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Session Five:
Our Common Wealth
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Session 5
Our Common Wealth
In the last several sessions we reflected on the false security offered by
promises of unlimited growth and bubble economics. We turned our attention to
more reliable sources of security: the people and community that we depend on
for safety, assistance and cultural uplift in times of need.
Today we'll look more deeply at an additional, often-overlooked but critically
important source of our security and well being: the commons, those forms of
shared wealth that belong to all of us and that we must take care of together.
As a group we will reacquaint ourselves with these shared resources -- natural,
social and cultural -- and see how they enrich our lives. We will also look at
what happens when we take the commons for granted, allow them to be
privatized or otherwise lost.
The ideas in this session may be new for you and your group, so take time to
familiarize yourself with the content before presenting this material. The session
is organized around story-telling: three brief commons stories to illustrate the
range of resources we hold in common, and a read-aloud of a futuristic
community that should help bring the ideas and our experiences to life.
Facilitator Overview
Theme: “Rediscovering Sources of Shared Wealth and Security”
Objectives:



Recognize community wealth and assets as fundamental to our security.
Recognize another form of shared wealth – our commons – and why we
need to reclaim it
Reflect on ways we can strengthen these forms of common security.
Preparation



Review the agenda. Adapt any talking points to the specific needs of your
community and host organization.
Copy the handouts for participants. For a list, see the Handouts section
below.
Enlist a volunteer notetaker or scribe for the first activity, The Offering of
Gifts and Needs.
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

Choose an opening reading or the online video; cue it up on your web browser.
For the Defining the Commons activity, copy the graphic below, indicating
the three streams that contribute to The Flow of the Commons, on a blank
piece of poster or flipchart paper.
Materials




Poster paper or blank flipchart and easel
Markers and name tags
Blank participant sign-in sheets with space for name, address, phone, and email.
Two baskets for offerings of Gifts and Needs.
Handouts

Participant Agenda (Attachment 5-1)

Reading: Marge Piercy / To Be Of Use (Attachment 5-2A) One copy.

Reading: Wendell Berry / The Larger Circle (Attachment 5-2B) One copy..




Reading: Mark L. Belletini / Go In Peace (Attachment 5-2C) One copy.
What Is The Commons? (Attachment 5-3)
Examples of The Commons (Attachment 5-4)
Read Aloud: Three Stories of the Commons (Attachment 5-5) One copy.



Read Aloud: A Fork in the Road: The City of Cato (Attachment 5-6) One copy..
Homework for Session 6 (Attachment 5-7)
Homework Reading: David Korten / We Need To Build An Economy That Works
(Attachment 5-8)
Homework Reading: Juliet Schor / Plentitude: The New Economics of True
Wealth (Attachment 5-9)

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
Sticking Together: Things Clubs Can Do (Attachment 5-10)
Summary Agenda
Gathering (5)
Agenda Review and Ground Rules (5)
Opening Reflection: Prayer, Poem, Short Reading (15)
Activity #1: Offerings of Gifts and Needs (40 total)

Offerings (20)

Group Reflection and Discussion (20)
Activity #2: Rediscovering Our Commons (45 total)

Defining the Commons (10)

Stories of the Commons (15)


Read Aloud – Pair Sharing
The Fork In The Road: A Commons-Based Future, or Not (20)

Read Aloud – Group Discussion
Next Meeting (5)
Closing prayer or reading (5)
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Facilitator’s Detailed Agenda
Gathering (5)
If you are holding a pre-session potluck, dessert would be a good time to gather
participants for this part of the session. Alternatively, this opening could begin
as participants are finishing their meals.
Welcome participants with some remarks along these lines:


This is our fifth session together. In the last session, we drew our Real
Security Trees as a way of identifying what does or could make us
secure beyond just our individual means. We looked at ways we might
draw on often invisible or unacknowledged sources of resilience – that of
relationships, neighbors, community life and our social institutions and
natural resources.
Today we’ll look more deeply at a source of shared wealth and security –
the gift of the commons. We’ll also look at what has weakened these
resources and what we can do to reclaim them.
Agenda Review and Ground Rules (5)
Distribute the Participant Agenda (Attachment 5-1) and briefly review it.
Review the club’s participation guidelines; (you may want to just post these at
this point).
Opening Reflection: Prayer or Short Reading (15)
Invite a participant to read aloud from a selection, or lead a prayer or short
reflection. This guide suggests several options for an opening reading for this
session:
Attachment 5-2A -- Marge Piercy: To Be of Use
Attachment 5-2B -- Wendell Berry: The Larger Circle
Attachment 5-2C -- Mark L Belletini: Go in Peace
Another option for the opening is a short and moving 3-minute YouTube video
about human interdependence: The Tattered Ideology of Personal
Responsibility, by Lester Jones, available at www.tinyurl.com/a9s46p.
Pairs Sharing: In pairs, ask group members to reflect on the reading or video.
What does this reading/video speak to in your life?
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Activity #1 Offerings of Gifts and Needs (40 total)
A. Offering (20)
The club’s homework for this session included making lists or cards of “gifts you
have to offer” and “things you need.” Explain that we will go around and have
people briefly offer up their Gifts and Needs in turn.
Open this section by noting that one of the things that can get distorted in times of
scarcity and hardship is our sense of ourselves as having something to give as
well as needing to receive. Sometimes we forget we have anything to offer when
we have many needs. Sometimes we fear needing something from others
because this makes us feel vulnerable. This activity is about restoring balance
between offering and receiving. Reciprocity is a critical ingredient in common
security; it is harder than just giving or just receiving, but it is ultimately more
rewarding and builds deeper connections, connections that create needed security.
Today we practice valuing ourselves and each other through reciprocity.
Have participants go around one by one and explain briefly what they’re offering
and what they need. If participants brought their gifts and needs on separate
cards, invite them to place their cards in appropriately-labeled baskets; if
participants brought lists, record these on blank flip chart or poster paper as
participants share. Divide the paper into two columns, one for Gifts, and the
other for Needs.
The volunteer note-taker or scribe records these gifts and needs so that each
participant can see how their individual needs might be matched up with
available resources within the club.
B. Group Reflection and Discussion (20)
Invite the group to notice the variety and richness of the offerings.
Ask the group to go around and share:
 What did it feel like to make up these lists and then share them?
 What did you learn about yourself?
Then looking at the lists of gifts and needs, help the group make connections
where there is a match between gifts and needs.
Ask people:
 Do you have more ideas of gifts and needs after listening to others?
Assure participants that we will return to the lists in order to match up skills and
needs, creating opportunities for mutual aid within the club. Have someone
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agree to type up the two lists and bring them back next time.
Transitional remarks:

We have discovered how many gifts we have together when we pool our
skills and abilities. These may have been invisible as a source of security
until we created an opportunity to share them.

