The purpose of this Chapter is to make clear that there is under way a considerable Global Alternative Society Movement involving many people and groups who are working for transition to the sorts of social forms outlined in the previous chapter. These initiatives are quite diverse and most do not seem to be following any explicitly "revolutionary" philosophy, but they can all be seen as part of a new worldview and social movement involving building radical alternatives to industrial-affluent-consumer society. The movement includes many elements and initiatives that I am not concerned with, such as a drug culture and aspects of "New Age spirituality". My focus is on those initiatives which are related to the building of a new society of the kind outlined in Chapter 3.

Two aspects of the movement deserve comment, firstly the evidence of an emerging global shift in ideas and values, and secondly an indication of the many practical developments under way.

Evidence for a paradigm shift.

Over the past two decades many have argued that we are experiencing the development of a new world view or paradigm. It can be seen underlying the rise of the green parties. "Green politics a can be interpreted as a challenge to the pervasive ideology of acquisitive materialism in Western countries." (Rainbow , 1993, p. xiii.) One of the first Green parties, the New Zealand Values Party, contested the 1972 election on an platform rejecting some of the fundamental assumptions and values of industrial society. More recently European Green Parties, most obviously the German Greens, have seriously questioned industrialism, affluence, modern technology, centralisation and economic growth. Porritt has claimed the emergence of Green Politics as the most important political development since socialism. Bahro stated the task of the German Greens is "...to stop industrial society. In his opinion "The era of modernity has been a historical aberration." (Rainbow, 1993, p. 129.)

Rainbow lists as elements in this paradigm shift the understanding that a) all things are related and that situations and problems must be seen as wholes, b) serious problems are set by materialism, affluence, acquisition, waste, individualism, competition, centralisation, bureaucracy and technology, c) control by elites, authorities or experts is undesirable and should be replaced by participation and people power, and d) means must be morally acceptable. He identifies this as a call for "a softer society". (Rainbow, 1993, p. 15.)

Among the works, individuals and organisations involved in the new paradigm we can list Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade (1990), which argues that we are moving from "dominator" culture to "partnership" culture, the "New Age" and Acquarian phenomena, and the Deep Ecology movement, broadly defined. Naess puts the paradigm shift in terms of a move from "technocentrism" to "ecocentriusm". (Naess, 1989, p. 16. See also Sessions, 1995.) Ife sees an emerging global green movement focused on sustainability, steady-state economics, decentralisation, participation, community control, local economics, self-sufficiency, cooperation, low consumption and a global perspective. (Ife, 1991.)

Even in the 1970s Inglehart (1976) claimed world wide survey evidence showed that a paradigm shift from industrial-consumer values was underway, including change from concern with scarcity and growth to security and the environment, from centralisation, large scale and hierarchy to participation, and against belief in science and technology as sources of progress. His more recent work confirms this conclusion (1997.) Plimer (1989) comes to similar conclusions especially regarding change from belief in "unparalleled growth" to "growing sense of limits", and from concern with high living standards to concern with better quality of life. Ray makes much the same claim in terms of the emergence of "cultural creatives"

The Voluntary Simplicity movement (Elgin,1981), now with its own journal, involves various themes to do with "downsizing your lifestyle". More recently Elgin (1997) argues that a new global culture has begun, claiming that 10% of Americans now entertain Voluntary Simplicity values to some extent. More recently he has said, "A quiet and quite unexpected revolution in simple living is steadily transforming our society. Slowly but surely an ever growing number of people are consciously rejecting the traditional trappings of affluence." (Elgin, 2001, p. 40.)

Schwarz and Schwarz say "Voluntary Simplicity is one of the top trends of the nineties. By the year 2000, fifteen percent of people in their thirties and forties...will be part of the ‘simplicity’ market..." (Schwarz and Schwarz, 1998, p. 10.) "In a random survey of 800 people taken in 1995, 28% had down-shifted -- voluntarily cut back income over the last five years...82% agreed that ...we buy and consume far more than we need." (p. 11.) They quote a study which found that "...one person in eight had either taken a crucial step towards downshifting or was thinking of doing so." (p. 25.) Birrell describes a similar shift in Sweden, in a report entitled From Growth to Sustainability. (Birrell, 1989.)

Pusey’s study of middle Australia found that there is considerable discontent with the preoccupation with greed and consumerism. (Reported in Eckersley, 1999, and Mackay, 1998, p. 13.) Mackay finds increasing desire for a simpler less materialistic life among Australians. (Reported in Eckersley, 1999.) (However he says this coexists inconsistently with continued strong endorsement of material values.) In 1995 a report by the Merk Family Trust, entitled Yearning for Balance, arrived at a similar conclusion for the US. More than half of Americans were prepared to reduce income and possessions in order to have more time and less stress, and to have a sense of contributing. Only 1 in 5 put high priority on more material possessions. (Eckersley, 1999.) Milbrath refers to a study yielding "...solid evidence that a new paradigm is emerging." He labels this "...a New Environmental Paradigm in which consciousness of limits to growth is central." (1989, p. 118.) Eckersley says that in 1978 "…a high rate of economic growth" was rated first of 12 factors, but in 1999 "…maintaining a high standard of living" was rated last of 16. (1999, p. 14.) These studies indicate ambivalence and confusion, with attraction to material prosperity but an increasing questioning of it as well.

