occupy connect create 3.0_linear

8/3/2019 Occupy Connect Create 3.0_linear

1/40

imagining life beyond the economy

Ethan Miller

October 211


2/40

Gratitude to Kate Boverman, who inspired this piece and provided cru-cial ideas, support and editing; to Michael Johnson or extensive, spiritedcomments and helpul critiques; to Cheyenna Weber, Annie McShiras,Len Krimerman, and Anne OBrien or their excellent suggestions andedits; to Hermann Ruiz or the cover image; and to iany Sankary orthe artwork on pages 10, 23 and 34.

for the occupiers


3/40

3

#OccupyWallStreet has cracked open a little hole in history, creating a moment where some o the very core institutions o oureconomy are called into question. Along with indignation and outrage,there is a certain excitement in the air. Tings that have been terriyinglystuck seem to be moving. Something seems possible today that wasn'tjust a month ago. In this space, our conversations and our imaginationsare buzzing. What are we doing? What should we do? What's comingnext? In particular: as we condemn this economy built or the benet othe 1%, what do we want in its place, and how will we build it?

Tis text, grounded in several years o collective thinking and writing, ismeant to be a contribution to this vibrant conversation. My basic premise is this: i we want to eectively envision and create alternatives to theeconomy o Wall Street, we need to rethink the very concept o theeconomy itsel. We have inherited an economics that sties our imaginations and dampens our collective sense o power and possibility. Onlyby telling new stories about what economies are(and might yet be) canwe most eectively kindle the res o our creative, transormative work

to build new orms o livelihood.

I propose here a set o ve core economic principles or rethinkingthe economy that might be helpul steps in this process, and may alsouseully inorm the direction o our concrete strategies. Tese are notproposals or an alternative economic system to replace the currentone. Tey are, rather, tools to support our diverse, collective work o

imagining new livelihoods together. Tis text is part theory, part strategyand part calltoaction or the immediate and longterm work o identiying and seizing spaces o democratic practice (occupy!), linking themtogether in networks o mutual support and recognition (connect!), and

An Introduction

Fall in love with hard and patient workweare the beginning, not the end.

iek, at #OccupyWallStreet


4/40

4

drawing on our collective strength to actively create new ways o meeting our needs and making our livings (create!).

Te #Occupy Movement is a vital spark, already creating and demon

strating-in public experiments with democracy and solidarity acrossthe U.S. and the world-elements o the new economies we are working to build. his movement calls us toward longterm commitments,generations o work that we have only just begun. Everything is at stake.

I reer quite oten, in these pages, to a we. Who is this we? It iseveryone who reads these words and nds some resonance with them;

it is everyone who participates in the larger conversation (o whichthis text is one tiny part) about what it means to be alive at this moment in history, and about what it means to respond to the urgent callor occupation, connection and creation. Te we is you, and you, andyou, and I, who are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work onbuilding a dierent way o living together on this earth.

Tis Is Our Moment

Te #Occupy Movement that is spreading like wildre across theUnited States and around the world is a wake-up call. We are standingat the edge o the world as we know it, and the question is whether ouruture will simply happen to us, or i we will participate in its making.

Were in a hell o a mess. Major economies o the world are comingunravelled, teetering at the edge o allout crisis and living by the ckle mercy o volatile nancial markets. Many o us who once relied onthe basic economic institutions o our societies education, employment, healthcare, public inrastructure, retirement, social assistance intimes o needare conronting the brutal reality that such aith is nolonger merited. Meanwhile, the experts poised to deal with this mess

are working in the service o the very institutions that prot rom it.Nor do we have any reason to believe that their ideas, which have tornapart our lives, our communities and our environment, have anythingto oer us in the work o weaving them back together.


5/40

5

And what i these experts couldx our economy? What i we couldconvince them to curb the excesses o Wall Street and get our economic engine back on track? Tis demand would ignore the act thatthe verysuccess o the capitalist market economythe ways in which it

has seemingly provided so many with so much in so short a timeisbuilton violence and plunder. For every glorious triumph o economicgrowth and progress, there has always been another story unoldingbehind the magic curtain: the story o enclosure and colonization, oslavery and military coercion, o the exploitation o working people,o the suppression o struggles or dignity and justice, o the unravelling o culture and community, and o the looting and destruction o

ecosystems around the world.Te sorcery o capitalist economics is precisely to make its own violence invisible, so that it can appear to be nothing but the miraculousliberator o human potential and the progressive deliverer o everabundant goods. And there is a disturbingly good reason or us togive in to this illusion: most o us are dependenton the very economythat has systematically exploited us and undermined the health o ourcommunities and our environments. We have come to rely on the veryjob creators (that new euphemism or exploiters) whose project oproting at our expense we condemn. We have come to need the veryeconomic growth machine that is eating our world and destabilizingour planetary climate in the name o progress.

We can no longer ignore the immense challenge at the heart o thismoment in history: We are trapped in patterns o lie on which wehave come to depend, but which we must undamentally transormas a matter o our very survival. How do we acknowledge our dependence, and address the needs that it gives rise to, while also imaginingand constructing new orms o reedom?

Te politics o our age must be the politics o our creative and collec-tive escaperom this historical trap. We are called toward new wayso understanding our realities and experiencing our capabilities. Weare called to work in solidarity with each others daily struggles togain ootholds o stability on which to build a dierent uture. We are


6/40

6

called to imagine and create new ways o meeting our needs and livingtogether on this shared earth. We are called to participate not just inthe emergence o new movements, but o neworms o living. Tis isnot about reorm nor revolution, but about how we build relation

ships, communities, and institutions that simultaneously meet our immediate needs and open up possibilities or other orms o livelihood.As the old ways crumble, as we ace the nonviability o the economicmachine that has chewed us up and spit us out, this is no longer amatter o alternatives. It is a matter osurvival.

And so its time to play or keeps.

Tis work challenges us at many levels. We are learning how tocooperate and how to be democratic people, struggling against aculture that has taught us otherwise. We are learning how to work onourselves, acing up to our inherited shit with honesty, courage andcompassion, so that we can become the change we wish to see. Weare discovering new orms o satisaction and identity as we leave the

world o endless consumption behind. We are creating new orms otrust, inventing new orms o community, and building new ormso personal and collective security beyond bank accounts, retirementunds and ormal employment. We are developing new skills and neworms o awareness as we create livelihoods connected to our placesand contexts. We are learning rom struggles o the past and, with thestrength o this wisdom, imagining new orms o collective action totake back land, water, housing, healthcare, culture, inrastructure, andinstitutions o governance rom those who have enclosed them orprivate prot at our expense.

o strengthen all o this work, we are beginning to tell new stories.

Tis part o our task cannot be underestimated. Te #Occupy Movement is directly conronting, in ways not seen or generations, the power

o the economic status quo. We are up against the most sacred institutions o our society, and challenging some o the most powerul storiesthat our civilization has told over the past two hundred years. Tese arestories that run deep, and that structure our imaginations and political


7/40

7

sensibilities in ways that we are oten barely aware o. It is alltooeasyor us to challenge the inequities o our economy without questioningthe very concept o the economy itsel.