There is another kind of gift that is also often overlooked and forgotten,
and yet is a key to our security: the Gift of the Commons.
Activity #2 Rediscovering Our Commons (45 total)
A. Defining the Commons (10)
Ask the group:

Think back to the Real Security Tree activity. Among the things that
gave us security, we listed some shared resources that belong to all of
us. Can you think of any of those things?
Collect a few examples: e.g. libraries, water, green space and parks, etc.


These are all examples of what we are now calling The Commons.
What are The Commons? The concept of the commons is a new way to
express a very old idea—that some forms of wealth belong to all of us,
and that these community resources must be actively protected and
managed for the good of all. The commons are the shared resources
that we inherit and create together, and that we are called to pass on to
future generations undiminished.
Post the drawing you prepared ahead of time of the Flow of the Commons.
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The Commons consist of:
 gifts of nature such as water and air;
 social/community creations such as libraries, public parks, and blood
banks;
 cultural creations such as language, recipes and the Internet.
Ask the group to call out additional examples of commons in each of the three
tributaries:
NATURAL
SOCIAL/COMMUNITY
CULTURAL
Facilitator Note: Don't fret too much about getting each suggestion exactly
right in terms of category. The main objective of this exercise is to engage
people with the basic idea of the commons.
Handout the sheet Examples of the Commons [Attachment 5-4] to expand the
group’s thinking. This list is for group information; no need to review it.
B. Stories of the Commons (15)
Facilitator: Today people are realizing how important The Commons are as a
source of shared security and abundance. But a commons is only really vibrant
and healthy if it is seen, valued, protected, and cared for by a community – this
relationship is critical. Here are three commons stories that show why it is so
important for us to “see, name and claim our commons” and what can happen
when we don’t.
Read-Aloud
Ask for three volunteers, each to read one of the following sections. You might
want to ask for volunteers based on personal interest: “Who here feels a special
connection to their local library?” “Anyone here especially connected to the
importance of water in your life?”
First Reader: Water
Water is one of the most ancient and important commons we have. Do you
have memories of a favorite swimming hole or spring? Did you grow up
watering a vegetable garden or playing in the spray of a hose? (Personalize
from here as you like.)
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From communal wells to some of the best municipal water systems in the world,
communities in this country understood that everyone needed water to survive
and therefore had a rightful claim on this life necessity. The law has also treated
waterways as within the public domain and in many cases protected public
purposes for water use. In recent decades, however, corporations have seen
the profit to be made in controlling and selling water. As a result, an alarming
increase in water privatization poses a threat to our water commons.
Companies are buying up water rights and gaining contracts to manage water
systems. Bottled water in many cases is our own water repackaged and sold
back to us at an enormous mark up.
Second Reader: Libraries
I spent many hours in my town’s library as a kid. It felt like this inexhaustible joy
– as many books as I could read, all for free. I could get information and do
research too. We could even check out music and art. And it wasn’t just in my
town but every town. To think that someone in an earlier time had the idea for
such a gift to us all…
Well, communities today are seeing that gift diminished. Even as library use
skyrockets in today’s economic climate, communities are facing funding cuts
that force cuts in staffing and hours, even closures.
Third Reader: The Internet
The Internet is one of the most amazing commons every created. Who can
imagine life without it anymore? I am still amazed when I use Wikipedia or track
down a piece of information, how vibrant this collective creation is. We use the
Internet to connect socially, we gather and share information, we participate in
formal and informal discussions about topics of the day, we share and create
cultural expressions, and more and more we seek our news on the Internet. It
has allowed for a democratization of information, music sharing, news making
and civic participation.
And yet there is an active battle between those that would preserve the Internet
as a commons – a place for open source and sharing - and those that seek to
enclose and privatize access.
Facilitator: Each of these stories raises big questions about who the commons
belong to and how decisions about their future should be made.
Pair Sharing (10)
Identify a commons that is important to you, that you see as threatened. Why,
in your opinion, does it matter? How is it threatened, and who benefits?
Provide a reminder after five minutes to move the focus of the conversation to
the second person in the pair.
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Activity #2 Fork In The Road: A Commons-Based Future, Or Not?
(20 total)
Facilitator: We have talked a lot about a fork in the road that we now face – a
choice about the future we are creating for ourselves and for generations to
come. We are going to take a look at what it means to have a vibrant commonsbased community vs. a totally “you’re on your own” existence.
Pass-Around Read-Aloud (5)
As an introduction to the next conversation, pass around the Read-Aloud
[Attachment 5-5] Jay Walljasper / Fork in the Road: City of Cato, about a
futuristic city in Texas, asking each group member to read a paragraph or two.
The rediscovery of the commons prompted people to think more about what
really mattered to them. This cultural shift can be seen most vividly in a town
like Cato, Texas. If you were looking for a place that once stood as the
antithesis of a commons-based society, Cato would be it. This outer-ring
suburb of Houston, founded as a gated community in 2004, gained
widespread media attention for its almost complete lack of government
services. Even the police department was run as a for-profit business, with
different levels of protection available to households depending on how
much in premiums they paid to a private security company. (Some lowercost plans, for instance, did not cover house calls for nuisance crimes,
burglaries or domestic disputes.)
Cato never attracted anywhere near the 125,000 residents projected by its
developers. Today, the population stands at 4,200, down from about 11,000
in 2015. At one point there was serious discussion about leveling the place
to create community gardens, but the town got a reprieve in 2022 when a
station on Houston’s expanding commuter rail system opened. The real
turnaround began, however, with the formation 10 years ago of People
United to Build a Livable Cato (PUBLIC).
Buffy Ayn Beauchamp, one of PUBLIC’s instigators, recalls, “At that time, all
anyone could talk about was what’s wrong with Cato — no sidewalks, no
parks, no locally owned businesses, no one who knew their neighbors. No
there there. And truthfully, it was hard to look beyond the endless strip
malls, six-lane streets with roaring traffic and shabby McMansions with
streaks on the vinyl siding. But this community had some good things going
for it, too, namely that a lot of people living here were willing to roll up their
sleeves to make things better.”
Meeting weekly in the backroom of a coffeeshop, PUBLIC drafted an
ambitious agenda to tackle the town’s problems. A babysitting co-op,
mentoring programs, neighborhood tool exchanges, car-sharing club, theater
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company, Mardi Gras parade and annual harvest festival were the first
orders of business for this hard-charging organization. Then came the new
park, public school, neighborhood social center and recycling depot —
funded by federal money but built mainly by local volunteers. The site of a
vacant mall was fashioned into a Main Street, and a Latino cultural center
now occupies an Old Navy store. Local churches spearheaded construction
of a community-owned grocery, café, hardware store, fitness center and
cantina. The Houston Park District took over management of the country
club, opening it to the public.
Strolling through the community on a spring evening, when the temperature
has cooled to the mid-90s, there are few reminders the town began as an
experiment in creating a privatized Utopia. Indeed, historical preservationists
lost the battle to save the statue of libertarian economist Milton Friedman
that stood next to the now-demolished security guardhouse at the town’s
main entrance, where today you’ll find a memorial to victims of the Great
Texas Heat Wave of 2027.
Group Discussion (15)
Ask these questions in sequence, allowing time for each one before moving
to the next.
Ask the group to think about their own communities in relation to the city of Cato:

What threatens, undermines or damages our commons?
Facilitator note: refer to the larger commons list to trigger
thinking about the various ways the different kinds of commons
can be threatened – e.g. privatization, neglect, funding cuts,
enclosure, appropriation by others, etc.

