The International Alliance for Localization | International Society for Ecology and Culture. In addition to producing educational materials and organizing events, we have helped to establish international alliances that work to resist corporate power while simultaneously promoting the renewal of local communities, economies and cultures. Local Futures is a founding member of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) and the Global Ecovillage Network. Over the next few years, we aim to launch an International Alliance for Localization (IAL). We began laying the groundwork for this project in 2006 at our conference in Ladakh, India called "Beyond the Monoculture: Strengthening Local Culture, Economy, and Knowledge.
" Further steps have been taken at our international Economics of Happiness conferences in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The broad objectives of the IAL include: If you are interested in supporting this crucial effort, either as an individual donor, or as an institutional sponsor, please contact us hereThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. Living Enterprise as the Foundation of a Generative Economy » Is Sustainability Still Possible? “What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being?” This was a question posed to us under a leafy canopy, deep in the woods of southern England, not far from Schumacher College where I’d come as a teacher. I stood listening with a group of students as resident ecologist Stephan Harding posed what for me would become a pivotal question – the only question there is, really, as we negotiate the turn from the industrial age into an entirely new age of civilization.
I’d come to Schumacher to share my learnings from four years as co-founder of Corporation 20/20 at Tellus Institute in Boston, where I’d helped to lead hundreds of experts in business, law, government, labor, and civil society to explore what, at the time, seemed to me the most critical question of our day: How could corporations be redesigned to incorporate social and ecological aims as deeply as financial aims? You don’t start with the corporation and ask how to redesign it.
That seems unlikely. July 11-20: New Culture Summer Camp East 2014! Reclaiming Gift Culture. What are the different traditions of the gift culture around the world? How can we bring the gift culture practically into our lives, communities, organizations? What do we need to unlearn for the gift culture to manifest? What miracles can happen when we approach the world from a spirit of deep gratitude, empathy and trust?
How is gift culture an essential part of a larger vision of social change and a new story for the planet? In 2008, Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development (Udaipur, India) published “Reclaiming the Gift Culture” as a healthy antidote to the global push to commodify everything. The anthology features over 25 different authors. In the spirit of intercultural dialogue, they offer stories, insights and conceptual frameworks around gift cultures from India, Mexico, Mali, Bolivia, Ukraine, Iran, Australia, the US, and more. Satish Kumar puts it simply: “When we write a poem we make a gift.
Living in the Gift. Money and the Turning of the Age: Part 1. Charles Eisenstein in conversation with Satish Kumar. Towards Alternatives: Radical Ecological Democracy (Part 1) | The Economics of Happiness. The third in our Planet Local series, this article is excerpted from Globalisation in India: Impacts and Alternatives by Ashish Kothari. Kothari will be speaking at the Economics of Happiness conference in Bangalore, India on March 15th. Readers can learn more about Kothari’s work by listening to the latest episode of Local Bites, ISEC’s podcast program. If the aim of human society is happiness, freedom, and prosperity, there are indeed many alternative ways to achieve this without endangering the earth and ourselves, and without leaving behind half or more of humanity. This applies to India as to any other country, though the specifics of the alternatives will vary greatly depending on ecological, cultural, economic, and political conditions.
Linked to these are some basic principles or values that need to be respected: Principle 1: Ecological integrity and limits. Principle 2: Equity and justice. Principle 3: Right to meaningful participation. Principle 4: Responsibility. Like this: The Economics of Happiness | Home.