CHALLENGING the RECESSION – April 23, 11am – House of Commons
Can we Change the Economy? Yes, we Can!
Let us count the ways:
- through Parliament, the highest court in the land
- by redressing the ‘pull of money’ through the Rule of Law
- through position and influence
- through ‘trade credits’ and ‘trade pounds’ as barter currencies
- through local and complementary currencies
- through the media
- on moral and ethical grounds.
This meeting will focus on practical solutions for individuals, NGOs and businesses.
On Thursday, April 23rd, we will concentrate on ‘cases’ of injustice and unfairness and group them so that MPs and Ministers can change the law.
On Friday, April 24th, we will emphasise how we can help each other.
Background
With banks unwilling to keep money circulating, can people and organisations stay afloat by means of barter and complementary currency? CHALLENGING THE RECESSION brings together a wide range of experts to show that they can, and how.
Demonstrating the principle of ‘stable currencies‘, complementary currencies have been around for a long time, and have taken various guises in history. Even before the current economic collapse, major businesses used barter for international and local transactions. At the individual level, Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) have enabled people to trade without cash, both on- and off-line.
Objectives
The current economic crisis shows a loss of confidence in political and financial institutions. CHALLENGING THE RECESSION will show how large, small and medium sized businesses, NGOs and individuals can find confidence by organising better means of exchange among themselves.
The Programme
The organisers of CHALLENGING THE RECESSION have extensive experience in creating events that form flourishing networks both on- and off-line. The conference programme will use the best of these techniques to bring together people who have been struggling to make a difference for years.
Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the economic crisis, and come away with a variety of options for getting ahead in spite of it.
Besides myself, among the core organisers are Paul Bower from the London Civic Forum and John-Paul Flintoff from the Sunday Times.
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I’m thrilled by this event because it has a chance to go beyond being just another event with no real consequence on the world! Realising that potential will depend whether the organisers and the participants are ready to go to the roots of the current crises and recognize that the recession is not an aberration but stems from the very “boost and bust” cycles of the capitalist system of production, compounded the deeper-than-ever global interdependence of financial markets.
Any radical change of financial policies is unthinkable without touching the roots of the system. What are some of the social and profound economic innovation that are already changing the system. I found the most useful, theoretically grounded and extremely practical overview of them in a not-yet-published book that you can look up here: http://www.ethicaleconomy.com/ .
> The organisers of CHALLENGING THE RECESSION have extensive experience in creating events that form flourishing networks both on- and off-line.
What would it take to move from building networks to building system of influence? I believe it would take using emergence to take social innovation to scale. A wonderful little explains it better than I could: http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/emergence.html .
If any of these ideas resonate with anyone, I’d love to hear from you.
George
This is really interesting, George: towards a system of influence. So far, I’ve used YunuSphere to expand Dr. Yunus’ sphere of influence. How to build the right kind of network to create a ‘system of influence’ is a lovely challenge! You’re most welcome to help co-create!!!
Sabine
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