Building Economic Alternatives

By Gary Moffatt

In this article, I propose to outline as many currently practiced methods of creating an alternative economy as I am aware of, with footnotes wherever possible indicating where interested readers may find further information. (Where a Toronto project is listed, people from other areas might write if they know of no such project in their own areas for information on how to locate or start one locally.)

I am including information about both urban and rural alternatives, despite personal skepticism about longterm prospects for survival in the city. Large cities depend on a very intricate network of food growing and transportation for the quantities of food needed for survival; anything from a drought to a fuel shortage could disrupt this network. Present agriculture methods now take 5-10 units of fossil fuel energy to produce one unit of food energy, and at present rates 87% of the initial stock of oil and gas will be depleted in another 30-40 years. Each year the world must feed 95 million more people on 24 billion tons of topsoil. The recent farce in Rio De Janeiro indicates that world leaders have no intention of protecting the environment. Supplying large cities with enough food for the populace requires a large and intricate system which could break down at any of several points; those wishing to survive should live where they can create their own food.

The Corporate State

In the A.D. period of our time measurement, western civilization has passed through four periods of roughly 500 years each: empire (the Romans), chaos (the "dark ages"), feudalism (the "middle ages") and the nation state, which pretty well destroyed itself in the first two world wars of this century. Since 1945 we have entered the age of the corporate state, with giant corporations becoming multinational and taking control of each industrialized country by buying control of its major political parties. Even a party which has not sold to the corporations feels unable to resist their wishes once in attains power, for fear of a "flight of capital" Canada's provincial NDP governments being a case in point. The only restriction on corporate power is that its actions must not be too far out of line with public opinion, as measured by polls and election results. The corporations usually control public opinion through their own control of the mass media, but they feel they can get away with more when the public elects the rightmost of the political parties rather than the most liberal, as their increased murders since 1980 attest. While it cannot change the system, voting for the most liberal candidate who could win might reduce the carnage.

The age of the corporate state was ushered in by the launching of WW3, the rich against the poor, on March 12 1947 when the Truman Doctrine proclaimed the USA's right to intervene anywhere in the world. The more WW3 escalates, the more it becomes obvious that the outcome of WW2 was not important as everyone assumed at the time. The world wouldn't be much different today if the Axis powers has won; consider the U.S.-German-Japanese domination of the world's economy, the rise of police brutality towards the poor and skinhead brutality towards ethnic minorities, and the ravages of corporate neocolonialism. The twenty million people who die each year of diseases which could easily be prevented if their country's assets were not taken over by the corporations are as much victims of this system as those who die of starvation due to the policies of the International Murder Fund, or are killed by the torture states established by the USA and its industrialized allies throughout the third world.

In the nation state some degree of dialogue, however ineffective, was possible between the rulers and the ruled; even subjects of an absolute despot knew who their ruler was and which officials to bribe for an audience. In the corporate state there is no dialogue at all; we don't know who the rulers are, and see only the politicians who communicate their decisions to us. We can change the politicians, not the rulers or their policies. In addition, communication between the two widening tiers of society is becoming increasingly difficult. Most of the upper tier seems quite happy to allow the holocaust to continue so long as their own frenetic gobbling can continue; Galbraith calls them the "contented majority", though the "frightened minority" would be a more accurate term since 2/3 of the world's population are have-nots and most people in the upper tier can drop into the lower one anytime the boss decides to fire them. Nonetheless, they have cast their lot with the existing order and will likely support it until it collapses; since the lower tier has largely given up on elections, they'll have things their way at the polls. For both tiers, the phrase "heading for hell in a handbasket" has become a mantra for people to repeat over and over to justify doing nothing to correct the situation.

The corporate state will not last 500 years; both the economy and the environment will collapse much sooner. Although the corporations and their political stooges are the main architect of society's forthcoming collapse, part of the blame should go to the left, which has dissipated its energies in ego-dominated factionalism instead of working out and presenting clear alternatives. For example, part of the reason Canada got the Free Trade Pact was its opponents' failure to unite behind a convincing alternative solution to the threat of US protectionism. There's lots of blame to go around; the general public, which has chosen to stupefy itself with mindless TV and spectator sports, is entitled to a share, as are our truth-distorting mass media.

