Freeconomy Blog
Tue
07 Feb
Help create a new economic model for Greece
| 10 comments |
Some of you may remember that I spent last summer in Greece working with an inspirational group of people who are creating a new economic model over there, a group whose values and ideals are completely alligned to those of Freeconomy (they've done a lot for Freeconomy Greece over the last year also). Their project couldn't be more timely, given the state of affairs in their country, and the results of the trials and research they are undertaking will be of huge benefit to the country at large as the full implications of Greece's debt crisis begins to trickle down over the next decade.
I've been in touch with them a lot over the last few months, partially because another organisation, BraketheCycle, who'd I'd also been in contact with last year, stopped off to work with them en route from Turkey, where they are cycling from towards the UK.
I am delighted to report that between both of them they are creating something fantastic in a country that is crying out for a new way of living; a country looking over the precipice of economic collapse. But they also need support in whatever way you can.
One of the team from BraketheCycle, Marcus Letts, was so inspired by what is happening out there that he wanted to write a piece about the work that they are trying to help Free and Real do. Here is what he sent me, I hope you find some inspiration in it (if you feel in any position to support either of them in any way you can, I'd highly recommend them both).
Free and Real: Creating a new model of economy for Greece
by Marcus Letts of BraketheCycle(.org.uk)
The European Union coordinates one of history's most powerful economic and political alliances. But today, like national balance sheets across the continent, this union is disintegrating. A sober critique of our 21st century Greek tragedy may observe systematic corruption and wag the finger at the illegal lending of predatory global financial institutions, but one conclusion is inescapable. Greece's current turmoil is symptomatic of a global economy shuddering ever closer to it's inevitable collapse.
Complex analysis of financial systems and macro economies is an unfortunate necessity of our globalised modern world. Fortunately, it is of little relevance here. More significant to the future of Greek and European communities is an awareness that, amidst the confusion and hopelessness, a movement is stirring. Increasingly, young people are responding by thinking and doing. Rejecting the role of passive consumer assigned to them by faceless corporations, they are choosing instead to experiment in new ways of living. Every day in Athens, diverse groups are emerging to channel this growing energy, through protests, actions, debates and assemblies which demonstrate a conviction that individuals working collectively can define their own realities.
High in the mountains of Evia, an island around 170km north of the Greek capital, Free and Real's eco community grows daily. In the last week alone, volunteers helped erect an extension of their workshop – complete with workbench and salvaged palm roofing – as well as the foundations for a two storey yurt, to be constructed on stilts, not to mention path building, tree planting and seed bombing. The project, which grew organically from an internet forum and built momentum by organising in Athens, has pioneered in Greece a model for self sufficiency and resilience which is thriving across the continent.
As one paradigm ends, another begins in the open spaces left behind. Reflecting a natural cycle of creation, preservation and decay, this transition is also reminiscent of an ancient prophecy. Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi Indian word meaning “world out of balance,” which describes a state of living which calls for another way. Recognising our existence within such a world, the Koyaanisqatsi Trust is a peer to peer, grass roots fundraising initiative helping to resource a growing consciousness by building networks, connecting communities and providing the funds required to empower visions and inspire positive action. Established in the UK in the summer of 2011, coordinated by volunteers and dedicated to raising awareness as well as money, the Trust is committed to investing in the wider movement through small and easily accessible grant making. In 2011, funds were gathered through a community focused performing arts festival, food waste banquets, live music events and a 21 person, 1,000 mile cycle challenge.
