To state the obvious, political and economic change happens in all kinds of ways including through crisis and calamity. For those of us working for change at local, municipal and regional scales, this is the moment when many of the solutions we’ve been promoting are needed and the conditions for building the foundations for longer term change are favourable. There’s much to explore on this topic, obviously, but let’s just focus on a few points which might inspire immediate action and kick off a continuing conversation in our wider community of changemakers, and especially here in the South West, UK.
My friend and fellow Devon-based organiser, Ben, provides the perfect jumping off point with his recent question: “are there economic moves we can make locally that might start addressing our needs outside of the main economic system (to maintain incomes/ access to the essentials/ exchange our labour/ distribute..etc)?” Continue reading “Local Resilience Now! – or what we can do to build local economic resilience in this crisis and create the conditions for regenerative economic transformation”
Perhaps we all agree the current economic system is the problem. This is, of course, a generalisation which could be endlessly unpicked and elaborated. But if we’re concerned about global warming, biospheric damage, inequality, etc, the globe-sized elephant in the room, so to speak, is the dominant economic system powered by fossil fuels and predicated on endless consumption and growth. It’s efficiency-oriented and centralising, concentrating ever greater economic and political power in the hands of oligarchs and autocrats, which means change will not come easy.
There are inspiring success stories unfolding, such as in 
Enterprising Ecosystems 