Whose interests are served by the privatized, on-your-own
world of the old Cato?

What are people doing in your community or city to revitalize
and protect the commons they see?
Facilitator Note: It’s possible that group members might find themselves
drifting into a debate here about the relative merits of capitalism v.
socialism v. communism. If the use of these terms doesn’t seem to be
contributing to a meaningful, reflective exchange among group members,
try redirecting the conversation by saying something along these lines:
Abstract words like “capitalism,” “socialism,” and “communism” often turn
into buzzwords that don’t do much to help us figure out how we might
move forward to create the kind of community and society that we want.
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The future we’re facing asks us to step outside of old ideas, to fashion
new agreements that make sense in our current circumstances. Let’s be
specific about what we do and don’t want to see happen, with good
examples to clarify and communicate our thinking.
CLOSING COMMENT:
There is a global commons revival happening and people in many places
are rediscovering the value of sharing and acting as a “we”. But that
revival is fragile if we are not intentional and active in fostering it. We
can’t just hope we end up on a good path at the fork in the road; we have
to help build it.
Next Steps (5)
If appropriate, remind the group of a couple of the ground rules for their time
together:


Let us know if you won’t be coming to a meeting
Respect the confidentiality of things shared together in the group. Do not
share anything people said with others.
After consulting with the Food Czar, find out if folks would like to have a potluck
supper at the next meeting.
Enlist volunteers for next meeting: co-facilitator, chart maker, reminder calls,
selecting opening prayers or readings, etc.
Distribute the handout Homework for Session 6 (Attachment 5-7) and the
assigned reading.
Closing (5)
Thank everyone for coming and bring the meeting to a close with a cultural activity
appropriate to your group: a song, prayer, secular inspirational reading, etc. Consider
using one of the alternate opening readings for the closing.
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Session Five:
Handouts and Homework
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ATTACHMENT 5-1
Participant Agenda
Common Security Club
Session 5: Our Common Wealth
Gathering (5)
Agenda Review and Ground Rules (5)
Opening Reflection: Prayer, Poem, Short Reading (15)
Activity #1: Offerings of Gifts and Needs (40 total)

Offerings (20)

Group Reflection and Discussion (20)
Activity #2: Rediscovering Our Commons (45 total)

Defining the Commons (10)

Stories of the Commons (15)


Read Aloud – Pair Sharing
Fork In The Road: A Commons-Based Future, or Not (20)

