Exciting news coming out of the Green-Rainbow Party, generating serious momentum towards local initiatives. Check out this note from GRP Co-Chairs Jill Stein and John Andrews:

Wow. There was electricity in the air from the start.  And by the end of the day, we knew for certain that something new and exciting had appeared on the scene.

Thirty-five activists met Saturday at the Green-Rainbow Party’s “Initiatives Summit” in Worcester to plan a new future for Massachusetts and beyond.  One by one they rose to tell of their experiences, their hopes, and their vision.  They were tired of the betrayals of a government in which politicians routinely sold out to special interests and big money.  Tired of seeing our men and women – and civilians in far off lands – maimed and killed in wars for oil while arms merchants grew rich. They were tired seeing their neighborhoods ravaged by unemployment and foreclosures while a well-placed few grew ever richer through financial manipulation. And they were tired of seeing their democratic rights eroded by insider deals cut by the Democratic and Republican Parties.  

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The Post Carbon Institute is posting early release chapters from Richard Heinberg’s book The End of Growth, coming out in July. Read other early chapters here.

Chapter 1, Part 1: Economics for the Hurried

The first economists were ancient Greek and Indian philosophers, among them Aristotle (382-322 BC)-who discussed the “art” of wealth acquisition and questioned whether property should best be owned privately or by government acting on behalf of the people. Little of real substance was added to the discussion during the next two thousand years.

The 18th century brought a virtual explosion of economic thinking. “Classical” economic philosophers such as Adam Smith (1723-1790), Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), and David Ricardo (1772-1823) introduced basic concepts such as supply and demand, division of labor, and the balance of international trade. As happens in so many disciplines, early practitioners were presented with plenty of uncharted territory and proceeded to formulate general maps of their subject that future experts would labor to refine in ever more trivial ways.

These pioneers set out to discover natural laws in the day-to-day workings of economies. They were striving, that is, to make of economics a science on a par with the emerging disciplines of physics and astronomy.