Articles
The Renewable Resource of Mutual Care
January 3, 2022
KELLY CANDAELE
In this interview with Capital and Main, Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor discusses the inspiration for our new book Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter. They also deconstruct the pitfalls of neoliberal economics and explain why an economy built on solidarity and mutuality is important for our time.
Carbon neutral isn’t good enough. California needs to be carbon negative by 2030
July 30, 2021
DANIEL KAMMEN and MANUEL PASTOR
Without more aggressive action, the mismatch between California’s needs and our failure to act boldly will undo decades of state leadership toward a healthy environment and a more equal society. This is the key finding of a new report we authored with a team of experts urging California to become net carbon negative — that is, to remove more carbon pollution from the atmosphere than we emit — by 2030. That’s 15 years earlier than planned. We also suggest that the state needs to cut emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2030, doubling its current target. In doing so, the state must place equity at the center of addressing climate risk and spreading climate benefits.
Scaling Economic Solidarity:The Pandemic, Nonprofits, and Power
APRIL 20, 2020
CHRIS BENNER and MANUEL PASTOR
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how a disease can reveal an underlying sickness—and in America, that means our failure to provide universal health care, our marginalization of immigrants and others, and our devaluation of the caring work that makes lives possible. But it has also revealed another basic truth: Our economy is fundamentally built on social connection. Without the ability to gather in shared social spaces—restaurants, airports and hotels, sports arenas, offices—our economy has experienced truly astounding and unprecedented shocks, and the speed of the recovery will depend on how quickly we can safely congregate again. Read More >
Solidarity Economics—
for the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond
MARCH 23, 2020
In the long term, not just in the current emergency, mutuality matters—not only morally but economically, too.
While there’s widespread agreement that we need an immediate, massive stimulus and targeted economic supports to deal with the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus, they’re clearly not enough. We also urgently need to think long-term—both about the all-too-predictable things that got us into this crisis, and how we can refashion our economy and society as we eventually emerge. Read more >
From Resistance to Renewal: A 12-Step Program For the California Economy
OCTOBER 2018
BY CHRIS BENNER, MANUEL PASTOR
With Arpita Sharma, Edward Muna, Stina Rosenquist, and Vanessa Carter
As California faces off against the federal government on everything from immigration to climate change, the state has the opportunity to do something radically different: transform our infrastructure, education, workforce development, housing, and transportation systems for the 21st century. Read more >