Read Aloud – Group Discussion
Next Meeting (5)
Closing prayer or reading (5)
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ATTACHMENT 5-2A
Reading
Marge Piercy: To Be of Use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
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ATTACHMENT 5-2B
Reading
Wendell Berry: The Larger Circle
We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other’s arms
And the larger circle of lovers,
Whose hands are joined in a dance
And the larger circle of all creatures
Passing in and out of life
Who move also in a dance
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments.
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ATTACHMENT 5-2C
Reading
Mark L. Belletini: Go in Peace
Go in peace. Live simply, gently, at home in yourselves.
Act justly.
Speak justly.
Remember the depth of your own compassion.
Forget not your power in the days of your powerlessness.
Do not desire to be wealthier than your peers
And stint not your hand of charity.
Practice forbearance.
Speak the truth, or speak not.
Take care of yourselves as bodies,
For you are a good gift.
Crave peace for all people in the world,
Beginning with yourselves
And go as you go with the dream
Of that peace alive in your heart.
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ATTACHMENT 5-3
What Is The Commons?
The Commons is the vast wealth of natural and human achievement that we inherit
together and have an obligation to pass on, undiminished, to future generations.
The Commons is like a river with three tributaries: nature-based, culture-based, and
community/societal. The natural commons includes air, water, seeds, and
biodiversity. These are all gifts we collectively inherit from creation. We didn’t make
them. They are just here for us. The cultural commons describes the gifts of
knowledge such as art, science, philosophy, language and mathematics. The
community/societal commons includes a wealth of things, from the neighborhood
playground and library to the Internet to Social Security. It’s our ‘we-ness’ as
opposed to our individual selves.
The Commons has provided basic sustenance throughout human existence; The
Commons supplies everyone’s food, water, fuel and medicines.
The Commons is our knowledge bank: it holds humanity’s vast store of science, art,
customs and laws and is the seedbed of all human creativity.
The Commons is communication: humans communicate through shared languages that
are living products of many generations, and through collective creations like the Internet.
The Commons is community: the public square, the school gym and the
neighborhood. Outside of families, it is the glue that holds us all together.
The Commons is a worldview, a perspective, a subjective sense of the world.
This is our common wealth, yet we have forgotten how to recognize and take care of
the commons. We passively accept the "enclosure" of our commons, which
transforms shared resources enjoyed by all into private commodities available only
to those who can afford them. By doing so, we strengthen the narrow version of
economics that dominates in the United States today -- a version that presumes that
the only important value is created through market exchange.
The Commons need to be managed and owned by organizations with a
commitment to the common good. These institutions could be private trusts,
nonprofit corporations and public governmental entities. Government has an
important role in both designating commons and establishing legal frameworks for
protecting them. And in some cases, local, state and federal government may own,
regulate and manage the commons. Taxation is one of the ways we pay for the
protection of the commons. In other cases, The Commons will be managed by a
commonwealth institution.
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ATTACHMENT 5-4
Examples of the Commons
Water
Air
The Airwaves
National and Public Parks
Sidewalks
Genetics
Seeds
Blood Banks
Community Gardens
Bees
Jazz
Libraries
Artistic Traditions
Fire Departments
Baseball & Soccer
Biodiversity
Topsoil
Traditions
Mathematics
The US Natl Institute of Health
Herbal Medicines
Government-Funded Research
Wildlife
Hip Hop
Cooperatives
Wikipedia
Languages
Wind Power
Polar Ice Caps
Ozone Layer
Spiritual Beliefs
The Blogosphere
Downtown
Public Health and Sanitation
Shakespeare
The Oceans
Quiet
History
The Night Sky
Social Security
Crafts
Scientific Knowledge
Folk Tales
Mass Transit
Neighborhood Groups
Non-Profit Organizations
Recipes
Open Source Programming
Social Customs & Local
And much more.
What would you add?
See them,
Name them,
Claim your commons!
Page 20 of 39
ATTACHMENT 5-5
Read Aloud
Three Stories of the Commons
First Reader: Water
Water is one of the most ancient and important commons we have. Do you have
memories of a favorite swimming hole or spring? Did you grow up watering a
vegetable garden or playing in the spray of a hose? (Personalize from here as
you like.)
From communal wells to some of the best municipal water systems in the world,
communities in this country understood that everyone needed water to survive
and therefore had a rightful claim on this life necessity. The law has also treated
waterways as within the public domain and in many cases protected public
purposes for water use. In recent decades, however, corporations have seen the
profit to be made in controlling and selling water. As a result, an alarming
increase in water privatization poses a threat to our water commons. Companies
are buying up water rights and gaining contracts to manage water systems.
Bottled water in many cases is our own water repackaged and sold back to us at
an enormous mark up.
Second Reader: Libraries
I spent many hours in my town’s library as a kid. It felt like this inexhaustible
joy – as many books as I could read, all for free. I could get information and
do research too. We could even check out music and art. And it wasn’t just
in my town but every town. To think that someone in an earlier time had the
idea for such a gift to us all…
Well, communities today are seeing that gift diminished. Even as library use
skyrockets in today’s economic climate, communities are facing funding cuts
that force cuts in staffing and hours, even closures.
Third Reader: The Internet
The Internet is one of the most amazing commons ever created. Who can
imagine life without it anymore? I am still amazed when I use Wikipedia or
track down a piece of information, how vibrant this collective creation is. We
use the Internet to connect socially, we gather and share information, we
Page 21 of 39
participate in formal and informal discussions about topics of the day, we
share and create cultural expressions, and more and more we seek our
news on the Internet. It has allowed for a democratization of information,
music sharing, news making and civic participation.
And yet there is an active battle between those that would preserve the
Internet as a commons – a place for open source and sharing - and those
that seek to enclose and privatize access.
Page 22 of 39
ATTACHMENT 5-6
Read Aloud
Fork in the Road: City of Cato
Excerpt from Jay Walljasper: State of the Commons 2035,
Notre Dame University Magazine, Summer 2010.
…
The rediscovery of the commons prompted people to think more about what
really mattered to them. This cultural shift can be seen most vividly in a town
like Cato, Texas. If you were looking for a place that once stood as the
antithesis of a commons-based society, Cato would be it. This outer-ring
suburb of Houston, founded as a gated community in 2004, gained
widespread media attention for its almost complete lack of government
services. Even the police department was run as a for-profit business, with
different levels of protection available to households depending on how much
in premiums they paid to a private security company. (Some lower-cost
plans, for instance, did not cover house calls for nuisance crimes, burglaries
or domestic disputes.)
Cato never attracted anywhere near the 125,000 residents projected by its
developers. Today, the population stands at 4,200, down from about 11,000
in 2015. At one point there was serious discussion about leveling the place
to create community gardens, but the town got a reprieve in 2022 when a
station on Houston’s expanding commuter rail system opened. The real
turnaround began, however, with the formation 10 years ago of People
United to Build a Livable Cato (PUBLIC).
Buffy Ayn Beauchamp, one of PUBLIC’s instigators, recalls, “At that time, all
anyone could talk about was what’s wrong with Cato — no sidewalks, no
parks, no locally owned businesses, no one who knew their neighbors. No
there there. And truthfully, it was hard to look beyond the endless strip malls,
six-lane streets with roaring traffic and shabby McMansions with streaks on
the vinyl siding. But this community had some good things going for it, too,
namely that a lot of people living here were willing to roll up their sleeves to
make things better.”
Page 23 of 39
Meeting weekly in the backroom of a coffeeshop, PUBLIC drafted an
ambitious agenda to tackle the town’s problems. A babysitting co-op,
mentoring programs, neighborhood tool exchanges, car-sharing club, theater
company, Mardi Gras parade and annual harvest festival were the first
orders of business for this hard-charging organization. Then came the new
park, public school, neighborhood social center and recycling depot —
funded by federal money but built mainly by local volunteers. The site of a
vacant mall was fashioned into a Main Street, and a Latino cultural center
now occupies an Old Navy store. Local churches spearheaded construction
of a community-owned grocery, café, hardware store, fitness center and
cantina. The Houston Park District took over management of the country
club, opening it to the public.
Strolling through the community on a spring evening, when the temperature
has cooled to the mid-90s, there are few reminders the town began as an
experiment in creating a privatized Utopia. Indeed, historical preservationists
