Does it matter who owns our local businesses? According to the economics texts the answer is “No.” The only question is “consumer value” which is to say, how much we [...]
How Credit Cards Cut the Invisible Thread
It is not common to associate commercial credit with such things as community and trust, but that is a symptom of how credit cards have sucked this function into the [...]
Recycle Circus: The Commerce of a Community
What is it about other peoples’ junk? Last Sunday was Recycle Circus, the day in our town when people clean out their sheds and garages and bring the stuff down [...]
City Repair: Social Permaculture in Portland
The drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Portland Oregon, up Highway 5, passes through a splendid natural landscape and a diminished human one. There are islands of local [...]
Rural Post Offices and the Hidden Productivity of Common Space
One of the great allies of the canny dictator is the human tendency to forget. Bring about a new normal with sufficient skill, and people gradually forget that things ever [...]
Blue Commoners, and Abstractions in the Red Zone
The Red States/Blue State trope lost ground last week, at last. It never was what it seemed to begin with. As numerous writers have pointed out, the electoral divide is [...]
A Civic Economy
There was a coffee shop near my apartment on the West Side of Manhattan that served as a refuge for the troubled souls in the neighborhood. Older men sat for [...]
The Basic Function of Money
By connecting human needs and human resources, Time Dollars generate new wealth. The system also builds community as people are valued for their contributions and discover they can rely on one another.
Rebuilding the Nonmarket Economy
Some things are too important to be sold.