We might be tempted to agree with Paul Krugman when he writesthat its clear what kinds o things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and its really the job o policy intellectuals and politicians to ll in the details. Tis would be our worst mistake. Te perilthat we must avoid at all costs is to hand over our power, once again,to the selrighteous economists and the pragmatic managers o thenancial machine.

Tis is ourmoment.

Tis is the time when we must reuse to accept the old ideas, the oldconcepts, the old stories. Tis is the time when we need to create new,shared stories about what it means to be alive together, about what itmeans to make a living, about what is possible or us to dream o andcreate, and about how it is that we, the people, will make a uture or

ourselves.

I the economists want to join us, all the better. But they can checktheir economic laws at the door, thank you very much.

Te Name of the rap Is Te Economy

At every step in our work or a more just, democratic and ecologicallyviable world, we are haunted by this thing called the economy. Weknow that it doesnt work, that it is broken, that it has served theinterests o the wealthy and powerul or generations, that it has systematically undermined the health o lie on earth, and that it needsto be undamentally changed. And yet at the same time, we conront

this economy as i it were a orce o nature, a weatherlike system thatbatters us with its shiting whims. At best, it appears as a massive andcomplex inrastructure o institutions, primarily owned and ruled bythe 1% and managed by obscure experts running elaborate mathematical computer models. Tey whisper into politicians ears behind


8/40

8

closed doors while the rest o us are locked out. At worst, it is a hurricane barreling toward our shores, tracked by satellites and mappedon charts, but beyond mortal control. We board up our windows (i wehavent already lost our homes to oreclosure) and pray.

What is this thing?

First and oremost, it is a story. A story designed to stop politics, to shutdown ethics, and to stie our imaginations. Te economy is a way othinking and experiencing the world in which our power and agencyis robbed rom us. In this story, the economy is portrayed as a massive,unied system, a thing that were inside othat is animated by specic

laws and logics. It is or others to deal with, manage, or x, and weare to simply ollow their commands. Well vote in the next election orsomeone to tell us, ater consulting with the experts, what we must sacrice, change, or accept in order or the economy to get growing again.Democracy is the name or all the minor tinkering were allowed to doinside the space in which this economy has us locked.

But there is a dirty secret here that we werent taught in school or onthe news: the whole concept o the economy has existed or less thantwo hundred years! No human beings in history, prior to Europeansin the early 1th century, lived in anything like what we today callthe economy. In order or us to nd ourselves inside an economy,this economy had to be made. It did not emerge rom some naturalprocess o inevitable evolution; it was constructed, oten violently, by

specic groups o people and specic institutions in order to serve theirpurposes. Te economy was not a reality that was discovered by somebrilliant economists: it was aproject o the elites rom its very origins.

Tis economy was constructed by processes o enclosure, where peoplewere orcibly separated rom their means o subsistence (land, community, tools and skills) and pushed into dependence on wagejobs

and commodity purchases. It was constructed by the legal and militaryauthority o centralized states who sanctioned the private property oelites and enorced their contracts. It was constructed by the specic,politicallyenorced organization o wage jobs, in which workers weresystematically excluded rom democratic ownership and control over


9/40

9

the products o their own labor. It was constructed through the outright thet o lie, labor, land and resources rom people in colonizedplaces around the world. It was constructed in concert with a notiono nature that enabled living beings to be turned into exploitable

objects, and or ecosystems to become nothing but mines and dumping grounds. It was constructed by the ongoing, violent suppression osocial movements seeking to transorm all o these relationships.

Along the way, there were theorists who wrote about this economy as iit were a act o nature, the evolution o an inevitable pattern built intothe very core o humanity and the world.4 Tey told stories about how

selinterested bartering savages evolved markets and became civilizedhumans. Tey told stories about the laws that could be discovered atthe heart o economic dynamics: supply and demand, maximization ogains, the necessity or growth, the harsh yet efcient reality o endless competition, the productive accumulation o wealth in the handso powerul job creators. And they made these laws seem even morenatural and inevitable by developing orms o measurement that conrmed them, crating elaborate graphs and charts to demonstratethem, and drawing on mathematics and metaphors rom physics toplace their theories beyond the reach o politics and society.5

It was a perect scenario: the ruling elites could systematically institutethis new economy through enclosure and violence, all the while drawing on the theory o the economists to show that this economy wasnothing more than the inevitable unolding o human nature.

Lets be clear, though, to avoid any conusion: humans have alwaysengaged in diverse orms o production, distribution, exchange, andconsumption. What the elites selashioned concept o the economydid, in this specic historical orm, was to create a kind oconceptualenclosurearound a very particular set o human rationalities, motivations,social activities, and ways o lie. Economic theory said: selinterest isthelegitimate, and natural, economic motivation. Exclusive, individualprivate property is thelegitimate, and efcient, way to organize accessto resources and the means o livelihood. Accumulation o wealth (andthe ear o poverty) is thelegitimate incentive that will generate human


10/40

10

wellbeing. Wage labor (a world divided into owners and workers) is theway to organize eective and innovative economies. Competition is thedynamic that generates efciency in production and exchange. Bundleall o these things together, publish books about their necessity and

build institutions on their certainty, lock the rest o lies complexity andpossibility in a closet (or a jail) and call that economics.

Te physical enclosures that drove people rom their common landand orced them into dependence on wage jobs over the course o aew centuries in Europe, and that robbed indigenous peoples o theirlives and land, were accompanied and supported by the conceptualenclosures that made the story o the economy. Tese are two sideso the same coin. And this process o double enclosure is ongoing. It iscalled privatization, colonialism, neoliberalism, development, andeconomics 11.6 Te economy has to be made continually, and it ismade by institutions (including the state) that enorce this story on us,that put us in debt to its dependencymachine, that steal our labor, ourideas and our utures in the name o our own best interests. It is madeby convincing us that its story is true, and then punishing us when weail to act accordingly.

We are occupying public spaces across the globe because we are sickand tired o this story, and we will no longer act responsibly according to its dictates: we are taking a new orm o responsibility, and weare enacting a dierent story.

Tere is a vast world o possibility or how we might organize human lie and livelihood that lies outside o the enclosure we call theeconomy. Every single human being on the planet is already engagedin practices that cannot be contained within its cage, yet are essentialto lie and wellbeing. Tis is the moment in history when we can nolonger ask the economists or a dierent version o their clever invention. Tis is when we break it open, let the light pour in, and begin to

imagine our world anew.


11/40

11

Five Principles For Rethinking the Economy

Te glimmers o a new economic story are emerging. Tese are conceptsand intuitions that can help us to ree our imaginations rom the grip o

the old economy and to embark on new collective explorations o howwe might live together in this coming age o uncertainty and change.Lets start with ve principles or reorienting our economic thinkingthat can help us to move: (1) rom a singular notion o the economyto a notion o diverse orms o livelihood; (2) rom an economy/naturedivide to a restorative concept o ecological community; (3) rom a stalechoice between the market and the state to a creative political space

within and beyondthese institutions; () rom the limiting logics oeconomic laws to the work ocreating new possibilities through collective imagination and action; and, nally, () rom the economics o theexperts to economics as a practice o democratic organizingin which wethe people make our own economies.

