of efficiency of scale, bulging corporations merged, closed plants, moved production outside the U.S., and effected a loss of regional manufacturing skills.
We have skipped a generation...
Today is October 10, 2010 and people at over 7,000 locations in 188 countries are responding to Bill McKibben's challenge to engage in projects that slow carbon emissions. Solar panels are being installed, community gardens planted, reforestation begun, bikes repaired and distributed. If governments won't solve the problem of global warming, their citizens will through multiple local actions (www.350.org/en...
The economist, Fritz Schumacher, author of "Small is Beautiful," commented that if everyone were for "small," he'd be for "big." It was not just to be contrarian. It was a question of balance. Our global economy has grown so big, our production processes so divided and so distant from the places where the goods are actually consumed, that in balance it is necessary to re-emphasize the small and local.
For the past thirty years, the E. F...
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