lost the battle to save the statue of libertarian economist Milton Friedman that
stood next to the now-demolished security guardhouse at the town’s main
entrance, where today you’ll find a memorial to victims of the Great Texas
Heat Wave of 2027.
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ATTACHMENT 5-7
Homework for Session 6
Required Reading
No More Band-Aid Solutions to the Financial Crisis: We Need to Build
an Economy that Works. Excerpt from David Korten, Agenda for a New
Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, 2009. (Attachment 5-8) Also available online at
www.alternet.org/workplace/124778
Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Summary from book of
the same title, authored by Juliet Schor, Penguin, 2010. (Attachment 5-9)
Reflection
Reflect on whether you would like to continue participating in your common
security club. Review: Things Clubs Can Do Together (Attachment 5-10)
Sample topics and other ideas for additional club sessions can be found on
the Common Security Club website at www.commonsecurityclub.org.
Optional Online Resources
VIDEO - A New Understanding of True Wealth. Juliet Schor’s talk, Seattle
Town Hall, May 24, 2010. http://vimeo.com/12034640VIDEO - Evergreen
Cooperatives Introductory Video. http://blip.tv/file/2749165
VIDEO - Growing Power: Profile of Will Allen’s Urban Agriculture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGbnG0nH3n4&feature=related
Buying Local on a Large Scale by John Tozzi, Business Week, February 12,
2010. http://www.community-wealth.org/_pdfs/news/recent-articles/0410/article-tozi.pdf
Growing Power in an Urban Food Desert, YES Magazine, Feb 13, 2009.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/growing-power-in-anurban-food-desert
Kim Klein and The Commons,
http://kimkleinandthecommons.blogspot.com/2008/12/commons-thinking-part-1.html
Page 25 of 39
ATTACHMENT 5-8
Homework Reading
No More Band-Aid Solutions to the Financial Crisis:
We Need to Build an Economy that Works
David Korten
Excerpt from Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real
Wealth, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009.
Our economic system has failed in every dimension: financial,
environmental, and social. And the current financial collapse provides an
incontestable demonstration that it has failed even on its own terms.
Spending trillions of dollars in an effort to restore this system to its previous
condition is a reckless waste of time and resources and may be the greatest
misuse of federal government credit in history. The more intelligent course is
to acknowledge the failure and to set about redesigning our economic
system from the bottom up to align with the realities and opportunities of the
twenty-first century.
The Bush administration's strategy focused on bailing out the Wall Street
institutions that bore primary responsibility for creating the crisis; its hope
was that if the government picked up enough of those institutions' losses and
toxic assets, they might decide to open the tap and get credit flowing again.
The Obama administration has come into office with a strong focus on
economic stimulus, and particularly on green jobs - by far a more thoughtful
and appropriate approach.
The real need, however, goes far beyond pumping new money into the
economy to alleviate the consequences of the credit squeeze. We need to
rebuild the system from the bottom up.
The recent credit meltdown has resulted in bailout commitments estimated in
November 2008 to be $7.4 trillion, roughly half of the total U.S. gross
domestic product (GDP). Congressional passage the previous month of a
$700 billion bailout package to be administered by the Treasury Department
sparked a vigorous national debate that focused attention on the devastating
consequences of Wall Street deregulation. Other, even larger government
commitments, including $4.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve, largely
escaped notice. Large as the bailouts were, the failure of the credit system is
only one manifestation of a failed economy that is wildly out of balance
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with, and devastating to, both humans and the natural environment.
Wages are falling in the face of volatile food and energy prices. Consumer
debt and housing foreclosures are setting historic records. The middle class
is shrinking. The unconscionable and growing worldwide gap between rich
and poor, with its related alienation, is eroding the social fabric to the point of
fueling terrorism, genocide, and other violent criminal activity.
At the same time, excessive consumption is pushing Earth's ecosystems into
collapse. Climate change and the related increase in droughts, floods, and
wildfires are now recognized as serious threats. Scientists are in almost
universal agreement that human activity bears substantial responsibility. We
face severe water shortages, the erosion of topsoil, the loss of species, and
the end of the fossil fuel subsidy. In each instance, a failed economic system
that takes no account of the social and environmental costs of monetary
profits bears major responsibility.
We face a monumental economic challenge that goes far beyond anything
being discussed in the U.S. Congress or the corporate press. The hardships
imposed by temporarily frozen credit markets pale in comparison to what lies
ahead.
Even the significant funds that the Obama administration is committed to
spending on economic stimulus will do nothing to address the deeper
structural causes of our threefold financial, social, and environmental crisis.
On the positive side, the financial crisis has put to rest the myths that our
economic institutions are sound and that markets work best when
deregulated. This creates an opportune moment to open a national
conversation about what we can and must do to create an economic system
that can work for all people for all time.
Treat the System, Not the Symptom
As a student in business school, I learned a basic rule of effective problem
solving that has shaped much of my professional life. Our professors
constantly admonished us to "look at the big picture." Treat the visible
problem -- a defective product or an underperforming employee -- as the
symptom of a deeper system failure. "Look upstream to find the root cause.
Find the systemic cause and fix the system so the problem will not recur."
That is one of the most important things I learned in more than twenty-six
years of formal education.
Many years after I left academia, an observation by a wise Canadian friend
and colleague, Tim Brodhead, reminded me of this lesson when he
explained why most efforts fail to end poverty. "They stop at treating the
symptoms of poverty, such as hunger and poor health, with food programs
and clinics, without ever asking the obvious question: Why do a few people
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enjoy effortless abundance while billions of others who work far harder
experience extreme deprivation?" He summed it up with this simple
statement: "If you act to correct a problem without a theory about its cause,
you inevitably treat only the symptoms." It is the same lesson my business
professors were drumming into my brain many years earlier.
I was trained to apply this lesson within the confines of the business
enterprise. Tim's observation made me realize that I had been applying it in
my work as a development professional in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
For years I had been asking the question: What is the underlying cause of
persistent poverty? Eventually, I came to realize that poverty is not the only
significant unsolved human problem, and I enlarged the question to ask: Why
is our economic system consigning billions of people to degrading poverty,
destroying Earth's ecosystem, and tearing up the social fabric of civilized
community? What must change if we are to have a world that works for all
people and the whole of life?
Pleading with people to do the right thing is not going to get us where we
need to go so long as we have a culture that celebrates the destructive
behaviors we must now put behind us and as long as our institutions reward
those behaviors. It is so much more sensible to direct our attention to making
the right thing easy and pleasurable by working together to create a culture
that celebrates positive values and to foster institutions that reward positive
behavior.
Worse Than No Theory
What my wise colleague did not mention is that placing too much faith in a
"bad" theory or story, one that offers incorrect explanations, may be even
worse than acting with no theory at all. A bad theory can lead us to false
solutions that amplify the actions that caused the problem in the first place.
Indeed, a bad theory or story can lead whole societies to persist in selfdestructive behavior to the point of self-extinction.
The cultural historian Jared Diamond tells of the Viking colony on the coast
of Greenland that perished of hunger next to waters abundant with fish; it
had a cultural theory, or story, that eating fish was not "civilized." On a much
larger scale, the human future is now in question and the cause can be
traced, in part, to economic theories that serve the narrow interests of a few
and result in devastating consequences for all.
As we are perplexed by the behavior of the Vikings who perished because of their
unwillingness to give up an obviously foolish theory, so future generations may be
perplexed by our foolish embrace of some absurd theories of our own, including
the theory that financial speculation and the inflation of financial bubbles create
real wealth and make us richer. No need to be concerned that we are trashing
Earth's life support system and destroying the social bonds of family and
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community, because eventually, or so the theory goes, we will have enough
money to heal the environment and end poverty.
This theory led to economic policies that for decades served to create a