1. From Te Economy to Diverse Livelihoods

Tere is no single economy, except as a story that is enorced byinstitutions to maintain the status quo. Tere are, instead, diverse

orms o livelihood, multiple ways that we make our livings in re-lation to each other and to the living world o which we are a part.

Te idea o a single economic system made o money and marketsis a bankrupt story that serves only to make our economic possibilities invisible. In the realworldoutside o the textbooks and theinstitutions who model the world on their ideaswe meet our needsthrough all kinds o dierent practices and relationships. It is time tomove rom a notion o economy to one olivelihood. Tis is not, anylonger, about what the capitalist market demands o us. Tis is about

how we make our living. How we make our lives.7

We are not just rational selinterest maximizers. We cooperate, weshare, we identiy with each other and create communities o care andsupport. Far rom living in a world o cold business transactions, most


12/40

12

o us live in worlds that are ull o complex relationships, obligations,commitments, and orms o love. We ght tooth and nail to hold ontothese spacesthe roots o our dignityin the ace o an economythat tries to rob them rom us.

We do not just depend on jobs and money or our livelihoods. Ourlives are more than our work, and our work is more than our jobs. Wedepend on each other, on our amilies and riends, on our neighborsand on the many communities o which we are a part. We depend ongitgiving and bartering, generosity and solidarity, lending and borrowing, sharing and holding resources in common. We depend on our own

skills and the skills o others, on shared wisdom, and on shared orms owork within and beyond the workplace. Tese are the orms o livelihood, in act, that keep us alive in the most difcult times. We dont relyon the market to provide us with our needs when the oodwaters rise,when the mill closes down, when the company downsizes, or when thehurricane strikes. We rely on each other, because we arethe economy olie and community.

In a larger sense, we also rely on the ongoing labor o other living beingsand the world itsel, processes o livelihood which the economy cannot provide (and most oten works to exploit or destroy): the plants thatmake our oxygen, the soils that grow our ood, the insects that pollinateour ruit, the climate that turns our seasons, the clouds that bring the rain,and the wind that sweeps them away to reveal the sun. Tis is not naturalcapital: this is our shared world. It cannot be turned into money.

Neither money nor economic growth are the sole measures o our wellbeing. Even as we struggle and strive to earn it, we do not all believe inthe idea that money actually measures value. We have othervalues, too:our health, our time to rest, play and to be ree, our creative expressions,our spiritual and religious lives, our amily commitments, our relationswith the morethanhuman living world, our traditions and our stories,

and the possibility o a uture or those yet to come. Tese values do notdie, no matter how many times the economists ignore them and theinsurance companies try to quantiy them or prot: they make us who weare, we live them, and we pass them on.8


13/40

13

Te story o the economy has hidden rom us our possibilities. Teseare not just imagined, not just antasies o what might yet be. No: thecreative action o generations o economic pioneers has already givenrise to a whole array o living possibilities in which we might partici

pate, or on which we might come to depend: worker, consumer and producer cooperatives; community currencies; air trade initiatives; housingcooperatives and intentional communities; volunteer rescue and re

Te Iceberg o Diverse Economies9

This is the

story were told

about what the

economy is...

...but heres

a different

story!


14/40

14

2. From Economy/Nature to a Community of Life

Te economy is not a subset o ecology, and nature is neither alimit nor a source or an economic system. We are ully memberso a community o lie on this planet.

How many more times will we be asked to choose between jobs andthe environment? Tis choice is the insult added to the injury oenclosure. It is a demand that we choose between two orms o slowdeath: to starve our amilies one by one or to destroy the earthly baseon which our lives depend.

Yet this is not an inevitable struggle between competing goods. It is a

violent eecto the very concept o the economy as it has been historically constructed and justied. Te process o conceptual enclosurethat created the economy also created an ecology. Tink o it this way:when you draw a square, you create not only an inside, but also anoutside. Inside the economy are all the things that count. Outside theeconomy is everything else, including nature, the living world romwhich all livelihoods are made.

It is a convenient separation: as long as nature is seen as a separatedomain o lie, a realm o valueless objects, a pool o resources to bemined (and made valuable) or an empty space into which all waste

squads; collective childcare and education networks; communityrun social centers; public libraries; nonprot community development creditunions; ree schools; cooperative orms o nointerest nancing; community gardens; neighborhood care networks; open source ree sotware

projects; community supported agriculture (CSA) programs; armersmarkets; community land trusts commons o all sizes and shapes.0

Tese are not utopian projects. Tey are the imperect shapes o ourcreative struggles to build dierent orms o livelihood in this actualworld. Tey call us toward possibilities that we have only begun toexplore and to ght or.


15/40

15

can be dumped, then the economy can just get along with its businesso exploiting everything in the name o prot and growth. Even moreconvenient is the way that certain humans, along with their cultures,communities and homelands, can be tossed into the realm o nature (as

savages or primitive peoples) and then colonized or destroyed in thename o necessary economic development. Economics is or real humans, we are told; ecology is or everyone else.

But we rise up and resist. Mass social mobilizations, protests, strikesand occupations: we reuse to be ignored or exploited. Ecosystems,too, reach their limits and cease to be silent. Largescale extinctions,

shery collapses, new emerging diseases, mass deorestation, devastating droughts and oods, soil nutrient depletions, rising ood insecurity, and everincreasing rates o cancer are all ways in which we arelearning that no economy can get away or long with the systematicplunder o its own base. And perhaps no message could be clearerthan the dawning collective realization that the spewing emissions oour economic monster areas we speakdestabilizing the 1,yearold planetary climate pattern which has made agriculturallybased civilization possible.

Tere can be no doubt: the extent to which jobs appear at odds withthe environment is precisely the extent to which we are trapped bythe economic institutions o the status quo. We must make a creativeand collective escape rom this disastrous trap as i our lives dependedon it. Because, in act, they do.

Yes, (anticipating the economists) there are always tradeos. Butthese can no longer be posed as tradeos between an economicsystem that supports humans and an ecological system that supportslie on earth. Tis is the logic that seeks to make exploitation anddomination efcient and sustainable. Tis is the logic that hopes tox the economy so that business as usual can proceed, only in green

orm. Tis is the economic politics in which exploitative actoriescranking out millions o toxic solar panels and corporate investorsbulldozing ragile mountain habitats to build wind towers orms thelimits o our imagination and creative action.


16/40

16

We ace tradeos not between economy and ecology, or between human livelihoods and the environment, but between dierent ways olivingwith each other and with our shared earth. Some ways o livingsystematically exploit and undermine the health o the people and land

scapes they depend on. Others open up possibilities or relationshipso solidarity and care, ways o living built on the recognition o ourinterdependence, on the cultivation o democratic politics, and on themakingvisible o the eects o our choices. Economics must becomethe negotiation o livelihoods with those on whom we depend.