In 1970, Mr. and Mrs. America showed that they would endorse the police murdering their children rather than allow their galloping consumption to be challenged, and there is no evidence that their attitudes have changed since then. With the North American populace hellbent on ecocide, we must ask ourselves what will happen when the environment starts to collapse. The rich will survive by retreating to the best pieces of land with private armies to protect them from the starving masses. For the rest of us, the best hope lies in developing the sort of co-operative, small-scale economy thinkers like Shumacher envisioned. This will require considerable change in our thinking processes, since from our earliest experiences in family, playground and school our entire socialization process encourages us to be aggressive, self-centered and competitive; many co-operative experiments failed in the sixties because those taking part were unable to surmount this conditioning. Fortunately, some of the economic experiments have survived and developed tools which other groups can use.

Community Economic Development

Community Economic Development is a process whereby people in a community organize themselves and pool their resources with available resources from government, churches and other groups to solve local economic problems. A local development organization is usually formed to plan and carry out a development program. Canada now has an estimated 2,000 such projects, most of which have emerged in the last few years; most initiatives have taken form of small co-operatives or other non-profit enterprises. Skills training, daycare, cultural facilities and environmental preservation are examples of CED enterprises. Often, a CED program can put people wishing to start some potentially income-earning business, such as a workers' co-op, in touch with possible funding sources for the initial capital required, such as churches or government programs. In such cities as Toronto, CEDs have formed networks, whose members meet to share information and discuss such issues as funding, marketing and legal structures and lobbying government on such matters as the rules which govern how much money people receiving family benefits can earn (1).

CEDs raise the question about how far to try to use the state to reach survivability. It is too complex for simple such as "never" or "whenever possible". Basically, the state is our enemy; it is owned by the corporations and sees the peoples' role as being to serve the corporations and to rot in unemployment when this best serves corporate interests. "We have had high unemployment because the Canadian state has chosen to have it", concludes one political scientist after tracing the decisions of the Trudeau and Mulroney governments to enhance the power of capital to dominate the market at the expense of job creation (2). We must also be aware that, although the state now likes to use the term "decentralization", it means to the state not more popular control over our lives but rather dumping government responsibility for social programs into the individual communities where private industry can create low-paying jobs; when the state supports CEDs, it is generally with this end in mind.

At the same time, it may be necessary at times to use some of the state's tools. Incorporation, like marriage, is an invitation to the state to intervene in interpersonal relationships, but in many types of alternative economic projects it is necessary in order to protect the project from the swindlers and deadbeats often attracted to such enterprises. In such situations, we must not let anarchist philosophy stand in the way of doing what is necessary. This is particularly true in the case of the co-operative models in which people with little or no prior acquaintanceship come together to further joint aims, though it may be necessary even when we know (or think we know) those we are working with. People or citizens' groups who involve themselves with the state in CED programs should first define to themselves what they want to get out of the program and work with the state only if this furthers attaining their goals.

Many CEDs have mixed results. A case in point is Toronto's Yonge Street Mission launching a "muffin and coffee emporium" to give street youth work which, coupled with suitable counselling, helps them get a better place to live and acquire basic life skills. Some of them stay off the street and go on to other jobs or go to school; others don't. In this case the project solves an immediate problem by getting some kids off the street, but fails to equip them with skills for more than dead-end jobs.

Co-operative Employment

Workers Co-operatives: Workers can start a cooperative by developing a new business or buying an existing one from its owners. Each worker has one common voting share. Like any other form of co-operative, a worker's co-op would be expected to honour the six basic principles of co-operatives: one member one vote, membership open to all, savings distributed to the members in proportion to use of the co-op rather than investment, limited return on investment by members, continued education programs by and for the members and co-operation amongst co-operatives. Many co-ops require a unanimous vote on extremely important decisions, which require long meetings and putting off decisions. Since outside investors and banks are traditionally reluctant to put up money for worker's co-ops, the money must usually come from the workers themselves buying shares. In many areas, consulting firms exist to help such enterprises get started. (3)

Co-operatives may also be used to advance the interests of an economic group which doesn't work together. An example is the Fisherfolk Federation and Multipurpose Co-operative formed by fisherfolk in the province of Laguna in the Philippines, to improve living standards for small fisherfolk and work for aquatic reform. Formed in reaction to a city government's plan to demolish fish-pens and turn the lakes over to tourism, it now has 600 members, assisted by NGOs, who not only oppose tourist development but also explore new technologies to improve catches and preserve fish stocks. (4)

Working Co-operatives: A slight variation on workers' co-operatives, in that each worker invests an equal amount of money, which goes not directly to starting the business but rather to a central trust company which doubles as a source of capital for new industries and a provider of expert management sources to maximize the chances of their survival. The workers have a "Contract of Association" with the central trust company, and consensus management is used. Managers of various phases of the operation - market research, sales purchasing, accounting, etc. - are chosen on the basis of knowledge, eliminating "status managers."

