In 1997, the inhabitants of the tiny Hebridean Isle of Eigg finally succeeded in taking collective control of their island. Tensions had been running high for years: everything from the islanders’ homes to their jobs to their electricity supply depended on the whims of the wealthy businessman who owned it. Sick of putting up with crumbling buildings while he took rich friends for picnics and jaunts in his Rolls Royce, they launched what today would be called a crowdfunder, and eventually raised enough money to buy him out.
Today, Eigg is thriving. A community housing association has refurbished the islanders’ homes and made rents more affordable. The island is 95 percent powered by community-owned renewables, giving islanders 24-hour electricity for the first time. The landscape, previously scarred by damaging spruce tree plantations, has been restored. There is even a community-owned broadband network. Decisions about the island’s future are made democratically by the trust that owns it on behalf of all who live there.
The story of Eigg gives me hope, not just because it shows that change is possible – but because it has deep truths to teach us about what is wrong with our economy and how we can put it right. The power of the global 1 percent is, first and foremost, the power of the landlord.
Today’s economic elite do not generally earn their wealth by producing useful things: They are gatekeepers who extract wealth from others by controlling the resources they rely on, just as landlords extract rent by controlling land and property. Global energy companies control natural resources. Banks control the money supply. Tech giants control our data, as well as the platforms on which we share it.
This means that, like the islanders of Eigg, we can address many of the crises we face by taking control of these assets together for the common good. We can take control of our homes through public housing and community land trusts, pioneered in the US and now found in UK cities from London to Liverpool. We can take control of our energy through city energy supply firms and community wind and solar generation, inspired by Germany and Denmark’s renewable revolution. We can take control of our money supply through public and cooperative banks that support their local communities with affordable credit – a model that works across the world, from India to France. We can demand shared ownership of our data rather than handing it over to corporations, as Barcelona’s pioneering city government has started doing.
Because all of these models take wealth extraction out of the equation, they can give us more affordable access to the necessities of life: warm homes, clean energy, loans to see us through hard times.
But they also give us something deeper: a sense of greater control over our lives, the ability to participate in decisions that affect us. This matters in a world where feelings of alienation and disempowerment are fueling the rise of a racist far right.
A new vision of economic citizenship must be squarely opposed to these politics – defined by your belonging to the community and not the country of your birth. Rather than seeking to regain control by building walls and slamming shut borders, we must build new forms of global solidarity that expand the space for democracy – for instance, by shutting down the tax-avoidance networks and speculative flows of capital that wreck national economies.
Taking collective control of our economy also means we can reorient it towards the things we actually care about: lives and livelihoods, not just GDP and profits.
The pandemic has thrown these issues into stark relief. We can now see who the real “essential workers” are: nurses, bin men and shop assistants, not hedge fund managers and advertising executives. In countries like mine, where social safety nets have been so badly vandalised that sick people cannot afford to stay at home, we are discovering that protecting everyone benefits us all. Our minds are being focused on the relationships that matter: the friends and family we are separated from, and the kindness of neighbours who are helping each other through.
Polling shows that eight out of 10 Britons want the government to prioritise human wellbeing over economic growth. Yet as I write this, the UK is easing lockdown only for activities where money changes hands. You can now invite a cleaner into your home, but not your mother.
In some ways, this is unsurprising. Our current economic system is a bit like a bicycle: it has to keep moving, or it falls over. But the effects of lockdown should be a warning: the ecological emergency means that we simply cannot continue to rely on an ever-expanding economy to give us all a good life. Instead, by finding new ways to provide for our needs collectively, we can reduce our dependence on this extractive and destructive money-circulation machine.
These are dark days. But in such times, we need a vision for a better future as a light to guide us out. Just as a better society was built from the rubble of World War II, so we must learn the lessons of this global crisis and build something better in its wake.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