A new politics o ecological livelihood is calling us: to collectively reuse

either orm o slow death; to directly conront not the question o jobsor environment, but the absurd structure o the trap itsel. Tis, then, isthe work odeendingour livelihoods and our ecological communitieswhile, at the same time, imagining and buildingorms o lie in whichour economies and ecologies are no longer placed in opposition.

How do we do this? We are only beginning to explore the possibilities, but we can catch glimmers o emerging pathways: rst, a collective reusal to accept the old choices, a deant opposition to ecologicaldestruction, and an emerging awareness that no economics can be takenseriously that does not place the work o ecological restoration at the verycenter o its theories and practices. Second, an emerging dedication totransorming our own needs and aspirations. We are learning thatwenot just individually, but as communities must come to wantdierent lives, to make these lives possible or each other, and to ndjoy in these dierent ways o living. And nally, the ongoing inventiono new orms o production and provision: zerowaste, closedloopmanuacturing, bioregional relocalization o industry, principles opermaculture applied to broader economic processes, orms o decentralized and distributed communitycontrolled production, ecological design through biomimicry, the deense and reclamation o localand indigenous livelihood practice and knowledge, the reconstruction

o shared and protected resource commons.


17/40

17

3. Beyond Te Market and Te State

Tere is a world o possibility beyond the market and the state,and our economic politics must stop see-sawing back and orth be-

tween these two poles. We must work, instead, to cultivate orms olivelihood and governance that embody our aspirations or justice,democracy and solidarity.

More market! More state! More market! More state! Is this not therepetitive debate o mainstream economic politics over the last dozendecades? Te seesaw goes up and down, the liberals and the con

servatives posture with their latest pet economic theories, and thebusinessasusual o exploitation and worldeating continues on. Havewe had enough o this yet?

We can nd one source o this ridiculous game in most economics11 textbooks. Tere are only two ways to organize an economy, theysay: the ree market or the command economy. Market or state.

Capitalism or communism. Yep, thats it.

Who gave thesepeople a PhD? (Oh, right. I almost orgot. Te sameelite institutions that produce most o the worlds ruling 1%).

It is crucial or us to recognize that our imaginations and our economicpossibilities are stied by this radically oversimplied way o thinking.

Tose in power dont mind, o course, since either option ends up witha similar result: a tiny portion o the population controlling, managingand beneting rom a vast majority o its resources. Tis is built into ourhistoricallyinherited story o the economy itsel. In its representationas a huge, unied system o commodity production and nancial ac


18/40

18

cumulation, the two options or maintaining coherence are starkly clear.Either order emerges magically rom the selorganizing dynamics o aree competitive market, or order is imposed rom a centralized pointo command. And so the market and the modern state emerge together,

twins separated at birth.One eect o this story is to make markets seem inevitably linked withcapitalism. Te term capitalist market ends up seeming redundant,and to be or (or against) one is to be or (or against) the other. Tis isthe convenient link that allows the story o capitalism to swallow theentire domain o decentralized coordination between ree agents. Tisis the link that makes every orm o economic organization other thancapitalism (and its double, the commandeconomy) invisible.

But this is the link that we have to break. Capitalism is a specic wayo organizing production: a separation o working people rom ourabilities to meet our own needs, and a relation o wagelabor in whichworkers have neither ownership nor control over the prots we create.Markets are a orm o exchange in which sellers and buyers meet to

trade products using some agreedupon medium o exchange. Capitalism requires markets, but markets do not require capitalism.

Tis does not at all imply an endorsement o alternative markets as agrand and equitable solution to our economic struggles. It is simply tosay that we do not yet know what kinds o markets we can create. Marketsare animated by all kinds o dynamics, depending on the institutions

that participate in them and the rules that are set up to structure them.What kinds o solidarity markets might emerge rom a network oexchange among worker and communityowned businesses? Amongbusinesses structured to meet the needs o their members and not tomaximize prots? In a culture in which the love o markets runs deep,and in which this love can be seen as an expression o the desire orlegitimate reedom, we must take these questions seriously. What would

it look like to sever capitalism rom markets in our public politics? Wecan meet the promarketeers not with another demand or state control,but with a challenge: lets take the ethics o democracy and reedom allthe way into the heart o the exploitative capitalist rm. Lets transormthat, and then see what orms o reedom we can make together.


19/40

19

Te other side o this coin, the side o the state, presents us with a similar trap we need to avoid. We have been handed an image o the stateas a single, unied, coherent thing.4 You are eitheror itor against it. oadvocate or one unction o the state is to ally yoursel with all o them.

Te state is either the bureaucratic boogeyman working to destroy ourreedom and steal our hardearned money, or it is the singular leveragepoint or progressive politics, the great protector o public goods and theprovider o social resources. We either work to abolish it, or to restore itto some mythic, past democratic glory.

Tis story narrows our political and economic possibilities by hid

ing two key things. First, it hides all o the complex dierences thatexist inside the big box that we call the state. All kinds o dierent and conicting relationships, politics, interests, and unctionsget bundled together in this packagedeal. ake taxes, or example:sometimes taxes are a orm o social solidarity, a way or wealth to beairly redistributed or the benet o the current population and oruture generations. Sometimes taxes are a orm o exploitation that

extracts urther wealth rom working people and subsidizes elite business schemes. Sometimes (though rarely) taxes are a way to nancecommunitybased and democraticallycontrolled livelihood institutions (cooperatives, or example). Sometimes taxes are a way to nancethe plunder and military colonization o other lands. Te question isnot state or no state; it is this: whose values are institutionalizedinthe specic programs o a specic state? Does a given element o thestate help or hinder in orming the conditions o possibility or neworms o democratic and equitable livelihood in our communities?

But perhaps even more importantly, our oversimplied story othe state hides all o the possible ways that we might imagine andstruggle or the transormation and decentralization o many stateunctions. Budgeting, service provision and the protection o publicgoods (among other things) might be placed directly in the hands othe communities that are most aected by them. What does the stateneed to do, and what does the state need to coordinate, but delegateto a more direct and local level? What can we remove the state romaltogether, and do or ourselves?


20/40

20

Tese questions might seem terriying i youve been thinking that theproblem o neoliberalism is its assault on the state. But the problemo neoliberalism is, more accurately, its agenda to privatize the benets and socialize the costs. It is a project o social thet and enclosure.

Te state appears as its target, and as something we must absolutelydeend, only because we have conceded the entire terrain o possibility tothe old state/market divide! Might we imagine a more inspiring politics that sees the widespread public critique o the state as an opportu-nity to experiment with new orms o grassroots democratic practice?Might we learn to selectively deend and ght or certain elements othe state while remaining true to an aspiration or maximum direct

democracy? Might we move rom privatization to cooperativization?And this points to the nal problem o the state/market divide, andone that is likely clear by now: there is an entire universeo livelihoodpractices and institutional possibilities that are neither part o themarket nor part o the state. It is this huge spacein act, the spacein which most o us live, most o the timethat is rendered invisiblewhen we reduce the economy to its old twin orms. Tis space hasbeen called the social economy, the third sector, and civil society.But these terms ail to capture the diversity and scope o all that wemake and do outside o the market and the state: all orms o giting,sharing, collectivedoing; in act, all orms o the work o living itsel.Neither job nor handout: this is how we occupy our world.

