commons

Protest and Principled Pragmatism

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Having attended the Trafalgar Square, London rally on 29th August 2020 and yesterday’s event for the first couple of hours and having watched the Ruptly.TV livestream of both yesterday and the 19th September event which I didn’t attend, I’ve been reflecting on the effectiveness of protest. Turning out to show the world that there are … Read more

Contributions from David Graeber

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David Graeber is no longer with us in the flesh. Anthropologist David Graeber, the man behind ‘We are the 99%’ slogan, dead at 59An anthropology professor at London School of Economics, Graeber was known for his books criticizing and deconstructing the capitalist system, including ‘Debt: the First 5000 Years,’ ‘Bulls*** Jobs: a Theory,’ and ‘The … Read more

Ecology, Climate and Hope

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This conversation between Gordon of Rune Soup and Charles Eisenstein begins to unpack conflation of the polarised climate debate with the very real damage we continue to inflict on our habitat and ourselves.

Talking Ecology, Climate and Hope with Charles Eisenstein
Charles is the author of a number of important books including Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. He joins us today to talk about his most recent book, Climate: A New Story.
Along the way we tackle many challenging and thorny topics, such as solutionism, polarisation, despair and how to best think with our ecological crisis so that we may return to flourishing.

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Water of Life

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Water is pretty much taken for granted in the UK, except when there’s a hosepipe ban in high summer. We regard it as ubiquitous and mundane but as water has become privatised, metered and rationed around the world, its significance is beginning to penetrate popular consciousness. The cost of water is accelerating – at 20% per annum over the last three years in London (Thames Water is owned by an Australian consortium led by Macquarie Group).

But water has magical properties which not even those who steal it from the rest of us for profit understand. To them, it is merely another God or nature given commodity to be exploited for private gain. Water is a commons and arguably one of the most important but, beyond that, its properties could be harnessed for everyone’s benefit and the environment, in a world that was less focused on profit and competition.

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Democracy Illusion

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Apologies. When I tried to find the following joke, I failed and made a poor attempt at retelling it. The intrepid Maggie found it for me and credit goes to Critical Thinker, Roger, who forwarded the joke. The original joke came from David Stevenson to whom I owe an even bigger apology for bastardising the original. So here it is, as told by David:

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The power of co-creative learning

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A couple of endorsements of Critical Thinking’s analysis from Twitter

What is paramount in co-creative learning is its collaborative nature, drawing and building on the work of many others. Critical Thinking’s conclusions are the culmination of millions of man hours, worked by hundreds of thousands of people, shared by thousands more and filtered through the Critical Thinking community to be re-shared via email, the website, conversations, books, articles, videos, podcasts and Twitter. Critical Thinking’s motto is:

Thus no individual or group can claim “ownership” of what Critical Thinking has produced – knowledge is one of the most important commons. Theft of the commons is one of the three fundamental flaws in the political economy.

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Beyond Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking at the Free University has just published the 7th and final iteration of its accumulated research and analysis of political economy, How we live – who rules, how and why?, which explains:

– we are at a crossroads and faced with a choice; the choice will differ depending on where people are on their personal journey of discovery. Many have yet to reach the limits of critical thinking in exploring political economy to realise that there lies a world of possibilities beyond;

– events are coming to a head; dramatic changes to the fabric of global society are accelerating. The “powers that shouldn’t be” are preparing for the Cull.

How we live – Who rules, how and why? at archive.org

Below is the Abstract of the final iteration:

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