The most successful such experiment has been in the Basque region of Mondragon, where about one hundred industrial worker co-ops involving 22,000 worker-owners network to run the economy. Since 1956 there have been no business failures, only one strike and two months in which unemployment insurance was drawn by worker co-op members. In Prince Edward Island, the success of 16 co-ops in employing 369 people full-time in the Evangeline region had enabled this francophone enclave to retain its language and culture. (5) Unfortunately, many states and provinces in North America prohibit central trust companies out of fear of allowing people to become self-reliant. Also, the success of a central trust company in planning industries for hundreds of worker-owners each would not necessarily be duplicated in setting up industries for very small groups of people.

Community Development Corporations: An alternative path to establishing a legal identity, attractive in many states where workers' co-operative legislation is unsatisfactory. It is expensive and time-consuming to start such a corporation, likely requiring an outlay of several hundred dollars even if a sympathetic lawyer willing to donate legal services can be found. Once started, however, the corporation could launch any number of business ventures on behalf of the group of people it had defined itself as serving. Although it is not required to do so, the corporation could provide consultive services to the new businesses, similar to those which a central trust company can supply to a project such as Mondragon. This model would not be appropriate for a small group of people intent only on starting their own business, but might be useful for a larger group wishing to start several small businesses. For example, the Come Home to The Valley Community Development Corporation was formed to encourage and assist the process of self-directed economic and social development within Renfrew County, and has worked to start up small businesses there. A corporation can identify a social rather than a geographical unit of society that it wishes to serve. (6)

Economic Networks: These can flourish in regions which elect to promote employment by networking small firms of artisans rather than bribing large corporations with tax concessions to locate plants in the area. They work best when the firms can make linkages with other small firms, rather than relying on one or two larger firms for their business. Often firms can bid jointly on larger contracts. Subcontracting experience makes it clear that production of individual network participants can be coordinated to create complete products for industry and consumers.

This model has been particularly successful in north-central Italy, where hundreds of thousands of smallscale firms out-produce conventionally run factories and supply skilled work to democratically organized workforces. In the Emilia-Romagna region, 325,000 small firms, many of them worker-controlled, proliferated in an area of four million people in the span of just a few years. By learning to link together to perform complex manufacturing tasks, they have attained the highest per capita income in Italy. The adaptability of such flexible manufacturing networks to other areas has been demonstrated by the Appalachian Center For Economic Networks, or ACEnet, a community development corporation which evolved from networking worker-owned businesses to include other types of small manufacturing firms and agencies. Using computers, it helps them form temporary production networks to co-design and manufacture innovative, short-run items that they couldn't produce individually. To obtain necessary starting capital, they established a local revolving loan fund and linked to a national resource on funders committed to cooperative enterprise. An early success was involving 200 small local firms in production of housing components for the disabled and elderly. (7)

Credit Unions: Can help people finance alternative economic projects, particularly when this is their main purpose in incorporating. For instance, Toronto's Bread and Roses Credit Union has loaned worker co-ops money for buying equipment, as well as enabling individual co-op members to buy their shares in the co-operative. It is also active in the network of groups promoting community economic development in Toronto, but cannot provide the initial equity financing and grants required by new enterprises, nor does it get involved in profit-making businesses. It has over 1300 members, with assets of $5.3 million. (8)

At The Community Level

Local Level Networks: Sometimes networking can be carried out on a smaller scale. In a recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview, Dennis Young of Regina described efforts by a former single-industry community, Winkler, Manitoba, over a period of 25 years to diversify its economy. Starting with a community planning exercise in the 1960s, Winkler managed over a period of 25 years to create 19 new enterprises, employing 2500 people. However, Young's more recent efforts to persuade some of Canada's 4000 single-industry communities to form an association collapsed when it failed to attract sufficient interest. (9)