What does this all mean?

It calls or an approach to livelihood that reuses to concede ourimaginations to the narrow story o the market and the state, and yetalso reuses to abandon these two realms as spaces o political possibility. Tis is part o the collective, creative escape rom the trap odependency: the need to live in the present so that a uture might bepossible. Our task is to identiy and create sites, institutions, and prac

tices in which values o equity, cooperation, democracy, pluralism andsolidarity are enactedin markets, in states, in any realm o lieandto link them together. Tis is the approach o a solidarity economics,emerging rom grassroots social movements around the world.5


21/40

21

Economists have been the priests o the possible. When they appearin public to address some issue or key question, it is most oten to tellus (directly or implicitly) what we can or cannot do, what is or is notviable, what is reasonable and what is merely nave dreaming. Teyseem to have it all gured out: direct access to sum total o human po

tential. Interested in social change? In imagining a more equitable anddemocratic uture? In exploring new possibilities or how we mightlive together responsibly? Dont get too excited until you talk to theeconomists. Teyre the ones who sign your permission slip.

Does it sound amiliar? Can you picture the hardnosed realist,secretly resentul or all that time spent learning obscure math or busi

ness strategy while you were dreaming o a better world, snickering atyour aspirations?

Well o coursewe look oolish to the mainstream economists and theirapologist riends! Te whole structure o their economy is set up todo exactly this: to narrow the eld o possibility in such a way thatmakes certain kinds o proposals, and certain ways o lie, seem non

viable, impossible, ridiculous. Even some (though not all!) o the leteconomists play this game: instead o oering their skill and creativityto help us make viablethat which we aspire to create, they pull out thelaws and logics and tell us: no.

Its time to begin consciously and systematically ignoring anyone whoclaims that they have gured out what can or cant be done. As the

Chinese proverb says, Tose who say it cant be done should get out othe way o those doing it. We arefnishedwith the politics o economiclaws. Every such law, every such necessary logic, every claim thatsome possibility is closed must be met as a suspected ploy to shut down

4. From Necessity to Possibility

Tere are no economic laws, and there is nothing necessary orinevitable about economic dynamics. We make our economies, and

thereore we can make them diferently.


22/40

22

creativity, imagination and experimentation. Tis is not to say that everything is possibleit is notbut simply that we do not yet know wherethe line is between the possible and the impossible, and stories that stop usrom exploring this rontier are stories that we must leave behind.6

We stand at the crossroads o multiple converging crises. Te economicinstitutions on which so many o us depend are collapsing; peak oil(among other key resources) is knocking at the door; political instability lurks in the wings; ecosystems are disintegrating; and the entireclimate o the planet is becoming increasingly volatile. Nobody knowshow to solve these problems, or how to mobilize humanity into a com

mon, rapid process o reconguring our ways o lie. Tis is somethingthat the 1% and the % have in common: we ace a terriyingly uncertain uture. Tere is no reasonable response but or us to experiment. AsC.S. Holling says, Te only way to approach such a period in whichuncertainty is high and one cannot predict what the uture holds, isnot to predict, but to experiment and act inventively and exuberantly viadiverse adventures in living.7

Experimentation means shiting rom the skeptical world o no tothe open and creative world o lets give it a try. But it does not meanchasing windmills or wandering aimlessly into uy elds o hopeulrainbows. For many o us, experimentation is not even a choice, but aharsh reality that we ace as the systems we have relied upon unravel.We experiment because we need to seek new orms o livelihood. Tequestion is about how we engage with this seeking. We can cling tothe hope o restoring the lost order, and we can look or scapegoats toblame or its collapse. We can go it alone or in small groups o selseekers, grabbing whatever can be ound in a world o scarcity. Or wecan nd and create new communities o learning in which our experimentation is collective, shared, and seeks to build something in theworld that might contribute to an equitable and resilient uture.

In this work, we must be clear that viability o our proposals andour projects cannot be determined in the terms set by the experts andmanagers o the current economy. Every society creates the conditions oviability or its own practices: certain things are permitted, and others


23/40

23

orbidden; certain things are supported, and others denied. We mustremember this: capitalist businesses did not spring up magically into theworld already viable. Te supposed practicality, efciency and creativepower o the market economy was not simply waiting, readytogo, or

its successul release into the world. Te world had to be radically trans-ormedso that these institutions could become possible and viable.

Political struggle and creation cannot be simply about realizing thatwhich is already possible, but must be about changing the conditions opossibility themselves so that new orms o lie can be born.

Tis is our task: to begin envisioning and creating relationships andstructures that make new ways o living and new orms o livelihoodmore and more viable. Tis is the work o making visible, and then con-necting, the practices o cooperation and solidarity that already exist inour midstthe work o a solidarity economics. It is in part through ourlinkages, and the strength that we gain rom mutual aid and collectiveaction, that the conditions o viability begin to change. Tis connectioncreates a space o learning through which we can begin to understandwhat kinds o broader institutional changes might deepen this viability.

Te question o what economic reorms to ght or should always beasked with this in mind: will this reorm help to change the conditions o possibility or other kinds o cooperative, equitable and ecological livelihoods to gather strength? Will this open the door to newpossibilities or grassroots, democratic organization? Will this help to

strengthen movements that are ghting to take back commons, buildcollective power and enact new ways o living?


24/40

24

5. From Te Economy to Economic Organizing

We must no longer think o economics as the objective analysis o asystem. It must now become an active practice o solidarity and

democratic, grassroots organizing.

Te economy is something that is builtorus. Livelihoods are whatwe, collectively, make or ourselves. We must cease to see economicsas the study o a system that stands apart rom us, and that we caninuence only by demanding regulations rom politicians or account

ability rom corporations. We must begin to see economics as something that we do, and the economy as that which wemake. o theextent that this power o making our own livings has been taken romus, we are taking it back.

Our social movements must begin to make a tremendous shit. Wehave protested, we have expressed our outrage, we have demandedchanges, we have struggled to win. But we have not yet begun, in aserious, strategic and connected way, to build our own economies. Tis isthe power that we handed over to the experts and the policymakers,and this is the power that we must reclaim: i we want to live in a just,democratic and ecologicallyviable world, we need to organize ourselves, organize our resources, organize our collective power, and buildthis world in the hereandnow.

No waiting or a better president. No waiting or the recovery. Nowaiting or the revolution. Just the hard, slow, but powerul work o reclaiming commons, learning how to make democracy work in our livesand organizations, constructing new orms o shared livelihood, connecting them together in webs o mutual support and recognition, andghting to overcome or transorm every obstacle that gets in our way.

Tis is the call: Occupy! Connect! Create!