After connecting via a combination of Mark Boyle's Freeconomy and sheer chance, these projects have recognised an opportunity for collaboration. Free and Real have built the foundations of a successful eco community and are ready to experiment further, while the Koyaanisqatsi Trust have developed a funding model capable of empowering such ambition. From the ashes of economic centralisation, could a union of people and projects be rising which shares a common vision, though recognises the essential diversity of its radically local manifestations? Can we imagine a framework of communities adapting to specific climates and cultures with shared resources and expertise, as well as natural exuberance and boundless creativity? Despite European populations beginning to grow hungry, a surge of optimism is rising. Working beyond existing, outdated frameworks, young Greeks, Brits and Europeans generally are rediscovering their power. Working together, they're making a shared dream come true and building solidarity across a continent; solidarity which never defined the political and economic straitjacket of the EU, despite a steady flow of rhetoric to the contrary.
As our recumbent paradigm decays, a resourceful international community with a radically localised perspective is being created in a process which replicates nature's evolutionary succession. While unelected politicians become increasingly irrelevant, a participatory network of diverse people aware of their shared humanity is growing wider and deeper, reflecting a culture of cooperation and humility; an opening of minds and tolerance of disparate experiences, diverse eco systems and degrees of emphasis.
In early 2012, these initiatives remain the exception rather than the rule. But such endeavours are invaluable, developing models which are largely transferable and, by cultivating networks of information and funding, easily replicable. An ecologically conscious performing arts festival building a temporary community in Somerset's Mendip hills can come together with young Athenians emerging from inherited patterns of living which have left many hungry and hopeless. The incontrovertible truth is that another world is possible; that we have everything we need, right now, if only we recognise our individual responsibility and begin to work collectively. It really is that simple.
Cycling through the streets of Athens just over four weeks ago, a city which contains half the Greek population, there seemed little cause for immediate concern. Perhaps the revolution was enjoying it's Christmas holidays. Or perhaps, despite its immanent bankruptcy and looming climate chaos, a global civilisation built on the edifice of oil remains deeply entrenched in our daily lives and, almost everywhere, continues to dominate our collective imagination. Whatever the prevailing mood on the streets of Europe's capitals, the cracks are beginning to show. Across the continent, people and projects have forgotten their despondency and begun the process of re-imagining their lives and rediscovering their self sufficiency.
Like any Greek tragedy worth the name, the major players in our consumer capitalist story have long assured their mutual destruction, becoming deeply enmeshed in intricate and irrational webs of deceit and denial. But waiting in the wings, and clambering up from the stalls, the people are ready to take centre stage. Accept this time there is no script, and there'll be no acting.
Ladies and gentlemen, please abandon your seats. The next scene will be free and real.
With funds raised by Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival in 2011, the Koyaanisqatsi Trust is delighted to collaborate with Free and Real in funding, and helping to build, a 24ft yurt which will be a model for future constructions, as their vision to build a community of ecologically conscious and radically free individuals is gradually realised.
http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org.uk/
Free and Real are currently campaigning to raise additional funds for the construction of a dome structure which will become the fulcrum of their new community, enabling an extended programme of seminars and workshops, as well as the main arena of a fundraising eco festival scheduled for late 2012. If you're able to make a contribution, please share in our vision by supporting their campaign, by following the link below.
http://www.indiegogo.com/Free-and-Real
THE FREECONOMY BLOG is written by Mark Boyle, who lived for over two years and a half without money, and is the founder of the Freeconomy Community. He is the author of The Moneyless Man.
Comment on this Post:
Emily comments ...
In love with all of you..
May it all move forward with grace, in peace and as it's supposed to...sooner than later!
Fotini Sianou comments ...
It has been an honour to meet up with you, live, work and play with you. I can see it accomplished in my dream. God be with all of you. My love and always in Peace, Fotini
Myrsine comments ...
Love and Peace to the whole World! May there wont be any borders and No wars anymore thus This is the Beginning of a New Era, the One of the Concious Man and You FREE AND REAL people are doing this! and u Are not only Concious but Courageous and Inspirational and really hard workers, and the most crazy of all things is that you dont work for yourslefs but for the whole of Greece and the whole of humanity! I LOve you guys and wish you All the best from the bottom of my heart and look forward to come and work with you again. Sustainability for All = Love and understanding.. Change has began and i Love it!
comments ...