mirage of phantom wealth that vanished before our eyes as the subprime
mortgage crisis unfolded. Even with this dramatic demonstration that we
were chasing a phantom, most observers have yet to acknowledge that the
financial speculation was not creating wealth at all. Rather, it was merely
increasing the claims of financial speculators on the shrinking pool of
everyone else's real wealth.
A New Story for a New Economy
A theory, of course, is nothing more than a fancy name for a story that
presumes to explain how things work. It is now commonly acknowledged that
we humans are on a course to self-destruction. Climate chaos, the end of
cheap oil, collapsing fisheries, dead rivers, falling water tables, terrorism,
genocidal wars, financial collapse, species extinction, thirty thousand child
deaths daily from poverty--and in the richest country in the world, millions
squeezed out of the middle class--are all evidence of the monumental failure
of our existing cultural stories and the institutions to which they give rise. We
have good reason to fear for our future.
At first, each of the many disasters that confront us appears distinct. In fact,
they all have a common origin that our feeble "solutions" fail to address for
lack of an adequate theory. We do, in fact, have the means to create an
economy that fulfills six criteria of economic health. Such an economy would:
1. provide everyone with the opportunity for a healthy, dignified, and fulfilling
life.
2. bring human consumption into balance with Earth's natural systems.
3. nurture relationships within strong, caring communities.
4. honor sound, rule-based market principles.
5. support an equitable and socially efficient allocation of resources.
6. fulfill the democratic ideal of one-person, one-vote citizen sovereignty.
Copyright Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009.
Page 29 of 39
ATTACHMENT 5-9
Homework Reading
Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth
Juliet Schor
“Plentitude is about transition. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Creating a sustainable economy will take decades, and this is a strategy
for prospering during that shift. The beauty of the approach is that it is
available right now.”
Juliet Schor
Adapted below for the Common Security Club Network from:
…synopsis provided below from the Plentitude website;
http://www.julietschor.org/the-book/synopsis/
…also see a video of Juliet Schor’s talk, A New Understanding of True
Wealth, Seattle Town Hall, May 24, 2010; http://vimeo.com/12034640/
I. THE ECONOMIC CHALLENGES WE FACE
Juliet Schor argues in her book Plentitude that a continuation of the “business
as usual” (BAU) economy—the current economic rules, practices, growth
trajectory, and ecological consequences of production and consumption—is no
longer a viable option during this time of economic and ecological challenge.
THE ECONOMY WILL BE LESS LUCRATIVE OVER THE NEXT
DECADE: Schor predicts that the “Business As Usual” (BAU) economy will
yield less income, jobs, cheap goods, return on assets and life satisfaction
and be more unstable for ordinary individuals over the next decade. Why?
Added to conventional economic reasons (the nation’s declining position in
the world economy, long swings in economic activity, inability to create
adequate numbers of jobs), we can expect mounting ecological degradation
(climate change in particular) which creates scarcities and raises the costs of
production.
Page 30 of 39
UNEMPLOYMENT WILL NOT BE GOING AWAY: The US economy has
lost 8 million jobs, and we will need about 500,000 new jobs every month for
2 years to get back to pre-recession levels. That’s simply an unrealistic
number. The old way to generate jobs—growth in overall GNP—is less
effective now because jobs are moving overseas and information technology
is replacing labor. We need new approaches to employment, in particular
small-scale, community-based jobs and livelihoods.
BUSINESS-AS-USUAL GROWTH IS DESTROYING THE PLANET: The
climate and ecological crises mean we can’t just grow our way out of
problems in the usual way. Higher GNP yields higher carbon emissions. We
need to rapidly reduce carbon pollution by shifting to lower impact activities
and pinpoint economic practices that will reverse the dangerous damage
we’ve already done to the atmosphere and the planet.
II. THE PLENITUDE SOLUTION
Through a major shift to new sources of wealth, green technologies, and
different ways of living, individuals and the country as a whole can be better
off and more economically secure. Schor draws on recent developments in
economic theory, social analysis, and ecological design to map out a path to
a healthier environment and a higher quality of life.
SHIFT OUT OF THE WORK-AND-SPEND-CYCLE: Schor, who pioneered
the concept of the work-and-spend-cycle, finds that households are less
attracted to the high-spending lifestyles of the past, and that jobs have
become more demanding, less secure, and less lucrative. She argues that
the savvy response to this new situation is for households to begin a shift out
of the BAU market and into undervalued sources of wealth: time, creativity
(especially ecological knowledge) and social relationships.
DIVERSIFY: A key economic principle is to not rely on a single source of
income, such as the labor market. Households should diversify their sources
of income and ways of meeting their consumption needs, by reducing time
spent in the BAU economy. New ways to provide livelihood include selfreliance (making and doing for yourself), small businesses, sharing assets,
and trading services within communities. These trends are already emerging
around the country.
SMALL SCALE: Innovation, dynamism, and employment are being
generated by the small-scale sector. The vibrancy in our economy is now in
small businesses and self-employment. Information technologies and on-line
networking have eroded many of the advantages of big firms. Schor calls for
a small-scale, de-centralized, ecologically-oriented sector of entrepreneurial
individuals and households.
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III. IDENTIFYING ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF WEALTH:
PLENITUDE’S FOUR PILLARS
Humans are degrading the planet far faster than they are regenerating it.
Food, energy, transport, and consumer goods are becoming increasingly
scarce and over the long term will be more expensive. The economic
downturn that has accompanied the ecological decline has led to another
type of scarcity: incomes, jobs, and credit. We can start addressing both
economic and ecological deficits by tapping into neglected assets.
TIME: For decades Americans have been devoting more and more time to
the labor market. Plenitude practitioners reverse that trend, using their
newfound time affluence to invest in other sources of wealth. They make,
rather than buy; share, rather than spend; and build social relationships.
These individual solutions also create balance in the labor market: hours of
work in jobs fall, which allows companies to hire more employees. Right now,
productivity is growing too rapidly and hours per job are too high to absorb all
the people who need work.
HIGH-TECH SELF-PROVISIONING: We can reduce reliance on the market
by meeting basic needs (income, food, housing, consumer goods, energy)
through a series of creative, smart, high productivity technologies: growing
food (using permaculture and vertical gardens); creating energy on a small
scale (convert a Prius to a plug-in and double the gas mileage); building
homes with free labor and local, natural materials, and new Fab-Lab
technologies (small, smart machines that make almost anything). Schor
looks at examples of people already practicing self-provisioning and
converting their skills into money-making ventures.
CONSUMING DIFFERENTLY: Plenitude is a strategy for living that affords
people more time, more creativity, and more social connection, while
lowering their ecological footprint and avoiding consumer debt. It yields a
high-satisfaction style of life, though not necessarily a high-spending
lifestyle. So how does it meet our desires to shop, buy, and enjoy the fruits
of a consumer society? Through a combination of accessing “new-to-you”
products, sharing expensive items such as cars and appliances, and making
careful purchases of long-lasting goods.
CONNECTION: As more and more labor time went into the market, time for
community disappeared. Social ties frayed and neighborhoods hollowed out.
But social relationships are a potent form of economic wealth, which people
can turn to during financial instability or adverse climate events. People who
have strong social connections, or what’s called social capital, fare much
better when times get rough. Plenitude involves re-building local economic
interdependence by trading services, sharing assets, and relying on each
other in good as well as hard times.
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ATTACHMENT 5-10
Sticking Together: Things Clubs Can Do
This section of the Facilitator’s Guide lives on the Common Security Club
web site where it is regularly updated, especially the resource section. Visit
www.commonsecurityclub.org/nextsteps.
Introduction
After completing these initial six sessions, some clubs decide not to continue
meeting, or individuals opt-out of future participation. Many clubs, however,
continue to meet and engage in learning together, mutual aid, and social
action.
At the end of the final session, the group needs to decide how they will
proceed. If you decide to remain together, we recommend devoting the
following meeting to a brainstorm of activities for the future. We encourage
you to brainstorm and choose activities in each of the three categories:
Things we can Learn Together
Mutual Aid activities
Social Action – local and national campaigns
Over the first six sessions, there were probably many times when the group
felt excited about a discussion or activity. Remember the “unfinished
business” and discussions that the group might want to continue.
Contents