25/40

25

What is it to occupy? What is this charged word that is spreading like wildre and inciting us to reclaim public space? It reminds

some o us o invasion, colonizationas in an occupied nation. Atthe same time, the #Occupy Movement is pointing toward a dierent sense o the word: something more like a taking back, a holding ospace in order to open it up toward new collective possibilities. Fromits Latin roots, to occupy can, in act, mean to seize a space against thestatus quo and to turn it towards something new. o occupy is to construct a space in which we can engage in the cratthe occupationo

enacting the world we long or.8We need to understand and to enact occupation in the widest sensepossible: to seize every single space that we can, physical and conceptual,in which to exercise collective power and experiment with new ormso collective lie. Occupy everything! Tis is also about making visiblethe spaces that we have already occupied, the practices and orms o liein which we are already rooted and which we already share in common.

Tink o us as water; think o our spaces o occupation as the cracksinto which we ow. Tese are ootholds rom which we launch eachnew moment o creative action.

OCCUPY!

Te brilliance o #OccupyWallStreet is to create a common public spacethat is more than protestas much a space o creation as it is o opposi

tion. And this is what our emerging movements must be: not just protest movements, not movements clamoring only or our demands to bemet, but movements actively working to build the world that we wish tolive in. Nobody will do this or us, and nor would we want them to.


26/40

26

So: we can begin by mapping and strengthening our current public#occupations. Tese are, indeed, sites where other ways o living arebeing birthed, public laboratories and collective schools in whichwe are learning how to live together, how to do democracy, how to

transorm ourselves, and how to enact livelihoodsreal occupations!without the economy o Wall Street. Te many hundreds o #occupations holding spaces around the U.S. and the world are opportunitiesor us to experiment with and to demonstrate the kinds o relationships and institutions we seek to create. Imagine: in place o coercivejobs that we begrudge or even hate, working groups based on afnityand organized collectively; in place o isolated meals (or lack thereo),

community kitchens where we share ood together; in place o corporate media, orms o inormationsharing that we create and control;community selmanagement at every turn. What can these structuresevolve into? What might it look like to link them across #occupations,creating or strengthening regional, national and international networks o popular education, democratic practice, media, healthcare,ood distribution, mediation and alternative economic imagination?

And lets map our other, wider, occupations, too. Where are the spacesin our communities in which people are actively constructing relationships and institutions o cooperation, mutualcare, solidarity anddemocracy? Let us map the #occupation support groups, the grassrootsneighborhood associations, the community centers, the economicand social justice organizations, the landcare and ecological deensegroups, the housing cooperatives, the community gardens and arms, theworkerowned businesses, the armers markets, the mutualaid supportgroups, the communitybased nonprots, the credit unions, the grassroots oundations, the artist collectives, the ree schools, the communitycurrency and barter networks, the public squats, the inormal spaceso sharing and collaboration, the communitybased health centers, theland trusts, the public parks and libraries, and every other space or structure we can possibly nd. Tese are our roots. Tese are our commons.

Tis is the ground rom where we begin.

From here, we can begin to envision and create new occupations:Reclaim more and more public spaces and open them or community,


27/40

27

CONNEC!

We are only as strong as our connections with others, and the work obuilding other orms o livelihood cannot be done alone. Rememberthe trap: our creative escape, i it is to work, has to be collective. Wewill do it together, or we will not do it at all.

Our occupations, then, must be about making connections at every step.

First, linking our work across multiple communities, struggles and issues:

We are already building relationships o solidarity between people

struggling against Wall Street nanciers, predatory lending, corporatepersonhood, military action, the prisonindustrial complex, the manyaces o racism, the ongoing colonization o indigenous land and culture, climate change, the ecological devastation o industrial and actory arming, islands o plastic collecting in our oceans, toxic waste inlowincome communities, privatization and slashing o social programs,decaying public inrastructure, and skyrocketing oreclosure and unemployment. We need to support each other in deepening and strengthening this work as much as we can, and at every turn.

Tis is notabout creating a single image o Te Man that unies all experiences o exploitation and oppression together into one giant, coherent

convergence, conversation and common creation. And then lets gourther: inspired by those who have occupied their oreclosed homesand reused to let them go; inspired by those who reclaim unused lotsand abandoned building and transorm them into new spaces o com

munity; inspired by workers in Argentina who occupied their actoriesand called them their own (shouting, in words that have kindled ourimaginations, occupy! produce! resist!); inspired by the landless workers movements in Brazil and elsewhere who organize occupations oland, taking it back rom the 1%, and create vibrant, multigenerationalcooperative communities. Let us begin to imagine all o the ways thatwe can construct newcommons, shared spaces and pools o resources, on

which we can begin to build dierent kinds o livelihoods.


28/40

28

system or conspiracy (this would cover over both the complexity o howit all connects, and the act that power is never thatcoherentlets notgive them too much credit, here!). Rather, we are engaging in the work olearning to hear each others stories, to connect with each others dier

ences, to take responsibility or our own complicities, and to build solidarity across many kinds o work and struggle.

Second,linking our many practices and institutions o cooperative liveli-hood together in webs o mutual support:

Tis is the task o the emerging solidarity economics movement. Here,our work is to begin building concrete, material relationships o supportand exchange among initiatives working in multiple sectors o economiclie: projects that are caring or and deending creation (the gits o theearth: all that rom which we draw our livelihoods, but which exceedshuman agency); orms oproduction; types oexchange and distri-bution; orms o organized consumption; structures or saving andallocating surplus (recycling and nancing); and practices o democraticeconomic governance (decisionmaking, rules and agreements). We

need to connect diverse initiatives engaging in these orms o work inorder to build new, synergistic ecosystems o livelihood, to pool resources and create shared support structures, and to build collective andorganized economic power.9

Tird, connecting the work o solidarity-based economic organizing withthe broader work o building diverse, multi-issue social movements:

We must integrate economic alternatives into social movements, andsocial movements into economic alternatives. Precisely what the #OccupyMovement is enacting so well. Social movements must become thelieblood that ows through the veins o newlyconnected orms olivelihood. Tey are the base which sustains these projects, and at thesame time the base which these projects are able to increasingly sus

tain. Organizations working or economic, social and ecological justicecan act as sources o accountability or emerging solidarity economynetworks that ace cultural and economic pressure to adopt marketvalues. And reciprocally, solidarity economy networks can inusesocial movements with concrete examples and experiences o their val


29/40

29


30/40

30

And ourth, the work olinking multiple orms o transormative work:deense, ofense, creation, and healing:

We must connect the work o deending our lives and communitiesrom colonization and injustice, the work o actively opposing oppression in all orms, the work o healing together rom trauma andhurt,0 and the work o imagining and building alternative ways to

live together and meet our needs as integral parts o a holistic movement or transormation. We cannot aord to divide ourselves alongthese lines, and we must cease to participate in a culture o activismwhich tries to place nal judgments on the importance, eectiveness,or radicalness o our diverse orms o work. We need each other.

ues in action. Tese linkages oer ways or oppositional social movements to strengthen their critiques and demands with an increasingcommitment to building new economies and ways o lie.


31/40

31

We need each others dierences. We need the many dierent things

that each o us has to oer. Tis is about relentless humility: we donot know how to make the changes that we need to make, and wewill only discover the paths together.

