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, May 21, 2013

Hope from the Margins

Click here to access article by Gustavo Esteva from The Wealth of the Commons.
These notes offer a quick glance to ways, in the south of Mexico, in which people are regenerating the society from the bottom up. It is a new kind of revolution without leaders or vanguards, which goes beyond development and globalization. It is about displacing the economy from the center of social life, reclaiming a communal way of being, encouraging radical pluralism, and advancing towards real democracy.
There are some writing flaws in this article and the author tends to over-idealize his commons theme; in spite of this he offers some promising examples of people who, drawing from their cultural roots, are creating islands of people-centered societies in the midst of a hostile capitalist world that serves only a small fraction of people bent on "owning" everything of value.
at
Labels: , , ,