My good friend and Green New Deal colleague draw my attention to a new report, published yesterday by the New Weather Institute:
As the blurb says:
There is an emerging entrepreneurial revolution in UK cities being missed by policy makers, says a new book published by the New Weather Institute on 24 March, the last working day before power is devolved to Manchester in the first major devolution deal.
The revolution in ‘ultra-local' economics is a vital source of prosperity for places left high-and-dry by downturn and the global economy, and strengthens their powers of self-determination.
But this shift is going unmeasured and unacknowledged. Whitehall can't see it, policy-makers don't track it or support it, and the high street banks have no interest in providing for their needs. In the vacuum left by investors or Whitehall grants, local people are beginning to innovate for themselves rather than wait for economic salvation. Promisingly, several examples of the entrepreneurial revolution are in sectors key to the UK's transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy.
The book Prosperity Parade is funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust and provides eight in-depth stories of the new entrepreneurs on the front line.
“We realised that one reason national politicians have not grasped what is happening is that they don't hear the stories,” says author David Boyle. “Stories are the stock-in-trade of politicians. Without them, they don't see things. So we have been to meet the new entrepreneurs to tell their stories — of big ideas and hurdles and re-thought plans and the difference they can make.”
The book will be launched at a breakfast seminar at 9am, on 24 March, at the Local Government Association, SW1P 3HZ (to attend please email newweatherinstitute@gmail.com) chaired by economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty from The Guardian and with speakers including:
- Baroness Kramer, Lib Dem economics spokesperson and a former member of the Banking Commission, set up after the 2008 crash.
- Lord Glasman, Blue Labour peer.
- Ed Mayo, chief executive of Co-ops UK.
- Professor Richard Sennett, author of The Fall of Public Man and The Craftsman.
Stories include:
- How a small group of growers are turning Manchester's food system inside out.
- How they wired-up Bath to earn money from its own energy.
- The story behind the success of the Bristol Pound, the Digbeth Social Enterprise Quarter, and the Wessex Reinvestment Trust.
- How two towns analysed where local money was flowing to and made it flow better — by tracking entrepreneurs (Totnes) or by investing local pension money (Preston).
“The new entrepreneurial revolution is still below the radar of policy-makers,” said David Boyle. “What stops them noticing the emerging new local entrepreneurialism isn't intellectual doubts or snobbery, but a simple lack of stories.
“So we have gathered eight tales about real people doing extraordinary things with their local economy, with local banks, local energy, local purchasing, local food and much more besides — demonstrating just what power the new entrepreneurial revolution might have, if only we recognised and supported it.”
The book urges the government to find ways of understanding the new entrepreneurs and their needs, of tracking their progress and entering a dialogue with them. In particular it calls on the government to provide for their borrowing and banking needs now that most banks have withdrawn from the SME market.
Prosperity Parade Is published by The New Weather Institute - a fresh, cooperative think tank focused on rapid transition to a fair, ecological economy. It will be available on www.newweather.org
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The Greens need to understand the economy a lot more before they get taken seriously. If they are still aping the other parties in their approach to the deficit/austerity, then this will impede their being seen as an alternative by others and will just sound the same as the others.
I say this as a Labour Party member; the Greens are far from aping other parties, in fact in my opinion their economic offer is outstanding.
Monetary Reform
Land Value Tax
Unconditional Citizens Income
That is just a start. Why am I not a Green Party member? Good question. Because I see the Labour Movement as a more powerful and effective vehicle and I am a heretic with regard to a particular Green Party article of faith.
Or perhaps economists need to understand the green economy more? It is probably more co-operatively oriented than The Co-Operative Party itself, who may be more natural bedfellows than the Labour party have been for a very long time.
From my fairly brief studies of their economic agenda at the last election, they are certainly more socialist and democratic in their direction than any mainstream economic planners would be. And I would have more hope of still having a planet fit to sustain life if some of their ideas get adopted.
Like all parties they have a wide range of personal views from the fringes to the centre ground, but they are learning to express the “mainstream green” view better as they struggle with the reality of a political system (and voting system) stacked against anyone who differs from the agreed establishment consensus.
Or maybe our Government policy makers are wilfully ignorant? It hardly helps our big corporate brothers so why would this Government want to know anything about this locally based revolution. It must be absolutely the last thing they would want to support, showing up the holes in their own policies, and evidence that society matters.
The standard practice in identified cases where the corporate status quo is bypassed is to get the politicians involved in order to bugger it up by subsuming it back into that status quo so as to capture the tribute flowing up the hierarchy.
The usual method of approach when locals bypass the system is for the mainstream Westminster political parties at national level to get their local activist cadre involved by setting up mirror groups to take over the idea, fund those groups exclusively, starve the originators of the ideas and initiatives of funding and all other types of support whilst at the same time vilifying them at every opportunity.