Formal Barter Systems: These enable participants to earn remuneration for goods and services which are accorded little or no recognition in the marketplace. The one which has attracted most attention in recent years is the LETS Barter System, whose members pay a fee and are hooked into a computerized system of recording their transactions. Works best for those having trouble marketing their goods and services, though some self-employed professionals find that participation enables them to accept clients who couldn't pay in cash. The main disadvantage is that records are available to the state, which claims the right to level monetary taxes equal to the value of goods and services exchanged. Also, some people who have been involved in informal exchange networks feel that their spirit of generosity is preferable to assigning a value to everything exchanged. Unfortunately, the informal networks are only available to members of closely-knit communities. (10)

Informal Barter Systems: Those where no formal record is kept of transactions. Usually found in small communities isolated physically (small frontier towns) or spiritually (urban ethnic groups, such as some black and Jewish communities). One sociologist concludes, on the basis of her study of an urban black community, that when poverty and social discrimination make it impossible for members of a group to remove themselves from poverty, it is a better investment for each member to share whatever temporary windfalls may come his or her way with kin and friends, in the expectation of receiving similar aid in their own time of need, than to attempt to hoard the extra money. (11) In any case, the curious mixture of generosity and self-aggrandizement which gave rise to the potlatch tradition in many native communities is most suited to small groups whose members know one another reasonably well.

Informal Economies: These occur when large numbers of people engage in "under-the-table" economic activities which leave no paper trails for the state to follow and tax. The higher the taxes, the more incentive there is to engage in such activities, and it is generally estimated that imposition of the Goods and Service Tax has increased their extent in Canada, though nobody knows by how much. The largest informal economies, however, are to be found in third world cities which have increased their population three-to-fivefold within a few years as small farmers are forced off the land. Often, the state makes it impossible for newcomers to legally go into business for themselves, so they do so outside the law. In Lima, Peru, for example, the informal economy generates almost all the public transportation, most of the housing, much of the retail trade, and even a significant fraction of the manufacturing. One activist recently estimated that 95% of the population is reliant on the informal economy, living outside the state. (12)

In such cities, new subdivisions are thrown up literally overnight, involving thousands of people who are prepared to either buy off or fight off the police. Over a period of years, these areas integrate themselves into the city's legal economy. The authorities are more able to clamp down on cottage industries than on housing or transportation, although they usually manage to tax these activities indirectly (e.g. by high gasoline taxes). Two observers of this phenomenon take differing interpretations of its social significance; Peru's Hernando De Soto sees the informal economy as a pre-development phase for people whose essential aim is to merge into the mainstream economy, while Mexico's Gustavo Esteva argues that it is a post-development phase launched by people who realize that development will never do anything for them, and see the massive opportunities for regeneration in a self-controlled economy rejecting consumerist ideals. (13)

Weekly Markets: In the early 1980s, two members of the Toronto anarchist community distributed a proposal that, as the first step towards establishing a city-wide Mutual-Aid network, social activists establish a weekly Mutual Aid Market in a suitable location to create an outlet for the unemployed to sell goods of their own making, establish a barter exchange, create a drop-off point for donated food and other food for the needy, provide a contact point for social change groups and people, create performance space for artists and poets, and enable the proposed alternative community to get a sense of itself and reach out to others with similar goals and values. This would seem an elementary step towards establishment of an alternative economy in urban areas of industrial countries, but no action on it has been taken in Toronto or, to my knowledge, anywhere else. (Toronto did have a one-time only barter fair organized by LETS-barter.)

Autonomy Centres: To me, the test of the health of the alternative community in any given city whether it is operating an autonomy centre, i.e. one or more buildings for such activities as free food and clothing distribution, coffee house, discussions, poetry readings, etc. (the list is really limited only by the imagination of the participants).

A participant in Detroit's "autonomous zone" at 404 Willis writes: "404 is a place where we translate critique into action and explore prospects for real freedom through non-alienated daily interaction: a place where we go to live, if only for brief moments, as if the circle was not broken; a place where we can experience the fulfillment of mutual desire and imagine a life where our dreams are not colonized. We are constantly reminded that we exist in a society that does not share our vision. Our attempts at creating free culture are repeatedly contaminated by the decaying social codes of capital; our efforts often seem thwarted before they begin. But we have to start somewhere, and for many activists in our community, 404 has become that somewhere to feel the new world blossoming in the shell of the old." (14)

Community Land Trusts: A Community Land Trust is a private, non-profit corporation set up to acquire land for use and benefit of its residents and future generations; residents own the buildings, but the land under those buildings is owned by the community and leased on a long-term basis. Although there are precedents in Britain and elsewhere, the most popular current model was devised in the USA in the sixties by the late Ralph Bordosi and Bob Swann, who were inspired by the 19th century economist Henry George (who taught that land is the basis of all value), and by the 20th century gramdan movement in India. Vinoba Bhave, a disciple of Ghandi, had persuaded landowners to give numerous villages gifts of land, the right to use which was then dispensed by the village elders to landless farmers; this was found to be more effective than giving the land outright to those who farmed it - lacking tools or other needed resources, individual owners often wound up selling the land to larger holders.

