5. A Multiplicity of Financial Vehicles
At the beginning of Part III we reminded each other than the economy is basically the sum total of transactions between people. At that same basic level, “money” is simply the markers we use to record those transactions. There is…
Questions we might invite our local businesses and proprietorships to consider
1) How dependent is your overall industry on oil, power, low-cost transportation and shipping — can your industry survive as we leave the era of cheap oil? 2) If your industry will survive, it will undoubtedly be radically altered. How?…
4. Resilience-building businesses and industries
In the past 20-30 years, the concept of “outsourcing” has stripped most of our local communities of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker – the craftsmen, merchants, and artisans who have skills and know-how to provide the basic…
3. Rethink the idea of “Jobs”
Become a jack of all trades and a master of one. – David Holmgren, quoting a European Permaculturist Perhaps this segment, more than any other, calls upon that “raw courage” I mentioned in Part I. “Jobs” as we know them…
Resilient nonprofits
As we rethink society for a post-petroleum, economically-lean future, it’s opportunity to rethink nonprofit structures, too. As stated before, we need to set up environmental and social change organizations as entities that will endure, instead of going bankrupt. Rather than…
How do you do all this and still conduct a “normal” life?
That’s exactly the point: You don’t. At some time within the next few months or years, circumstances will be such that you will relinquish the feeble attempts to hang onto that gluttonous consumption, compete-with-the-Jones’s (or “keep the kids competitive” with…
2. Expect contraction
Think about a bathroom sink: water comes in through the faucet and leaves through the drain. If the water is flowing in faster than it is draining out, you’ll have an accumulation of water in the basin. If the level…
1. Do the Dance
A friend once showed me that everyone is doing a financial Dance. Some people are quite aware that they are doing it: they live rather “on the edge,” managing to pull in just enough to pay the bills, just in…
Part III: Local Resilience through Collapse
Economic resilience = creating highly resilient structures which will enable our local communities to survive, hopefully with a relative level of peace and security. Like anything in the work of trying to further this transition, we need to consider the…
Framework from the New Economics Foundation
The UK’s New Economics Foundation issued a publication called “The Great Transition” about the transformation of economics. While I’m not impressed with the detailed content, I do like the table of contents, which outlines a list of 7 or so…