Te work o occupation and connection must become the work ocre-ation: the innovative, collective construction o orms o livelihood andcommunity that might enable us to imagine a day when Wall Streetcan topple without bringing suering millions with it. Tis is our wayout o the trap. It is not a nave notion o dropping out (as i everyone had the privilege to do this, or the privilege to choose otherwise),or a dreamy hope o evading hard work and struggle. It is, rather,about recognizing that the work o breaking out o our dependence isa necessary site or our creative action.

We need housing, ood, water, clothing, education, healthcare, loveand dignity. How will we organize to create these or ourselves? How

CREAE!


32/40

32

will we learn to create and live in new orms o acetoace relationship and community so that these things can be shared? How willwe imagine and ght or institutions and policies that will enable ourwork o building these orms o livelihood together? How can we

learn rom those who have gone beore, and those who are here nowin our communities, experimenting with collective and democraticways o lie? What kinds o support structures o connection, collaboration and common work can we create through which to sustain thisemerging work? How will we move the spaces o #occupied parks tothe spaces o a reoccupied world?

Tere are two views that we must keep in sight, never letting go o either:Te rst view is the need to build and ght or stability and securityor ourselves, each other, our amilies, our communities and thosewith whom were connected around the world, hereandnow. Tis iswhere we demand (and the list can go on): equitable social policies,demilitarization, restructuring o nancial systems, debt orgivenesson multiple ronts, trade policy oriented toward economic justice,public investment in postcarbon conversion and ecological restoration, ree education or all, and scal policies which signicantly andprogressively redistribute wealth rom the 1% to the rest, particularlythose who have been systematically excluded even rom the shrinking middle class. Tis is where we must work also, recognizing ourdependency on that which we must transorm, or job creation. Butnot just any job creation. We need to demand public (and private)resources to help us develop new kinds o jobs:

Locally-rooted jobs: its time to reuse the myth that jobs must be givento us by huge, outside orces which are unaccountable to our needs,our stories and our places. We need jobs that build on and enhance local and regional strengths, that reect the aspiration and values o ourspecic communities, and that are responsible to other communities

around the world with whom we are connected.Cooperative jobs, worker- and community-controlled jobs: its time topublicly proclaim that a society in which a majority o people spendtheir days working under the rule o dictators (bosses) and learning to


33/40

33

obey orders rather than think or themselves cannot be a democraticsociety. We need jobs that embody, in their daily workings, the kind obroader society we seek to cultivate.

Ecologically-restorative jobs: its time to be serious, too, about orms oemployment that are not dependent on the ongoing destruction o theecological base upon which we all rely. Green jobs that seek to sustain our current levels o consumption and production in a sustainableorm will not do. We must create orms o work that are synergistic withour common habitats.

Beyond (but supported by) our demands, then, we must take the

initiative in creating locallyrooted jobs in workplaces that we own,manage and share together, and that enhance the resilience, stability andhealth o our ecological communities.

At the same time, we need to keep the second view in sight: a worldo livelihood beyond employment. We must shit rom simply askinghow we might create more (or better) jobs to asking about how we can

progressively create the conditions in which we no longer need them.

First, how can we begin to build a world in which the unpaid labor obirthing, parenting, caring or elders, building community, creating art,working or justice, and deending and restoring our ecosystems canbe supported as shared social goods? What kinds o accounting wouldmake this work and its value publicly visible? What structures or

supporting each other and sharing surplus can make this work moreviable and sustainable?

And second, how do we re-common the enclosures that created ourdependency on wagework in the rst place? How do we constructorms o direct, collective access to our means o subsistence? How dowe make growing our own ood, gathering and sharing resources col

lectively, producing or ourselves at home and in cooperative communities, building our own housing, providing our own nonmonetizednetworks o support and care, all the more possible and viable? Liebeyond jobs is not or everyone, and nor does it need to be. But itmust become an evermore available option. Let us keep our eyes on


34/40

34

this prize: the possibility o diverse, dignied, democratic and cooperative livelihoods available to all.

Do we know how to make this possible? Not yet.

But we can say this: It is time to launch the largest explosion o practical experimentation that our society has ever seen.

o do this work, we must all begin to imagine our lives dierently.What does it mean to stand on the edge o everything we once tookor granted and choose to step into the unknown? Alone, this workis terriying. ogether, it becomes an adventure in living. We need to

begin imagining lives in which our orms o security (i we have themat all) do not lie in the structures held up by Wall Street or beholdento the banks and corrupt governments. We need to begin exploringthe possibility o new orms o security, new orms o resilience. Notin banks or retirement unds, not even in money, but in relationships,in community, in commons, in common skills, common land, commonresources, and common movements o people experimenting, imagin

ing and building a dierent lie together.

Tis creative experimentation cannot ignore the work o longtermvisioning, the work o developing and debating blueprints and mapsor the uture we seek to create; but nor can we get stuck in the alltoocommon and dangerous demand or an alternative. Tere is nosingular economy, and there will be no singular alternative. Tis is a

path o many paths, and the work o many hearts and minds. We are amovement, not a destination.

Tis is going to be a hell o an adventure.


35/40

35

Resources

#Occupy Wall Street: www.occupywallst.org

#Occupy ogether: www.occupytogether.org

Grassroots Economic Organizing: www.geo.coop

Community Economies Collective: www.communityeconomies.org

SolidarityNYC: www.solidaritynyc.org

Z-Net: www.zcommunications.org/znet

Te Commoner: www.commoner.org.uk

U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives: www.usworker.coop

U.S. Solidarity Economy Network: www.ussen.org

Cultivate.coop: www.cultivate.coop

Data Commons Project Cooperative Directory: www.nd.coop

Community-Wealth.org: www.communitywealth.org

On Te Commons: www.onthecommons.org

Yes! Magazine: www.yesmag.org

Shareable.net: www.shareable.net

Further Reading on Solidarity Economics

owards an Economy Worth Occupying (Cheyenna Weber): http://www.organizingupgrade.com/211/1/aneconomyworthoccupying/

Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues (Ethan Miller): http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Ethan_Miller/Miller_Solidarity_Economy_Key_Issues_21.pd

Solidarity Economics (Euclides Mance):http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence1/solidarityeconomics/


36/40

36

Notes

1. Paul Krugman. Conronting the Maleactors.New York imes. October, 211. http://www.nytimes.com/211/1//opinion/krugmanconrontingthemaleactors.htm

2. See, or example: Rene Dumont, From Mandeville to Marx: Te Genesisand riumph o Economic Ideology. University o Chicago Press, 1; Alsoimothy Mitchell, Fixing Te Economy. Cultural Studies. Vol.12, Issue ,

p. 211.

3. For at least some o this story, see Karl Polanyi, Te Great ransorma-tion. Beacon Press, 11 ; and E.P. Tompson, Te Making o the EnglishWorking Class. New York: Penguin, 11.

. Nothing shortcircuits political possibility like an appeal to nature.More more on this, see Bruno Latour, Politics o Nature: How to Bring the Sci-ences into Democracy. Harvard University Press, 2.