The first American land trust was created near Albany, Georgia in the late sixties for landless rural blacks; it survived, and by 1990 about 65 others had been formed in the USA. They also founded the Institute for Community Economics, whose credit fund makes low-interest loans available in regions whose economy is trying stimulate. The Institute also works on attempts to establish local currency, which can be used for exchange only in the locality issued and has an effect not unlike that of a formal barter system. (15)

In Canada, CLTs have tended to operate in inner cities, where they work to provide decent, affordable houses to low-income people a d to assure that this housing will remain affordable for future generations, thereby freeing neighbourhoods from speculators and enabling a spirit of community to develop. Residents must belong to the CLT, and sign an agreement limiting the resale value of their house to keep it affordable for the next purchaser, with the land trust having first purchase option. Some CLTs require members to work a given period each week for a given number of months renovating one anothers' houses as part of the downpayment on their own homes, thereby reducing the capital required by "sweat equity", learning repair skills and developing community relationships. Members can then work together on such problems as keeping the community free of drugs.

CLTs offer communities a means of coping with a free trade economy; a community that controls its land base can shape its development and future. To start a CLT: establish a firm membership base in your community, legally incorporate, acquire and develop land, sell the houses but not the land to homebuyers, using a legal ground lease. (16)

Co-Housing: Another form of collaborative community. Pioneered in Denmark and now used in several countries, this arrangement gives each household a private residence, but also enables it to share extensive common facilities, such as kitchen and dining hall, children's playrooms, workshops, laundry, etc. with a larger number group of neighbours. Such units range in size from 6 to 80 households, the majority between 15 and 33. Cohousing communities are organized, planned and managed by their residents. (17)

A less structured approach than any of the above is to invite youth from all over the country to come to a specific area and spend the summer helping renovate the housing (a sort of domestic youth corps minus the state), as the Detroit Summer Project is doing this year.

Obtaining Our Own Food

Food is just one of life's necessities, and self-reliance in obtaining food will not in itself secure survival, but might give people the self-confidence needed to pursue more thorough alternatives. In many third world countries, women have come together to form peoples' kitchens despite opposition from the state, of conservative church officials and, in many cases, of their husbands. There are 150 such kitchens in Lima, with members pooling their resources to buy bulk foods.

In the first world cities, which many think will sink to the social conditions of present-day third world cities over the next 20-30 years, organizations sometimes spring up to help feed the growing army of unemployed find the means of feeding themselves. Montreal was the first Canadian city to establish a food kitchen, in the Hochelaga-Maison-neuve community in 1986. In Toronto, the registered charitable organization FoodShare offers interested groups advice on such strategies as starting clubs to buy food in bulk, planting community gardens, organizing pick-your-own trips to nearby orchards and communal work sessions to preserve food. (18) In Vancouver, the Food Bank tired of handing out food to ever-growing masses of unemployed, and adopted a new strategy wherein recipients are broken down into smaller groups according to their situation; healthy young men in one group, permanently disabled in another, women with children, and so forth. Food is taken directly to these groups, cutting out the depots, and each group is gradually weaned off assistance as people are taught to shop and cook for themselves, to buy in bulk and cook meals as a group.

Community gardening can be the first stage of a larger program to increase community cohesiveness and economic well-being, as evidenced by Vancouver's Strathcona Community Centre in downtown Vancouver. In 1985, residents of this economically depressed area on the east side of the inner city leased a former industrial dump site from the city, enriched with soil with decaying leaves and food, and created both 400 individual and collective garden plots and such offshoot projects as an orchard and herb garden, a children's play area, beehives, and an untouched wild area and marshland. All of the sections are managed by volunteer committees with interest in particular sections of the garden, ranging from preserving varieties of apples from the 17th century to protecting the marshland for nesting birds to maintaining the growth of the area. There is no fence around the community garden, to emphasize the fact that neighbourhood residents are welcome to come to help out or just sit on the benches; this means that project members spend a lot of time cleaning up after the homeless and drug addicts. They are incorporated as a legal, non-profit society, reach decisions by consensus, and have gone from growing their own food to involvement in wider community issues. (19)

