2008
January 2008: CPE/SEN participated in the World Social Forum Global Days of Action for Another World. We put together a local solidarity economy map and worked with W. Mass. Jobs with Justice and AFSC to put together a calendar of events. For more details, see Pioneer Valley Mobilization for Another World
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2007
December 2007: “The Crisis in Somalia” Food for Thought Books, Amherst, MA
CPE has been working with a group of women from the Somali refugee community in Springfield, MA since 2006 (see Somali Women’s Project) link. In response to increasing distress in the Somali community about the ongoing humanitarian crisis, which some U.N. relief staff have described as the worst in Africa, CPE helped to organize an educational forum on the Somali crisis which provided an opportunity for members of the Somali refugee community to speak out about what is going on back home.
October 2007: “What’s the Economy For, Anyway?” Washington, D.C. - CPE was a co-sponsor of this conference, held in conjunction with the Green Festival. A number of CPE staff economists and advisory board members gave presentations including Nancy Folbre, Jim Boyce, Julie Schor, Hector Saez, and Emily Kawano. For full program click here.
This Conference was part of the larger What’s the Economy For Project, a multi-faceted program that seeks to challenge the mainstream economic preoccupation with growth and profits. In the coming year, CPE will be developing curriculum and delivering workshops on this theme.
September 2007: “Re-localization – one dimension of economic justice,” Re-localization Conference, MA Emily Kawano participated in a panel that addressed the issue of justice and re-localization. Discussion touched on the importance of framing re-localization within the larger social and economic justice agenda. Local can be great, but not simply by definition. There are locally owned businesses that are sweatshops, or who dump toxic wastes. What is called for is a multi-dimensional approach that works in support of economic democracy, equality, sustainability.
September 2007: “Free Trade vs Fair Trade,” Green Mountain Global Forum, VT – What is the difference between free and fair trade? Why should we care? What exactly is "free" trade? Free for whom? Who benefits from US free trade policies and who shoulders the costs? Are “fair trade” business models and campaigns a workable alternative to free trade policies? Staff economist James Heintz gave a presentation and led a discussion about these questions with eighty people from the local area.
August 2007: "Intro to Political Economy,"Center for Political Education, CA – Suresh Naidu facilitated a series of workshops for local activists covering an broad range of topics including a critique of neoclassical microeconomics, the domestic macro economy, the international financial crisis, and trade, with Marxist economics mixed in when appropriate. The last class focused on discussing social democracy and alternatives to capitalism.
August 2007: “Shifts in Frameworks and Policy Implications: Keynesian vs Neo-Liberal Economics,” Drum Major Institute, NYC – Tom Masterson and Amit Basole co-facilitated a workshop for the Drum Major Institute, which brings together young people of color who are interested in going into public policy work. They looked at how shifts in economic ideology, for example, from Keynesianism to neoliberalism, impacts public policy choices.
July-August 2007: Social Wealth on-line course - Over the summer, three CPE staff economists offered an online course through the Continuing Education program at the University of Massachusetts. The course, which was taught by Nancy Folbre, Michael Ash and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, provided an introduction to the concept of “social wealth.” Students read and wrote about caring labor and the care economy, environmental justice, global warming, and the intellectual and cultural commons. All of these areas have significant “non-market” components and are overlooked in traditional introductory economics courses.
June 27-July 1, 2007: CPE at the U.S. Social Forum
Instead of usual week-long Summer Institute, we decided to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the first U.S. Social Forum, held in Atlanta, Georgia. It was indeed an historic event, bringing together over ten thousand people, a thousand self-organized workshops with presenters largely from grassroots groups, great diversity including youth, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, ex-offenders, and representation of every progressive issue under the sun. Read more.
Julie, Heather, Germai and Helen carry the Solidarity
Economy during the march |
CPE's "Intro to Neoliberalism" workshop drew 80 participants |
April 14-15 2007: Western Massachusetts Social Forum
CPE was heavily involved in organizing the Western Mass. Social Forum which brought together close to 200 people. It included 30 workshops on a wide variety of issues such as an intro. to neoliberalism, economic alternatives, food security, healthy food, toxics in our communities, queer youth and the prison industrial complex, Israel-Palestine, the federal budget, immigrant workers, war, labor, local currency, direct action and organizing. Most of these workshops were facilitated by local grassroots organizations and activists. CPE led workshops on neoliberalism, food, the federal budget, the war, labor, and economic alternatives.
On Sunday, we used Open space technology, a facilitation technique that allows the agenda and format to be determined by those present, to facilitate the discussion about next steps that participants can take, including organizing a contingent to go down the USSF in Atlanta and for building on that experience.
