Community
Building
The book section
is broken down according to
the following categories.
Eco-living
Peak Oil
Food
Community Building
Get-off-the-Grid
Additional Reading
Small
is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
EF
Schumacher
In my college days I struggled with
economics and barely passed. My economic professors and the course
material were dull, ambiguous, and non-stimulating. None of these
adjectives could be used to describe Schumacher's Small is Beautiful:
Economics as if People Mattered.
Schumacher makes economics come alive with wit,
humor, and practicality. His approach is qualitative, not quantitative.
A recurring statement throughout the book epitomizes his philosophy,
"Why use the computer if you can make the calculation on the back of an
envelope"? He gives the science a personality when identifying the
disparities between the rich and poor, the educated and uneducated, and
the gap between city people and country-folk.
Small is Beautiful created a humanistic economics
movement. It's a wholistic approach containing ethical, ecological, and
metaphysical components that are missing from the statistical models
that solely measure GNP. Schumacher sounded the alarm regarding
globalization when asking "how much further 'growth' will be possible,
since infinite growth in a finite environment is an obvious
impossibility". He was critical of a society that generates unbounded
materialism, and motivated by greed and envy.
Some of the more interesting of the 20 essays are:
"Peace and Permanence", "The Role of Economics", "Buddhist Economics",
"The Greatest Resource - Education", "Technology with a Human Face",
"Development of Intermediate Technology", and "Two Million Villages".
Although the book was written in 1973, it is as
timely now as it was then. The 25th anniversary edition contains
provocative updates provided as sidebars by contributors such as Hazel
Henderson, Peter Warshall, Amory Lovins, Godric Bader, et al.
Amazon reviewer T Theil
Relocalize
Now
Julian
Darley
On hearing about the coming energy crisis and
impending ecological collapse, many people ask, "But what can I do?" Relocalize
Now! provides the best answers to date.
This timely guide from the Post Carbon Institute
analyzes the full depth of the crisis of industrial civilization,
outlines the centrality of the global economic system in this crisis,
and then proposes a plan for the global relocalization of our way of
life. It promotes the idea of people re-creating local communities--or
"outposts"--at the level of neighborhood and nation that can begin to
build "parallel public infrastructures" for survival, along with ways
of networking efforts together for wider support. It does this through
presenting the following:
- Specific programs to create local money, energy,
transportation, governance, and food systems designed to help
communities become self-reliant right now
- Broader policy strategies that must be addressed at the political and
institutional level as soon as possible to help communities create a
long-term system adapted for a post-carbon age
The book's innovative project ideas, such as a
community retirement fund and corporate disobedience--nonviolent ways
to disengage from globalization-are supplemented by practical tools for
relocalizing and examples of charter outposts from Los Angeles to
Alaska and Toronto. With a glossary and an extensive resources section,
Relocalize Now! contains all you need to build
the alternative.
Ripples from the Zambezi
Ernesto Sirolli
This is - in my estimation - a great book by a
true visionary, Ernesto Sirolli. The two chapters in the middle of this
book "The Esperance Experience" and "The Esperance Model Applied" are
as good as business-writing gets. In Sirolli's world, the glass is
neither half empty nor half full. Rather, the water is gushing over the
top of the cup. The stories he tells here of enterprises 'facilitated'
in the bleakest economic conditions imaginable...well, it can't help
but turn you into an optimist.
But Sirolli goes further. He takes these
experiences and imagines them on a grand scale where, as he says,
"reciprocity matters." Calling it a "civic economy," he envisions a
world benefiting from "generalized reciprocity, from people helping
people to succeed, with the understanding that well-being of the
community is to everybody's advantage."
Don't misinterpret these sentiments. Sirolli is a
capitalist at heart, but he presses for a system "beyond
capitalism...which enhances participation in the creation of wealth,
not only in its accumulation."
How does he connect the dots from tiny Esperance
to his grand vision for a civic economy? I urge you to read "Ripples
from the Zambezi" to find out.
Future
of Money
Bernard
Lietaer
The new bible on how money works and
the creation of alternative currencies by communities and regions.
"This book allowed me to understand the system of money and money
supply. I will be attempting to convince our small midwestern county to
adopt a community supporting complimentary currency as a result of
reading it."
Amazon reviewer J Williams
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