Starting local food industries is another potential means of building community. An example is the Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company in Winnipeg, started by five families who had spent the previous three years baking bread for neighbours and people in their church. Advantages include the opportunity to work together building relationships in the neighbourhood, working with local farmers, use of appropriately scaled technology (i.e. a flour mill in the bakery, which enables Tall Grass to process flour for less money than the cost of buying it from a local flour mill while at the same time paying farmers much more than the market cost of grain) and creation of a disproportionately high number of jobs per dollar invested. (20)

Subscription Farming promotes the use of locally-grown foods of good quality. Urbanities buy a share of the farmer's crop, which is delivered to them regularly throughout the growing season.

Starting/Joining Communities

If there are not enough people in your area to embark on any of the above-mentioned suggestions, you might want to consider starting a community with a few other people in an urban house, or better yet going to the country or to one of the abandoned or semi-abandoned small towns which have crumbled as big business or deleted supplies destroyed their surrounding base of support: fishing, lumbering, mining, farming, etc. If you know nobody else who wants to start a community with you, you might consider joining one already in existence; in any case, it would likely be a good idea to visit other communities before trying to start your own to learn the dos and don'ts. Many existing communities are open to new members, or visits from people willing to exchange their labour for learning the ropes. In no cases should you show up at a community without having made some prior arrangements by mail.

Sources of information include:

Communities has been publishing for many years now, with listings of communities seeking members and people seeking communities. They also publish a directory of nearly 400 international communities and other resources, for $18 postpaid. (21)

The New Age Community Handbook contains a directory of over 200 rural, urban and religious communities in the USA and Canada, with information about joining and living in such a community, as well as listing available resources. I'm a bit suspicious of anything labelled "new age", which often is applied to those engaged in selling spiritualism to the yuppies. However, some organizations and people within this framework are a lot more socially conscious than others, and this might be worth checking out. (22)

The Federation of Egalitarian Communities links several communities whose members are committed to communistic (total income sharing) ideal. (23)

Dragonfly Farm is an anarchist-run farm near Ontario's Algonquin Park, usually willing to help people learn farm and community skills in exchange for their labour. (24)

More structured learning environments including Vermont's Institute for Social Ecology, which specializes in ecological theory and technology, and Saskatchewan's apprenticeship program designed to teach the skills needed for creating a socially and ecologically sustainable society. (25)

Footnotes

(1) Community Economic Development is promoted by the newsletter Community Economics, published by Community Economics, 49 Wellington St. E., 4th floor, Toronto, ON Canada M5E 1C9

Donald McBride: Not Working: State, Unemployment and Neo-conservatism in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 1991.

(3) In Toronto there's the Worker Ownership Development Foundation at 348 Danforth Ave. The local franchise of the Canadian Co-operative Association could likely provide some initial advice.

(4) Article by Antonio M. Austria in Living with the Land, edited by Christine Meyer and Maith Moosang and published by New Catalyst as part of its bioregional series; an excellent series of articles, on the whole more related to environmental issues. Send $12. 45 U.S. to New Society Publishers, PO Box 189, Gabriola Island B.C. Canada VOR 1XO

(5) Described by Raymond Arsenault in New Maritimes magazine, 6 issues for $17 from 6106 Lawrence St., Halifax NS Canada B3L 1J6.

(6) Al Link, one of the founders of Come Home To The Valley, has been quite generous in providing information on community development corporations to people in other areas interested in this model. He may be written to at the Pembroke branch of Algonquin College.

(7) North America's attention to the Italian model was drawn by the late George Benello in Changing Work a publication now alas gone under. A newsletter and papers on the work of ACEnet are available from: Appalachian Center for Economic Networks, 94 North Columbus Road, Athens OH USA 45701 (no charge mentioned, but money for costs should be send with requests).

(8) The Bread and Roses Credit Union is at 348 Danforth Avenue, Toronto, 416-461-7882.

(9) This report is from the first issue of Case Study, a publication of the B.C.-based Committee for a Sustainable Economy. Edited by former KIO co-editor Don Alexander, it seeks to bring together ideas and resources that point the way to an economy that doesn't pit jobs against the environment, and that returns control to the community and regional level. The newsletter and relevant pamphlets may be had for $10/year from: CASE, 3209 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver B.C. Canada V6K 1N5 (cheques to Don Alexander).