Saturday evening, there was a wonderful cultural event of inspiring performances with Emcee Kim DeSheild, DJ Henry C, Project 2050 youth, Youth Leadership in the Arts, Video Vanguard, the Raging Grannies, local singer and song writer Tom Neilson, and nationally renowned poet Alice Lovelace, national organizer for the U.S. Social Forum.
The Social Forum was a wonderful showcase for a wide range of progressive organizations and networking happened at every turn. To see the full report on the W. Mass. Social Forum, please visit our website.
W. Mass. contingent at the U.S. Social Forum
The buzz from the W. Mass. Social Forum generated a huge amount of interest in the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. We raised $3,200 for scholarship money that subsidized transportation and lodging at the Social Forum. Together with organizers at UMass, we had six van that brought down close to seventy people including some 15 local grassroots groups representing marginalized people or communities.
People came back inspired, hopeful, charged up and re-energized to continue the work of building a stronger and more effective movement for social and economic justice in W. Mass. and beyond.
March 2007: “Getting Out of Iraq and Staying Out of Iran”
Two CPE staff economists braved a snowstorm to participate in this forum in Amherst, MA that was taped for the local TV station. John Fitzgerald provided some historical perspective as a Vietnam War veteran and anti-war activist. Andy Barenberg talked about neoliberal economic restructuring in Iraq. Discussion was hot and lively, particularly around the issue of whether impeaching Bush is critical to military de-escalation. The show will be distributed to other TV stations.
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2006
July 2006: CPE Summer Institute
July 2006: “Rising Caseloads, Shrinking Resources: What’s driving these trends?” Social Welfare Institute, Monmouth, N.J. Amit Basole and Radhika Balakrishnan facilitated a workshop for social workers. This workshop was organized through a connection with the University of the Poor.
July 2006: “What Kind of Development?” Institute for Training and Development, Amherst, MA. Tom Masterson facilitated a workshop for 15 young people from Pakistan on economic development.
July 2006: Project 2050 is a performance arts program organized by the New World Theater at the UMass. that brings together artists, scholars and youth of color to explore intergenerational, interracial, and cross-cultural dialogue. 2050 refers to the projected year in which people of color will become the majority in the U.S. Amit Basole and Emily Kawano also facilitated two workshops on the “Political Economy of Race, Class and Gender” with a lively crowd of 40 young people. Amit also participated in this program for two weeks as the economics scholar, or resource person.
April 2006 “Popular Economics and Popular Education,” School for International Training, Brattleboro, VT
Tom and Emily facilitated this exploration of the relationship between popular economics and popular education.
April 17-21, 2006: Tent State University, UMass, Amherst
CPE staff economists were slated to do four workshops at this week long teach-in: The Real Cost of War (Heidi); Pushing Neoliberal Economics in Iraq (Andy); World, U.S. and W. Mass Social Forums (Emily & Augustin); Why do we have money for war but not for schools (Jerry F.). Insufficient outreach and logistical problems on the part of the TSU organizers led to low attendance and equipment shortages.
April 2006: “Shining a Light on Poverty,” Keene State College, Keene, NH
Tom Masterson and Emily Kawano facilitated two workshops, one on Roots of Poverty and the other on Poverty, Race and Education. There were around 12 for the first and 25-30 for the second.
April 2006: Legislative Breakfast, Ma. Nurses’ Assoc., Michael Ash
Workshop on the changing landscape of health care, focusing on factors that have led to understaffing, dangerous working conditions, high stress and rapid turnover in the nursing profession.
February -June: 4 SAGE workshops
Feb 2006: Connect the dots: what’s the connection between Wal-Mart, the war in Iraq, the Healthcare crisis, and privatization? SAGE event, Amherst, Facilitators: James Heintz and Emily Kawano. This was a local event to provide a framework for understanding so many of the critical social and economic issues that we currently face. About 100 people attended.
Intro. to the economy – Jerry Friedman and Emily Kawano facilitated this workshop with around 15 participants. Participants engaged in discussions and participatory exercises that explored worker exploitation, profits, inequality, and the inter-linkages between race, class and gender.
Economics of fear (war and prisons) – Geert Dhondt and Anita Dancs facilitated this workshop with around 15 participants. It focused on how a culture of fear is being promoted in the U.S. This culture of fear is exploited to expand prisons, guard labor and martial responses to everything from school discipline to undocumented immigrants. It is also used to create a war culture – to justify the war in Iraq, the war on terror, and Homeland security. Less well known is how it has been used to restructure workers’ rights and lower expectations of public that government will/must address domestic/economic issues. War culture is undermining our security
Alternatives to corporate globalization – Emily Kawano facilitated this workshop which started off with a critical overview of the mainstream neoliberal model of corporate-led globalization. This discussion was followed by a participatory exercise using stepping stone cards that gave participants exposure to a wide range of economic alternatives. The workshop wrapped up with a discussion of how these alternatives might fit together to form a systemic alternative to neoliberal globalization.
