Over the last several years, Australia has increasingly been forced to grapple with the negative impacts of industrialised agriculture and the results of corporate-dominated, profit-focussed economic systems, like drought, dying river systems, bushfires, pandemic.
More and more people are realising that the current capitalist, extractive, commodified systems need to change. The phrase on everyone’s lips right now is ‘we can’t go back to how it was’ – it’s true.
We can build a better system in place of the old ones, and social solidarity economies provide the much-needed alternatives to the systems that caused our current challenges. What we need instead are models that put the needs of people and planet at the forefront: solidarity economies.
Solidarity economies are not distant utopian futures. They are ways of doing and of meeting needs that already exist. The alternatives are already here – what we need to do now is grow them.
AFSA aims to highlight the solidarity economies that already exist, the knowledge and resources available to help build them, and ways to take part.
AFSA is hosting fortnightly online Solidarity Economy Sessions to explore the many existing examples of social solidarity economies and share knowledge, ideas, and experiences about how to grow more.
You can watch past sessions and check out upcoming sessions here.