Grassroots Economics — Community-Powered Economies

Home - Schumacher Center for a New Economics

  Our mission is to envision a just and regenerative economy; apply the concepts locally; then share the results for broad replication.   Programs Library Lectures & Publications The Decentralism File Community Land Trust Local Currencies Reinventing The Commons All Programs eNewsletters All News “Since there is now increasing evidence of environmental deterioration, particularly in … Continued

Bioregionalism, Commoning, and Relationalized Finance | David Bollier

Have you noticed how the term “bioregional” is becoming a new eco-buzzword and greenwashing term? At the same time, many ordinary people are genuinely excited about the idea of bioregionalism as a constructive way to focus activism and socioeconomic innovation. Bioregionalism offers a practical, politically accessible space for addressing climate change, social inequality, the eclipse of democracy, out-of-control oligarchs, and capitalist growth.

Spark

An eco-community research and development organization. Powered by 400M.

Regenerative Economics

Regenerative economies strengthen social and ecological systems. It's time for economics education to show us how.

The Unsolvable Dilemma: Open Networks vs. Economic Sustainability - Nightflight

A conversation with a Fediverse core developer revealed the structural problem: donation models fail, and even specialized contributors can't make a living.…

Community wealth building

As the UK’s leading organisation for community wealth building, we work with places to build fairer, more inclusive local economies.

Ma Earth | Collective funding for community-led regeneration

Ma Earth is a collective funding platform for community-led regeneration.

Community Imbalance Theory

This is my best effort to summarize the last 4 years of community building, governance, and general open source sustainability work I’ve…

Proto-Social Infrastructure and Stewardship of Commitment Pooling

This paper examines Commitment Pooling as a commons-based resource coordination framework. The Commitment Pooling protocol establishes rules for the exchange of resources, emphasizing reciprocity and mutual support. The infrastructure, blending proto-social systems like rotational labor with modern technologies such as blockchain, enables a transition from extractive to cooperative models. Central to this framework is stewardship, ensuring responsible governance and long-term sustainability of the commons. By integrating protocol, infrastructure, and stewardship, Commitment Pooling provides a flexible, scalable model for fostering cooperative, resilient economies and addressing contemporary challenges in resource management.

From Territorial to Functional Sovereignty: The Case of Amazon

Economists tend to characterize the scope of regulation as a simple matter of expanding or contracting state power. But a political economy perspective emphasizes that social relations abhor a power…

Governing The Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

The governance of natural resources used by many individuals in common is an issue of increasing concern to policy analysts. Both state control and privatization of resources have been advocated, but neither the state nor the market has been uniformly successful in solving common-pool resource problems. After critiquing the foundations of pol icy analysis as applied to natural resources, Elinor Ostrom here provides a unique body of empirical data to explore the conditions under which common-pool resource problems have been satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily solved.  Dr. Ostrom first describes three models most frequently used as the foundation for recommending state or market solutions. She then outlines theoretical and empirical alternatives to these models in order to illustrate the diversity of possible solutions. In the following chapters she uses institutional analysis to examine different ways - both successful and unsuccessful - of governing the commons. In contrast to the propositions of the " tragedy of the commons" argument. common-pool problems sometimes are solved by voluntary organizations rather than by a coercive state. Among the cases considered are communal tenure in meadows and forest, irrigation communities and other water rights. and fisheries. Governing the Commons makes a major contribution to the analytical literature on institutions and to our understanding of human cooperation.  Elinor Ostrom is co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and professor of political science at Indiana University.

Framework for Economic Reconciliation

Drawing on Indigenous worldviews about wealth and sustainability, along with the wisdom and lived experiences of Indigenous thought leaders and practitioners in the economic sector in BC, Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconcilation explores ways in which economic reconciliation can be a catalyst for transforming our economic system.

npmx: converging communities

The story of the many people and communities that converged to build npmx together

Introducing Atmosphere Money

Building the open social economy.

Scaling sustainable social networks in the public interest | Heinrich Böll Stiftung | Brussels office - European Union

This policy paper identifies five key challenges for scaling a public-interest social web: infrastructure, governance, funding, attractiveness, and public mandate. It outlines a roadmap for overcoming these challenges and building the Open Social Web Alliance into a relevant force within months — starting in Germany.