Stories from Ongoing Clubs
Learning Together Opportunities
Additional Mutual Aid Ideas
Possibilities for Social Action
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A. Stories from Ongoing Clubs
Visit this section on line and read our Common Security Club blog at YES!
Magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/common-security-clubs
A group that called itself a “Resource Sharing Group” in rural Maine
exchanged an abundance of ideas, goods, and support. They shared lawn
mowers, books, and tools; helped one member set up a new office; organized a
yard and craft sale for forty people; established a website to share information
and list items to sell; offered tutorials to one another in a variety of subjects;
brainstormed job possibilities; met for potlucks; bulk shopped together; and
exchanged inexpensive recipe ideas and savings tips. At each meeting,
members of the group said what they needed and what they could offer, and
usually came up with ideas to address each others’ needs during the go-round.
As a symbol of their mutual aid commitment to one another, they kept an
“emergency jar” at the center of the table, and people would often put 50 cents
or a dollar into it at meetings, though it wasn’t required. The money didn’t get
used very often, but much like the group itself, it provided a sense of security
knowing it was there.
In Portland, Oregon, one church has spawned a dozen different common
security clubs, called “Resilience Circles.” Several of the clubs are comprised
almost entirely of unemployed people who meet to support one another,
advocate for unemployment benefits and share skills. One group embarked on
social action together by organizing tours of local housing efforts and getting
involved in a local campaign on tax issues. Another club set up a shared sewing
machine at the church for the entire community to use, while another shared
skills across generations, including sewing and canning. In one club, a widow
found an avenue to new social connections by sharing her deceased husband’s
truck with members of the community through their newly formed time bank.
In Boston, a club based at a church has stayed together over two years
providing mutual aid to one another. Several unemployed members started
small businesses with help from other club members. After a “personal financial
makeover” session, one member decided to forgo owning a car, saving herself
$500 a month. Contacts, connections and ideas were abundant. Currently,
members are getting ready to host a workshop to connect the whole community
with a city-wide time bank, to further the reach of a budding “alternative
economy” they have helped to create.
A church in Columbus Ohio brings people together every Sunday to help
each other get through crises of health care, job loss, housing and
financial struggles resulting from the economic crisis. Every
couple of months they organize a community fair with extensive offers
of help and expert advice on issues ranging from unemployment to
health and housing displacement. Volunteers include doctors, lawyers
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and other professionals as well as community members in need. The
church’s website (FirstUUColumbus.org) features a substantial list of
services and providers, updated regularly. The church has hosted a
clothing swap, provided expert foreclosure assistance, healthcare
information and job assistance. They are now turning their attention
to establishing a bartering programs, help with food and menu
planning, workshops on resume writing and job skills, and a food coop
with connection to a community-supported farm.
A common security club in Ft Lauderdale, Florida brought together
people in acute distress (job loss and foreclosure) with others who
were economically secure. After meeting for several months, trust and
solidarity grew among members. In one case, an elderly couple offered
an in-law apartment in their house to a father and son who were in
serious financial trouble. A year later, they are all pleased with
the arrangement and attribute the success of the arrangement to the
support that their club provided to them.
A group in Greenfield, Mass that calls themselves “The Neighbors” has
been meeting monthly for four years. They incorporate fun and food
into their monthly meetings –and have a lengthy check-in at each
meeting. They spend time learning together, engaging in mutual aid,
and inspiring one another to learn new habits in order to live in a
new economy with ecological limits. “We start every meeting by
singing,” said one member named Sandra. “Then we have a check-in and
discussion.” The Neighbors have read books together, watched
documentaries, and generally helped each other out. When members have
faced health challenges, they’ve taken turns cooking and accompanying
one another to the hospital. Several members started or expanded
gardens. “We had a work weekend for one member when she wanted to
clear land for a garden plot. We all showed up with saws and shovels
to clear the plot.” In addition to their monthly meeting, The
Neighbors have a monthly game night usually attended by at least half
the group. “This is fun and affordable entertainment,” said Sandra.
“Early on we created a list,” said a member named Tom. At 82, he is
the oldest member and lives in elder housing in an apartment building.
“We identified things we could share and things we needed. These
included tools, skills, copy machines, kayaks, and other services.”
“The spirit of our exchanges are gifting and sharing,” reflected Tom.
“We admire the time bank and time dollars approach, but don’t want to
spend all the time keeping score.”
The Rev. Cecilia Kingman piloted one of the earliest common security
clubs in her Washington State congregation, calling it “one of the
best pastoral tools I’ve used in years in terms of giving members of
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my congregation a sense of agency in their economic lives.” Cecilia
says the church has a unique role to play in this moment of crisis:
“All of the old stories are failing us, and we need new stories.
Religion is the only institution that creates new stories, and a new
theology.” Cecilia has served several congregations in the past
decade, and has observed a heightening amount of anxiety and
depression in her congregations over that time. “People are
overwhelmed by grief and anxiety … part of my job is to put grief work
before them on a regular basis. I try to be deft about it—one
upcoming service is about “how to keep moving forward in times of
despair” as we deal with climate change, the economy, and so on.
Rather than provide the congregation with false assurances, I’m
approaching the situation through the story of Jonah in the belly of
the whale: we have to feel the loss and despair first. If we are
clinging to trying not to feel bad, then there’s no possibility of
real transformation.”
B. Learning Together
Visions for a New Economy.
Read Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real
Wealth, by David Korten, (Second Edition, Berrett Koehler, 2010).
Use accompanying study guide available at:
http://www.davidkorten.org/NewEconomyBook
Next-Step Study Guide for Faith Communities.
Terrific resource -- Money and Faith: The Search for Enough, edited and
compiled by Michael Schut (available from Moorehouse Publishing, 2008).
Includes a Money and Faith study guide that goes beyond money issues to
include economic and ecological considerations. An excellent next step for
common security clubs.
Deeper Examination of Ecological Change.
www.earthpolicy.org. There are a number of resources good for a club
interested in learning more about the changing ecology. One of the best is
Lester Brown’s
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (W.W. Norton, 2008). It
provides a very comprehensive view of ecological change and its meaning
for our communities. The entire book is available to be downloaded for free
at www.earthpolicy.org. There are also continual updates and slide shows
available for downloading, including Plan B 4.0.
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Reconsidering Your Personal Financial Choices.
Many people have found the book and program, Your Money or Your Life,
to be useful. The book was published by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez in
the early 1990s, and has been used widely as a tool to teach people how to
put their financial life in the service of their true values. The 9-step program’s
intents are to:
Explore your relationship with money.