(10) Information about the LETsbarter system from: LETS in Toronto, 28 Verbana Avenue, Toronto, ON Canada M6S 1K1.

(11) Carol B. Stack: All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York, Harper and Row, 1974.

(12) Toronto Globe and Mail, 25-5-92 pA13

(13) I haven't been able to get hold of De Soto's book The Other Path or Esteva's essay " Celebration of Common Men", but both men's ideas are well-examined in the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Ideas series "The Informal Economy", first broadcast November 27-8, 1990. A written transcript is available for $10 Canadian from: CBC Ideas Transcripts, PO Box 500, Station A, Toronto ON Canada M5W 1E6.

(14) Fifth Estate, Spring 1992 p.3. This excellent publication is available at $6 per year ($8 Canada or foreign) from: 4632 2nd Ave., Detroit MI USA 48201.

(15) The best information I have found on U.S. land trusts is a CBC transcript entitled "Redefining Development;" this 1990 broadcast interviewed Robert Swann and others. Order information as in note 13.

(16) If you're interested in starting a land trust, check out:
- literature from ICSE, 57 School St, Springfield MA USA 01105-1331 on starting land trusts, technical and financial assistance in starting them. Their CLT Handbook is a practical guide to organizing and operating one; their Legal Manual for Developing CLTs is concerned with financial and legal issues.
- information from Turtle Island Stewards, Box 39077 Point Grey RPO Vancouver BC Canada V6R 4P1. A non-profit society that promotes and assists land stewardship trusts (which like CLTs hold land in perpetuity; they register ecological use conditions against the land titles).
- books: The Milton Park Affair by Claire Helman (Montreal, Vehicule Press, 1987) tells how a CLT comprising 15 housing co-ops grew out of a 10-year struggle against developers. No Place Like Home (by Marcia Nozick, due in 1992) is a book about community development which includes case examples of CLTs.
- City Magazine, particularly its winter 1991-2 issue which has several articles on CLTs. 4 issues for $15 from: Box 29, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg Man Canada R3T 2N2.
Resources for building communities outside a CLT framework include:
- Institute for the Arts of Democracy, 36 Eucalyptus Lane #100, San Rafael CA USA 94901.
Foundation for Community Encouragement, 109 Danbury Rd. #8, Ridgefield CT USA 06877.
Publications:
-Fourth World Review $50 or what you can afford, Canessa Park, 708 Montgomery, San Francisco CA USA 94111.
- Unresponsive Community, $24, George Washington University, Washington DC USA 20052.
- Neighborhood Works, $30, 2125 W. North Ave, Chicago IL USA 60647.

(17) More information from Cohousing, a Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves (Speed Press, Box 7123, Berkeley CA 94974 published 1988. $19.95). Also Utne Reader, May-June 1989.

(18) FoodShare may be contacted at 238 Queen Street West, Toronto ON Canada M5V 1Z7, 416-392-6655.

(19) Described in Living With The Land; see note 4.

(20) R.Epp: Food Security in the Sustainable City. City Magazine v. 13 #1. See note 16.

(21) Communities, Box 426 Louisa VA USA 23093. I don't know their current subscription rates, so suggest sending three or four bucks US for a sample issue.

(22) $7.95 US from Harbin Springs Publishing , PO Box 82, Middletown CA USA 95461.

(23) Information from Twin Oaks Community, Louisa VA USA 23093, or Dandelion Community, RR1 Enterprise ON Canada KOK 1Z0.

(24) Dragonfly Farm, Lake St. Peter ON Canada KOL 2KO.

(25) Institute for Social Ecology, PO Box 89 Plainfield VT USA 05667. Rural Apprenticeship Program in Social Ecology c/o Betty Ternier Daniels, Box 136, Cochin, Sask. Canada SOM OLO.

First published in Kick it Over #29, Summer 1992

Related topics in the Connexions Subject Index

Alternative Communities  –  Alternative Lifestyles  –  Alternatives  –  Barter  –  Co-housing  –  Communal Property  –  Community Developments Corporations (CDCs)  –  Community Economic Development  –  Community Gardens  –  Community Land Trusts  –  Co-operatives  –  Corporations/Influence on Government  –  Economic Alternatives  –  Informal Economy  –  Land Trusts  –  Mutual Aid  –  Workers Co-operatives

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