Inspiration Feed – 04.10
Sustainable Development, sharing by owning, Tragedy of the Commons debunked, democracy vs inequality & more.
links selection – 10.apr.16
How we can make the world a better place by 2030
by Michael Green (ted.com)
Let’s reject business as usual. Let’s demand a different path. Let’s choose the world that we want. Can we achieve the Global Goals? Certainly not with business as usual. Even a flood tide of economic growth is not going to get us there, if it just raises the mega-yachts and the super-wealthy and leaves the rest behind. If we’re going to achieve the Global Goals we have to do things differently. We have to prioritize social progress, and really scale solutions around the world.”
Owning Is the New Sharing
By Nathan Schneider (shareable.net)
People who want an economy of genuine sharing are coming to recognize that they must embrace ownership — and, as they do, they’re changing what owning means altogether.”
One of the Most Pervasive — and Wrong — Conservative Economic Myths, Debunked
By David Bollier (alternet.org)
Over the past several decades, the tragedy of the commons has taken root as an economic truism. There is just one significant flaw in the tragedy parable. It does not accurately describe a commons. Hardin’s fictional scenario sets forth a system that has no boundaries around the pasture, no rules for managing it, no punishments for over-use and no distinct community of users. But that is not a commons. It is an open-access regime, or a free-for-all. A commons has boundaries, rules, social norms and sanctions against free riders. A commons requires that there be a community willing to act as a conscientious steward of a resource.”
Unwinding Inequality
by Angus Deaton (hbr.org)
When successful people—businessmen, lawyers, traders, doctors—use their success to change the rules in their favor, by lobbying or funding politicians, that success is no longer something to be celebrated. Justice Louis Brandeis once said, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
* weekly inspiration illustration by Ilan Katin
