ALTERNATIVES
Nehru’s grand illusion was to imagine that the ‘good’ in the modern world could be somehow magically preserved while allowing the ‘evil seed’ (gluttony of power?) to flourish into a ravishing rainforest of destructive avarice, an inevitability our times are having to face, as barbarism knocks on every door. Gandhi’s fears are globally vindicated today….
Read More about Aseem Shrivastava: Who killed Swaraj?
ALTERNATIVES
Prof. Irfan Habib writes: This year is the centenary of one of the most remarkable episodes of modern Indian history, the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 that joined the national movement with the great struggle of the peasantry for bread and land, exposing how the twin processes of drain of wealth and de-industrialisation had ruined India….
Read More about Celebrating the Champaran Satyagraha, a hundred years on
ALTERNATIVES
From The Conversation: If the global economy grows by 3% till 2100, it will be 60 times larger than now. The existing economy is already environmentally unsustainable, so we simply cannot“decouple” growth from environmental impact. This paper looks at policies that could facilitate a planned transition beyond growth–while considering the huge obstacles along the way….
Read More about Limits to growth: policies to steer the economy away from disaster
CLIMATE CRISIS
Joe Brewer writes: There is a reason only 5 men have the same aggregate wealth as half the human population. And that the Earth’s climate is ramping up for a phase transition that threatens our entire civilization. It’s because the 500 year old Global Architecture of Wealth Extraction is designed to produce exactly these outcomes….
Read More about Can you feel capitalism dying?
ALTERNATIVES
Here’s a thinker, who in the 1960s, declared climate change as a defining problem of the age. Who accused his fellow environmentalists of advocating mere “technical fixes” of capitalism, instead of addressing root causes. But today, his ideas are enjoying an unexpected revival. Damian White pays tribute to Murray Bookchin, who died on this day in 2006….
Read More about Tribute: Murray Bookchin and the ecology of freedomBookshelf
From Chronicle.com: In his new book, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, Stanford University professor Walter Scheidel puts forth the following thesis: that historically, it took four kinds of violent ruptures –mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolution, state failure, and lethal pandemics– to reduce widespread inequality….
Read More about What tames inequality? Violence and mayhem, says new book
ALTERNATIVES
Martin Lukacs writes in The Guardian: Capitalism thrives on people believing that being afflicted by the structural problems of an exploitative system –poverty, joblessness, poor health, lack of fulfillment –is a personal deficiency. Neoliberalism has taken this internalised self-blame and turbocharged it. So, you are now also responsible for bearing the burden of potential ecological collapse!…
Read More about Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals
ALTERNATIVES
Kurt Cobb writes: The idea of progress is embedded in the socio-economic system, and we cannot attack carbon emissions without attacking the idea of progress itself. If the progress we’ve made since the beginning of industrial civilization only leads to a complete reversal of all our supposed gains, can we really call what’s happening progress?…
Read More about Can we live without progress?
CLIMATE CRISIS
As global capitalist economic growth accelerates planetary ecological collapse, Richard Smith argues that – impossible as it may seem at present – only the most radical solution -the overthrow of global capitalism, the construction of a mostly publicly-owned and mostly planned eco-socialist economy is the only alternative to the collapse of civilization and ecological suicide….
Read More about Capitalism and the destruction of life on earth: Six theses on saving the humans
ALTERNATIVES
India’s Tribal communities are under extreme pressure, right from big dams and mines to violent insurgencies and militarisation engulfing their lands. In 25 years, will these communities cease to exist? Or, will they represent thriving, revitalised models of egalitarian sustainability that the rest of the world has come to recognise and is learning from? Felix…
Read More about Felix Padel: Adivasi economics may be the only hope for India’s futureConflict/Dispossession
From Truthout.org: This superbly researched 2015 paper explains why China’s unfolding environmental crisis is so horrific, so much worse than “normal” capitalism almost everywhere else, and why the government is incapable of suppressing pollution even from its own industries. It should serve as a warning for India, whose official policies increasingly mimic the ‘China model’….
Read More about Spotlight: China’s communist-capitalist ecological apocalypseConserve/Resist
From AlterNet: Last year it was eight men, then down to six, and now almost five. The world’s richest five men now own over $400 billion in wealth. On average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people. The super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow….
Read More about Now five men own almost as much wealth as half the world’s population
Climate Justice Action Network
ALTERNATIVES
The determinant element in the concept of eco-socialism is the prefix eco. And that means the rejection of industrialism. A good socialist only needs to rejects capitalism. But to be an eco-socialist one must also reject industrialism as a future perspective for mankind, and agree to a program of de-industrialization (now often clumsily called de-growth)….
Read More about What is Eco-Socialism? Who is an Eco-Socialist?
Larry C Price/The Guardian
Conflict/Dispossession
From The Guardian: Zambia’s Kabwe is the world’s most toxic town, according to pollution experts, where mass lead poisoning has almost certainly damaged the brains and other organs of generations of children –who continue to be poisoned every day. The lead levels in Kabwe are as much as 100 times that of recommended safety levels….
Read More about The world’s most toxic town: the terrible legacy of Zambia’s lead mines
Paresh Nath/The Khaleej Times
Conserve/Resist
Nityanand Jayaraman writes: June 5 was World Environment Day. Over the last few days, this author, an environmental activist, has been asked by many people to lay out things that people can do without really straining their daily schedules. These simple things may not exist anymore. Instead, here are six things for everyone to consider….
Read More about Why the fight for environmental justice is also a fight for social justice
ALTERNATIVES
Jonathan Rutherford writes: Reducing societal consumption –degrowing the economy– need not necessarily result in chaotic economic breakdown. This is indeed an inevitable outcome within our present economic system, but possibly not others. What then would be required to contract the economy, in an orderly and fair way? A possible answer, from the ‘Simpler Way’ perspective….
Read More about How do you ‘degrow’ an economy, without causing chaos?Consumerism/Lifestyle
We’re all on track to use at least 29 phones in our lifetimes. This rapid turnover of devices leads to record profits for smartphone manufacturers year after year. It also leads to many damaging impacts on people and our planet. Greenpeace USA’s new report, ‘From Smart to Senseless’, explores the high cost of smartphone use….
Read More about Study: What 10 years of smartphone use means for the planet
Danomyte/Shutterstock
Bookshelf
From Quartz.com: The Luddites were the bands of English workers who destroyed machinery, especially in cotton mills, which they believed was threatening their jobs. As machine learning and robotics consume manufacturing and white-collar jobs alike, New York Times journalist Clive Thompson revisits the Luddite’s history to see what the 200-year-old workers’ rebellion can teach us….
Read More about Luddites have been getting a bad rap for 200 years. Turns out, they were right
Bookshelf
Clive Hamilton writes: Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet, faced with these facts, we carry on as usual. Most citizens ignore or downplay the warnings; many of our intellectuals indulge in wishful thinking….
Read More about The great climate silence: we are on the edge of the abyss but we ignore it
ALTERNATIVES
Karl Marx was possibly the founder of the most appealing secular religion in modern times. On his birth anniversary I hear a call from within; I feel like paying homage to the prophet of modern times. Though I’m not a Marxist, the oceanic currents in his thinking continue to fascinate students and wanderers like me….
Read More about Avijit Pathak: I’m not a Marxist, but I’m grateful for Marx