There are two aspects to the land and resource artificial scarcity system which is held over us - exchange and debt. They are linked because without scarcity there is no need, with need comes sharing carefully with loved ones and exchange between strangers, and in an ordinary exchange there is always a debt on one side written down in the mind and forgot, or written down on tablets or paper, which come to be exchanged as valuable debts that would be honoured on presentation, and this is money, and those notes still have that 'promise to pay the bearer' on them today. So there are two mechanisms working exchange and debt. The need is created in the first place by exclusion from life, exclusion from land. That is our enslavery.
Here is a supportive statement about usury, and it affirms the spirit of your post, I wish you well:
Extract from: http://www.aididsafar.com/PAID.pdf Titled End of economics. Also called usury the instrument of world enslavement.
We are confronting people whose weakness is the very thing that they believe gives them power. They think that they are in charge of existence, that they can conquer it, tame it, and make profit out of it.
They do not believe that they will ever face a reckoning for their actions. And they are wrong.
This is usurious thinking, for this attitude causes the build-up of an ever-increasing debt that like toxic waste, does not just disappear simply because you bury it, or export it, or ignore it. The accumulated debts of injustice are waiting to be collected.
And like a counter balance, the world is waiting for people who are prepared to fulfill their truly human potential as guardians of the earth and its inhabitants, of life itself, people who uphold the right and forbid the wrong. This is not achieved by direct opposition to usurious system and its masters, for they are strengthened by opposition. It gives them a reality. Like the classic piece of sixties graffiti said, 'Don't vote, it only encourages them.' Their fantasy strength is reinforced by opposition to it. Like the phantom in a nightmare, it will only vanish if it is ignored. The more you attack it, the bigger it gets.
This tyrannical system will be over come by people who turn away from it - not by dropping out - but by declaring it a fantasy, and saying, with certainty, 'That is false, Reality is with us.' The capacity of people to transform themselves and their lives is the very thing that will conquer. If we refuse to be owned slaves, then we must be different Affirm the real, for when the REAL comes, the false must vanish.
People who are bound together with the true human companionship that comes from undertaking a journey or a task or a commitment that, even though it might appear too awesome to bear, is in fact the only available option - these people carry with them the seed of life that is unstoppable.
To do otherwise is to resign oneself to a life of unfulfilled potential and to being at best, mediocre. The more we meet, and discuss, and learn from each other, and share life, celebrate life, the more our members will grow and possibilities will open up, possibilities that we cannot know of or imagine, until we take the step.
I can do no better than to end with the words of Goethe, that visionary poet, opponent of usury and protector of humanity.
'Until there is commitment, there is hesistancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, the Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occured. A whole stream of events issues forth from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.'
'Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.'
Earthur comments ...
Hi 'comments'!
Can you please get in touch by messaging me perhaps?: EarthurAramxek is my user name in freeconomy. Thanks!
Tom comments ...
Certainly feels like we are coming to the end of the capitalist western model where the only option is for 'growth' and 'consumption'. I'm constantly hearing that our economy is in 'negative growth' and we need to buy ever more stuff we don't need what a load of rubbish ! Glad to hear that people are trying to lead a sustainable non-consumerist life - this is surely the only future, we can do it !
Matt Moose comments ...
Grateful as I am for a job, a home and good food, I was nevertheless born into a system that forces us to work in personally and ecologically inappropriate jobs so we can access the basics for survival. I have so much more to offer than the UK's economic system currently permits or cares about. If I could live in affordable, low impact housing, I could achieve so much more by working in more co-operative and supportive ways. How ignorant I am of how to live outside the machine that we all know is so broken.
pete, of the adams family comments ...
Namaste Mark. You might like to check out Larry Masons no-pom system. i link to it on this page http://www.moving-overseas-guide.com/2012-awakening.html about a community i am planning where we intend to use an adaptation of his system.
Peace & Love
pete