So no need to fret on their behalf Ali. With Blue Labour luminaries like Lord Glasman involved normal service will be resumed at some point.
Precisely. Bravo for pointing this out. I’ll be using your post as the most cogent example I’ve found so far of the dangers our initiatives face next. Thank you.
Just talk to anyone who was involved as an independent grass roots local initiative, project, or bottom up organisation anywhere in the country which was not part of or controlled by the local cadre of one of the three Westminster gangs during the Objective One EC funding carve up.
The requirements from Europe for genuine public participation and devolving democracy and democratic decision making down to the lowest level was captured, corrupted and snuffed out the minute local people and groups started getting uppity and taking the EC criteria at face value by setting their own agenda’s and priorities. The name of the game was devolving control down to the lowest level and no one got any funds if they were not part of the three headed hydra Westminster based centralised political tufty club.
Appeals to the EC bureaucracy were a waste of time as they were clearly with the programme. Anyone at local level serious about being involved in or creating the next economic revolution should just get on with it and do it. Involving the self styled great and the good at anything closer than extended arms length will cause more grief than its worth. Just DIY and leave the vampire politico’s to either play catch up, if they can, or continue to be irrellavent. Above all, keep control and don’t give them an inch, they’ll only bugger things up if you do.
Thanks very much for the link and notice given to this report and the projects it highlights. They and very many others are the tip of the spear of a growing and confident economic revolution. Ecologically-based, locally-placed, community and volunteer focused, this huge number of projects is only now beginning to be recorded rather than being worked upon to establish them successfully. The main job myself and a number of other people involved in them are looking to achieve is to weave their experience and increasing leverage into more networked structures for self-support and sustainable investment.
I’d go so far as to say that the authors and speakers surrounding this report launch are out of touch with the grassroots foundations they are talking about and as such they have already missed the boat as much as the remote Westminster-based political elites they deride. They are seeing a growing parade of innovative and creative projects springing up around them, have no idea how that happened, have played no part in their genesis or success to date nevertheless wish to insert themselves at the head of the parade going forward in an attempt to steal relevance and stature for themselves.
Read about the projects; go and visit them; get involved yourselves because there are many more hundreds of them now in existence, some close to where you live. Spend your time with them, give them your economic support, then you’ll see what a positive and hopeful movement looks like rather than becoming depressed and mired in the interminable and fruitless political mess we have allowed to strangle our lives. It’s a refreshing change.
Respectfully, that is utter nonsense
If that is how you feel you will never get anywhere, and won’t deserve to
I disagree with your interpretation Richard of AllanW’s comments.
This seems to me like a good example of ordinary people taking control of their lives in spite of the political and economic (and even academic) focus still being predominantly on the cause of our social problems rather than practical solutions that people can take in their own lives.
I’m not denigrating either, in reality we will need both, but if there is resentment at the grass roots it should not be ignored as it may well be entirely justified from people who quite clearly have been let down for a very long time by those who may think of themselves as their “leaders”.
Bottom up solutions (I think McDonnell called it bottom up socialism) will be essential to a more equal and sustainable world, just as much as reversing top down hierarchical control mechanisms is essential to allow it to flourish.
I was annoyed with the reaction to some thinkers who have in my opinion done a power of good
I am not disputing for a moment the value of the projects
But I do kit think this promoting this project have the attributes Allan ascribed to them
I admit I know them
You miss the point; these projects are already getting somewhere and have been without any help from the ‘very serious persons’ as Krugman calls them. They will continue to get somewhere because no filter or roadblock of ‘deserving’ is being placed upon them. That sort of patronising moral roadblock is just one of the tricks being sidelined by this sort of movement.
No one is saying the projects ate not working
But to decry those seeking to draw attention to the success and promote more of the same is utterly bizarre
I think you owe them an apology
As an interesting contrast to the ultra-local economy, this article reminded me of the increasing power of the ultra-global corporations. I’m not sure the comparison to relative stock market values is entirely relevant, but makes a change to comparison to national GDP’s which is often just as alarming.
It’s an interesting historical journey that the lords and ladies of feudalism have taken over the centuries, through national mercantilism, industrial capitalism and now to this global corporate-ocracy (for want of a better word).
If you could trace the family histories of the leading royal families, merchant venturers and their financial backers of the last few centuries through to the ownership of today’s global corporations – it would be interesting to see how it correlates.
My sneaking suspicion is that there is a strong streak of nepotism running throughout them. Just a hunch of course!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/google-adobe-paypal-netflix-mastercard-china-russia-mexico-poland-map-companies-worth-more-stock-a6954246.html