At the end 2006, I attended a course on Gandhi and Globalisation at Vandana Shiva's Organic Farm and International College for Sustainable Living in North India. On my return, I started writing new articles. Two resulted from this visit. The remainder sprang from my growing interest in making sense of the unsustainable economic system.
The following papers and articles are all about that system, how it works and what we need to do to change it. Most of these are written by me, but occasionally I include the work of other writers, with their permission, whose work I consider exceptionally valuable. There is also a summary of key campaigns which are bringing about systemic change.
From Old Economics to New Economics: Radical Reform for a Sustainable Future. Stephen Spratt, Director of the Centre for the Future Economy at nef, and Stewart Wallis, Executive Director of nef (new economics foundation), October 2007. This is one of the most exciting set of proposals I have read. Today we face huge threats, but also tremendous opportunities. Climate change, ecosystem collapse, growing inequality and injustice, leading to increasing violence, require an urgent response from us all and from our governments. We need a new approach, one that tackles these global and national challenges, but also addresses another key issue: our lifestyles in the developed countries threaten the future of the planet; yet they do not make us happy. The global economic system is unsustainable. It has now become the problem and is causing us potentially fatal harm This paper analyses this system and exposes the "economic myths" embedded in it. It offers proposals for radical reform of the global economic system and global governance.
All Rise: How Gandhi's thinking can help us in the 21st Century. Schumacher Society Challenge Paper, April 2007. This summarises Gandhi's thinking as a highly successful change agent and servant leader. It explores the extraordinary relevance of his thinking to our situation at the beginning of the 21st Century.
Sustainable Living in India. Article for Organic Way, Autumn 2007. This is an article about Vandana Shiva's Navdanya Organic Farm and International College for Sustainable Living in Dehra Doon, India and the work she is doing in saving seed and food diversity, supporting poor farmers, many of whom are women, their fight against agribusiness and "bio-piracy" and challenging the power of transnational corporations.
It's time we changed the system. This unpublished conference paper gives a challenging account of the biggest crisis in recent human history – climate change, destruction of the ecological system on which all life depends. It argues that the underlying issue is an unsustainable global economic system which is fuelling climate change, exhausting the resources of the planet and failing to eliminate extreme poverty. The system also contributes to violence and insecurity. The article argues that we need to change the system; that whilst it may seem daunting, we can do it if everyone takes full responsibility – people, governments and corporations. It requires a complete change in the way we live. And this might well lead to happier and more rewarding lives for all of us! The paper is used as a basis for articles, shorter conference papers, talks, discussions, PowerPoint presentations and workshops.
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Changing the System: the challenge for Servant-Leaders. Paper for the UK Robert Greenleaf Servant Leadership 10th Annual Conference, 31st October to 1st November 2007. Shorter version of the above paper.
Grasp the Opportunities for Sustainable Business. Article published in the October Network 2012 Newsletter. Version for entrepreneurs.
It's time to give your leadership! Article published in the Training Manager's Yearbook 2008. A similar article for change agents, consultants, learning and development practitioners and their managers.
Spotlight on Bruce Nixon. Interview by Sue de Verteuil, first published in the May 2007 issue of Emerald Now.
The Future of Money: If We Want a Better Game of Economic Life, We'll Have to Change the Scoring System. Article by James Robertson, included here with his permission, 5,000 word article in the journal, Soundings, issue 31, December 2005, on the practicalities of evolving a new political economy and its institutions, based on fairly sharing the value of common resources. The practicalities include: Firstly, changing the debt money system under which 95% of our money supply now consists of bank account money created as profit making loans by commercial banks; secondly, changing an unsustainable tax system that perversely taxes useful activities like work and fails to tax excessive use of environmental and other common resources; thirdly, providing a Citizens Income for people to use in their own interests. This would be sourced from some of the tax raised from the use of common resources, and would replace some of the money now spent on big government agencies and big business corporations to provide public services and public investment for citizens expected to stay dependent. These proposals are particularly relevant at a time when crippling indebtedness is starting to have major effects on the world economy. Source http://www.jamesrobertson.com/articles#articles
Key campaigns which are bringing about systemic change. In my view, these are key campaigns which address underlying issues getting in the way of creating a sustainable and just world.
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