Understand better the relationship between money and values.
Begin to discover what is “enough” for you.
Change habits and begin making major life changes.
In conjunction with Vicki Robin, the Common Security Club Network has
developed a 2-hour session that introduces Your Money or Your Life as a
tool for common security clubs to explore. Download the PDF here:
http://commonsecurityclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/introymoyl.pdf
Learning More About the Commons
Throughout this Common Security Club program we’ve discussed the
importance of seeing the commons –the wealth that hold together –as a
source of security and vitality. The organization, On the Commons
(www.onthecommons.org) is a terrific resource of educational tools, articles,
books and information about the commons. You can subscribe to their online monthly newsletter.
http://www.onthecommons.org
Preparing for Economic Contraction.
Chris Martenson, Crash Course. Since 2003, Chris has been calling for a
dollar decline, a credit bubble burst, and exhorting everyone to protect a
portion of their wealth by principally investing in gold and silver as well as
other tangible forms of wealth.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog and
http://www.anglofareast.com/research/crash-course/
Page 37 of 39
C. Mutual Aid
Underemployed/Anxiously Employed Support Groups.
In some communities, folks who are unemployed or anxiously
underemployed maintain an ongoing club to support one another. Some of
the activities include:
 Sharing information about unemployment benefits, food stamps and
other resources.
 Helping one another network for jobs or think through small
business/income generating activities.
 Brainstorming survival strategies.
Some of the creative ideas from clubs and the wider world so far:
Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Initiative (Indiana)
- a great example of folks organizing together. It is a group of people
in northern Indiana who are coming together to help one another in
this difficult time of economic crisis. They maintain a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=97964121146
“We usually meet once a week and are currently forming committees
to help educate people about such topics as computer use and
unemployment insurance, stress management in tough times, and
green jobs (just to name a few). So, if you've already received a pink
slip, or suspect that you may soon be getting one, please join us! The
only cost is a small commitment of your time.”
The Pink Slip Mixers Network (http://www.pinkslipmixers.com/)
Pink Slip Mixers are hundreds of professional, mid- to upper-level
executives who are (might be) victims of the "economic downturn" of
2008.
“Our parties are about banding together, networking and bonding with
the recently ‘Pinked’. We share our experiences of why we were let
off, what companies are hiring, and the ‘buzz words’ that specific
hiring managers want to hear. Pinkslipmixers.com has gone
nationwide.”
Personal Financial Makeovers.
The idea of giving individuals special time for group attention is common and
can be very valuable. Individuals simply ask the facilitator to set aside time
(20-60 minutes usually) to focus on a particular problem, decision or
dilemma. In some cases, participants share information about their finances
or job search or business idea to get feedback. The facilitator plays an
important role in maintaining a tone of respect avoiding unsolicited advice
(only solicited advice allowed!) It’s also important to remind everyone of their
commitment to confidentially.
Page 38 of 39
Mutual Aid-Bartering Networks –Time Banks.
Bartering—the exchange of goods and services without the intermediary of
currency—is the oldest form of commerce. Local economies, using barter or
a local currency as a means of exchange, were the norm for most of human
history. The Common Security Club Network has developed a one-session
introduction to organizing a bartering system or time bank. It’s easy to set up
and can be expanded gradually. You can download a PDF of this unit at:
http://commonsecurityclub.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/csctimebanking.pdf
Personal Safety Nets.
In this book by Judy Pigott and John W. Gibson entitled Personal Safety
Nets: Getting Ready for Life’s Inevitable Changes and Challenges, the
authors walk the reader through a plan for developing Care Share Teams for
a person in crisis. The issue can be illness, job loss, or any other of life’s
inevitabilities. The authors make it clear that we all need to prepare for these
situations, and that often our loose and diverse networks of family and
friends are inadequate for these events. The book describes ways to handle
the stress of caregiving, how to divide responsibilities among group
members, set limits, and troubleshoot when problems arise. Throughout it all
the authors emphasize the spiritual benefits, warmth and friendship that arise
from engaging in caregiving situations. The workbook that accompanies the
book could also be useful for a common security club considering the idea of
taking on such a role for its members. See www.personalsafetynets.com.
D. Social Action
Here are some of our partner organizations that have action-oriented
campaigns to move us toward a sustainable and good jobs economy.
New Economy Working Group. http://www.neweconomyworkinggroup.org
Meeting place of thinkers and activists interesting in taking actions that move
us toward a transformation of the economy. See their resources for action
campaigns.
350.org http://www.350.org/ An international campaign that's building a
movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the
solutions that science and justice demand. The focus is on the number 350-as in parts per million CO2. If we can't get below that, scientists say, the
damage we're already seeing from global warming will continue and
accelerate. But 350 is more than a number--it's a symbol of where we need
to head as a planet.
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New Way Forward. http://www.anewwayforward.org/ Campaign of regular
Americans who have come together to bring about structural reform of the
financial industry and end the distortion of the political process by our largest
corporations. They worked hard on passing financial reform in July 2010 –
and will continue to press for changes.
The Other 98 Percent. http://www.other98.com/ A grassroots network of
concerned citizens fed up with the status quo in Washington. They seek
practical solutions to the many challenges facing America. They stand
against the bankers, CEOs and lobbyists who have hijacked our democracy
to serve themselves at the expense of everyone else. They believe we need
a massive new movement to kick corporate lobbyists out of DC, hold our
elected officials accountable, and fix our democracy to make Washington
work for the other 98% of us.
Green for All. http://www.greenforall.org/ Join the national movement to
build a green economy that also addresses poverty. Focus on expanding
youth employment opportunities in the emerging green sector, including
retrofitting houses and build new energy systems.
Great Turning. http://thegreatturning.net/ This web site is a place for
"navigators," people from all walks of life, who have connected with the
messages in David Korten's books, The Great Turning: From Empire to
Earth Community and Agenda for a New Economy, and decided to do
what they can to turn the world around.
Slow Money Alliance. http://www.slowmoneyalliance.org/ and
http://blog.slowmoneyalliance.org/ A new nonprofit organizing an
international movement to bring money back down to earth. Slow Money's
mission is to build local and national networks, and develop new financial
products and services, dedicated to investing in small food enterprises and
local food systems; connecting investors to their local economies; and
building the nurture-capital industry.
Transition US. http://transitionus.org/ Organize so that your neighborhood
or town can become a “transition town.” Transition US provides inspiration,
encouragement, support, networking, and training for Transition Initiatives
across the United States. Transition Initiatives are part of a vibrant,
international grassroots movement that builds community resilience in
response to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and the economic
crisis.
Take Back Your Time. http://www.timeday.org/ A major U.S./Canadian
initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time
famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our
communities and our environment.