This comment aims to set right some puzzling misrepresentations of my views by Patrick Jones, David Holmgren, Anitra Nelson and Frans Timmerman. For them, I employ a 'false dichotomy' between personal and political action, failing to see that 'power is based on the material practices of everyday life' while arguing that 'politics means the state'.
This exchange with Patrick Jones provides a welcome opportunity to debate responses to unsustainable development. I agree with Jones that the need to shift the material basis for social reproduction away from dependence on fossil fuels is pressing, and requires 'downscaling'. How ever, I disagree that domesticate localism is the best response to the quandary that he describes: 'A sum of local places makes global, and if all these ... are self-interestedly accountable for their…
In his article 'Gifting Economies' ('Arena Magazine' 121), Patrick Jones opens with an epigraph from Anitra Nelson and Frans Timmerman's collection 'Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies': Non-market socialism means a money-less, market-less, wage-less, class-less and state-less society that also aims to satisfy everyone's basic needs while power and resources are shared in just and 'equal' ways.
In February this year the World Social Forum (WSF) was held on the campus of the University Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal. Since its inception at Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, the WSF has been scheduled to coincide with the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum. WSF Dakar didn't coincide directly with that event, however, and a series of untoward occurrences led to unexpected ramifications. Problems with this year's event raise questions…
Having recently attended the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) Amsterdam Conference on Sustainability and Transparency , I was surprised at the sense of urgency about climate change issues there. The GRI has until now been one among many global advocates of 'triple bottom-line reporting' by corporations and other businesses. However, this conference seemed to mark something of a turning point. It was recognised that 'the moment of truth is upon us. The Earth's ecosystem is in…
