We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Recovery Recedes, Convulsion Looms

by Walden Bello from Foreign Policy in Focus. 

The author looks at economic trends in the global economy and asks an important question (which he attempts to answer):
The triumph of austerity in the U.S. and Europe will surely eliminate these two areas as engines of recovery for the global economy.  But is Asia indeed on a different track, one that would make it bear, like Atlas, the burden of global growth?
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