. For some academic work on the role o measurement and graphicalrepresentation in the making o the economy, see imothy Mitchell,Fixing Te Economy. Cultural Studies. Vol.12, Issue , 1; and Susan

Other Economies Are Possible: Special section o Dollars & Senseon solidarity economy (in collaboration with Grassroots EconomicOrganizing): http://www.geo.coop/les/Other%2Economies%2Are%2Possible_GEO%2Section%2o%2D&S.pd

Solidarity and Participatory Economics (Michael Albert): http://www.zcommunications.org/solidarityandparticipatoryeconomicsbymichaelalbert

Solidarity Economics: Building New Economies rom the BottomUp and the InsideOut (Ethan Miller)): http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Ethan_Miller/Miller_Solidarity%2Economics%2(2).pd

What Is Solidarity Economics? (Lius Razeto):http://www.luisrazeto.net/content/whatsolidarityeconomics

Also see the entry at p2poundation.net:http://p2poundation.net/Solidarity_Economics


37/40

37

BuckMorss, Envisioning Capital: Political Economy on Display, Criti-cal Inquiry. Vol. 21, Issue 2, 1. For an elaborate argument about thesketchy relationships between economics and physics, see Philip Mirowski,More Heat Tan Light: Economics As Social Physics, Physics as Natures Economics.Cambridge University Press, 1. For an account o some ways in whichearly economists such as Adam Smith actively hid the role o enclosuresin making the economy they were writing about, see Michael Perelman,Te Invention o Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History o

Primitive Accumulation. Duke University Press, 2.

. For more on contemporary enclosures, see Te Commoner, Issue 2, 21(http://www.commoner.org.uk/index.php?p=) and Issue , 22 (http://www.commoner.org.uk/index.php?p=) among others, and David Bollier,Silent Tet: Te Private Plunder o Our Common Wealth. New York: Routledge,23.

. For more on this shit in perspective rom a monolithic economy toa diverse landscape o practices, see J.K. GibsonGraham,A PostcapitalistPolitics. University o Minnesota Press, 2; and Jenny Cameron and J.K.GibsonGraham, Feminising the Economy: Metaphors, Strategies, Poli

tics. Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 1, No.2, p.11; also other work othe Community Economies Collective: http://www.communityeconomies.org

. Massimo De Angelis oers a powerul ramework or thinking aboutvalues and value struggles in his bookTe Beginning o History: Value Strug-gles and Global Capital(London: Pluto Press, 2). He draws on DavidGraebers concept o value as the importance o action in David Graeber,oward an Anthropological Teory o Value: Te False Coin o Our Own Dreams.

New York: Palgrave, 21.. Iceberg image adapted rom an original by Ken Byrne, published in J.K.GibsonGraham,A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University o Minnesota Press, 2.

1. o put a ew numbers into the mix: A recent study by the USDA showsthat 2, cooperative businesses in the U.S. employ more than 2 mil

lion people. Tis includes over 2 workerowned cooperatives and 2,consumerowned cooperatives (many o which are credit unions nonprot alternatives to corporate banks). Tese are all businesses mutuallyowned and democratically controlled by members who benet rom itsproducts and services. (See http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdaho


38/40

38

me?contentidonly=true&contentid=2//.xml). Additionally, thereare more than 2 community land trustscooperatively owed and democratically controlled parcels o land to support aordable housing and otherprojectsin the U.S. (National Community Land rust Network: http://www.cltnetwork.org/index.php?useaction=Main.MemberList), and hundreds o local currencies and barter networks o all kinds (see CommunityCurrency Magazines directory or just a ew o these: http://www.ccmag.net/directory). Te Data Commons Project is working to develop a morecomprehensive directory o alternative economy initiatives o all kinds. Teinprogress prototype can be ound at: www.nd.coop

11. See, or example, David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and PathwaysBeyond Sustainability. Holmgren Design Services, 22; and Bill Mollison,Permaculture: A Practical Guide or a Sustainable Future. Island Press, 1.

12. Freya Mathews describes these various practices as pointing towardthe possibility o economies o biosynergy: that is, orms o livelihood thatnot only rerain rom destroying ecosystems, but work to heal and enhancethem. See Freya Mathews, Te Moral Ambiguities In the Politics o Climate Change, in Ved Nanda (Ed), Climate Change and Environmental Ethics.

New York: ransaction Publishers, 21.13. Tis is a distinction that comes rom Karl Polanyi, Te Livelihood o Man.New York: Academic Press, 1.

1. For some theory that supports this critique, see imothy Mitchell,Te Limits o the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics. TeAmerican Political Science Review, vol., no.1, 11.

1. For more on solidarity economics, see the resource library at http://www.solidaritynyc.org

1. See J.K. GibsonGraham, A Postcapitalist Politics. University o Minnesota Press, 2.

1. Quoted in Diane Dumanoski, Te End o the Long Summer: Why We Must

Remake Our Civilization to Survive On a Volatile Earth. New York: CrownPublishing, 21, p.213. Emphasis mine.

1. Occupy: rom ob - capere(Latin). Te ob can mean in the directionso, towards, and at the same time against, or in a direction or manner


39/40

39

Ethan Miller is an activist, educator and researcher working to culti-

vate and support efforts for more democratic, equitable, cooperative and

ecologically-sound economies. He works with Grassroots Economic

Organizing (www.geo.coop) and the Community Economies Collective(www.communityeconomies.org), and has lived for the past ten years atthe JED Collective/Giants Belly Farm in Greene, Maine (www.jedcollec

tive.org). Ethan is currently on a hiatus in Australia, working on a PhDat the University of Western Sydney with the Community EconomiesResearch Group.

Email Ethan at:[email protected]

contrary to the usual (as in obverse). Capereis to take, to seize. At thesame time, to occupy is to employ, to make use o, to exercise ones crat.(rom the Oxord English Dictionary)

1. A larger version o this circle, with descriptions o many o the initiatives listed on it, can be downloaded here: http://www.geo.coop/les/Solidarity%2Economy_Circle%2and%2Key.pd. For more on solidarityeconomy linkages, see Ethan Miller, Solidarity Economy: Key Conceptsand Issues, in Emily Kawano, om Masterson, and Jonathan ellerEllsberg (Eds), Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives or People andPlanet. Amherst, MA: Center or Popular Economics, 21. Tis can bedownloaded at: http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Ethan_Miller/Miller_Solidarity_Economy_Key_Issues_21.pd

2. See Yashna, Communities o Care, Organizations or Liberation.OrganizingUpgrade.com. http://www.organizingupgrade.com/211//yashnacommunitiesocare/

21. Note that I am notadvocating or the #occupations to develop lists odemands. I am speaking about the larger movements to which they are

(and will increasingly be) connected.22. See, or example, the work o the Business Alliance or Local LivingEconomies (BALLE): http://www.livingeconomies.org.

23. Check out the U.S. Federation o Worker Cooperatives or more inormation: http://www.usworker.coop


40/40

occupy connect create 3.0_linear

Documents