February-April 2006: Radio Series on Health and Economic Justice. Produced in collaboration with the Bread and Roses Program at Valley Free Radio. Part 1: Jerry Friedman, “Healthcare: where we stand” Part 2: Jim Westrich, "Healthcare Policy and Controlling Costs", Part 3: Michael Ash & Dean Robinson, "Race, Class and Health Inequality," Part 4: Kiaran Honderich, “Gender, Poverty and HIV/AIDS”
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2005
December 2005: W. Ma. Roundtable on Economic Alternatives in Practice
This Roundtable is part of the larger Real Economic Alternatives Project (see below) and will bring together groups in W. Ma. that are working to build an alternative economy. The aims of this gathering are:
- To strengthen the linkages, cooperation and sharing of best practices and experiences among groups in W. Mass. that are engaged in promoting a wide range of economic alternatives.
- To share and develop strategies for capacity building and creating a more supportive environment for economic alternatives.
December 2005: “Capitalism – Curing the TINA (There Is No Alternative) Syndrome,” Youthserve, Greenfield, MA
Twelve young Youthserve workers came to learn and talk about capitalism, communism, socialism and other alternatives.
November 2005: CPE Community Event - “The Weightless Economy: The Invisible Hand or the Communism of Ideas,” Sam Bowles
Sam Bowles gave a talk about how the emerging economy of ideas and information has the potential to promote communal sharing over private property rights.
October 2005: “And Justice for All” Conference: Poverty and Inequality Workshop, Harrisburg, PA
One of our Summer Institute participants initiated this workshop in which more than 40 social work practitioners and students attended this workshop, which explored the impact of changes in the dominant economic ideology on poverty and inequality.
University of the Poor
Following the Justice for All Conference, we met with a number of faculty from the University of the Poor, a project of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The University of the Poor is a loosely structured program including schools of social work and social transformation; labor; media; and organizing. Courses, workshops, teach-ins and on-line forums are facilitated by a collective of faculty (largely academics, but some activists). We discussed the possibility of developing a School of Economics. This initial conversation was very positive and suggested a number of preliminary steps which we are pursuing.
July-August 2005: CPE Summer Institute
May 2005: Free Trade and Women Consultation, Amherst, MA
The purpose of this consultation was two-fold: 1) to provide information and analysis about trade liberalization and gender and 2) to hear from local groups about the impact of trade liberalization on their communities or constituencies. We had a great group of women (the one male on our registration list didn’t make it) from various groups (Arise, Anti-Displacement Project, Sweatfree Communities, AFL-CIO, Labor Programs at UMass Amherst and UMass Lowell, NE Small Farms Instit., Grassroots International, Instit. For Community Economics, Pop. & Dev. Prog. and CLPP, Witness for Peace). Participants were really appreciative of the great presentations by staff economists Diane Flaherty (trade overview), Brenda Wyss (Gender & trade), and Stephanie Luce (Trade & labor standards). The overall evaluations were very positive. The US Gender & Trade Network will be doing follow-up and we’ll stay involved in that process.
April 2005: WILD (Women’s Institute for Leadership Development) Social Security Workshop
Staff economist Liz Stanton did a workshop on Social Security at the WILD conference and got rave reviews.
April-May 2005: Training for Trainers - Economic Empowerment , Holyoke, MA
CPE worked closely with the Community Education Project in providing five Training for Trainers workshops for Adult Basic Education (ABE) teachers in Holyoke. The five workshops included: Economic timeline; Political Economy of Health, Local to Global Health: HIV/AIDS; Budget Activism; and a wrap up curriculum development session.
In the last session the ABE teachers shared curriculum that they have developed using material from our trainings. It was very gratifying to see the creative ways that teachers were using the training material. For instance, one teacher is using the timeline as a way to structure student research into their own family histories and the larger economic forces that influenced Puerto Rican migration. CPE is committed to continue to work with the teachers to revise and improve the curriculum for use in future classrooms
April-May 2005: Popular Economics Institute, New Haven, CT
CPE facilitated an eight session Popular Economics Institute for Christian Community Action in New Haven. The sessions included Introduction to Political Economics, U.S. Economy, Welfare & Poverty, International Economics, Cost Benefit Analysis, Labor & Living Wages, Race & Gender, and Anti-war Economics. Most of the participants were low-income, women of color.