Central within the new paradigm is the notion of participation and grass roots control. Korten talks about a rise of "people centred development". (Korten, 1990.) Edwards and Holme (1996) say, "...the emerging world order is...some form of grass-roots self-reliance and self-empowerment." Schuurman refers to "...a growing demand for a people-centred development." (Schuurman, 1993, p. 214.)

Two more areas where the transition in thinking is apparent are firstly to do with the increasing interest in local economic development, regional economic self-sufficiency, town economic renewal and local currencies, and secondly to do with the critical literature on Third World Development. Although these represent radical changes in thinking they are better discussed in the next section where action and projects are considered.

Although a minor phenomenon at present, it is likely that this shift in thinking will accelerate in coming years given the pace at which the globalisation of the economy will probably make it painfully obvious to more and more people that the old values and systems will not provide well for all.

Building new systems.

Much more impressive than the evidence of a change in world view is the growth of alternative settlements and systems. As Ife says, "At the grassroots level...increasing numbers of people in different countries are experimenting with community-based alternatives, such as local economic systems, community-based education, housing co-operatives...a community-based strategy based on principles of ecology and social justice is already emerging, as a result of the initiative of ordinary people at grass-roots level, who are turning away from mainstream structures..." (Ife, 1995, p. 99.) According to Norberg-Hodge, "Around the world, people are building communities that attempt to get away from the waste, pollution, competition, and violence of contemporary life." (Norberg-Hodge, 1996, p. 405.) The agency she has founded, the International Society for Ecology and Culture, works in Ladakh to reinforce local communities. (See the Society's books and videos, Ancient Futures, Learning From Ladakh, The Habitat Revolution and, Local Futures, for inspiring illustrations of its projects.)

Korten says "We are in the midst of a fundamentally new phenomenon in the modern human experience, the creation of a new civilisation from the bottom up." Ordinary people are doing these things. "Most are driven more by a simple desire to create viable living spaces in the midst of a troubled world than by grand visions of planetary change." (1999a, p. 241.) Korten also describes and endorses the movement for development of greater local self-sufficiency. (1999a, p. 271.) In another source he says, "Millions of people, unsung heroes of a new era, are already hard at work constructing the building blocks of a post corporate-post-capitalist civilisation. They are demonstrating alternatives." (1999a, p. 219.)

The following pages are not intended to give a representative summary of what is happening. Rather, a number of specific examples and cases are briefly noted in order to indicate the nature and scope of the movement.

In the rich countries.

The most advanced of these developments is to do with "intentional communities" or Eco-viollages. Since the 1960s many of these have been established, especially in rich countries. Most are rural but some are urban. Many are inspiring examples of self-sufficient economies in which people live cheaply and cooperatively and ensure for each other a high quality of life with very low environmental costs. (Trainer, 1995a, Chapter 18, Schwarz and Schwarz, 1998.) A formal organisation exists, the Global Eco-Village Network, with regional branches in Europe, the USA, Asia and Oceania. Newsletters are published, conferences organised and new villages established. In the early 1990s GEN published a booklet summarising 20 Eco-villages. Another booklet in 1999 described 57 notable examples functioning or being developed in Europe. (Grindhdeim and Kennedy, 1999.) However the 2000 edition (Hagmeier, et al, 2000) lists over 300 in Europe and the Federation of Intentional Communities lists over 600 in the US. (FIC, 2000.) In other words, rapid growth is evident. In 2000 GEN launched Living Routes, an Eco-village consortium to link the sustainable communities movement with higher educational institutions in the US. It is envisaged that existing formal courses will include segments in which students can live and work in Eco-villages, and that universities and colleges will be able to access Eco-villages to carry out research. (Eco-village Millennium, 2001, p. 31.)

The typical features within Eco-villages includes recycling of water and wastes, collection of all or a high proportion of energy and water used, ecologically benign building designs and materials, production of food, solar passive house design, cooperative procedures, committees, town meetings, high levels of cooperation and mutual concern, participatory community control of settlement affairs, a spiritual focus and the creation of enterprises serving the community.

One of the best known settlements of this kind is the Australian Crystal Waters Permaculture Village which is now 20 years old and has 80 homes, guest accommodation, educational facilities and a village centre. A demonstration Eco-village is being developed in Russia on a 166 ha site including an abandoned village which is being restored. There is an Eco-village being built on an 4 ha site near the middle of Los Angeles, which includes 2 ha of gardens. Around 80% of paid work required by residents and about 40% of food needed is planned to be provided from within the site. Only 10% of water used will have to be imported. (Arkin, , p. 41.) In Sweden another 50 to 60 Eco-villages are being planned. (Fritz, 1995, pp. 231-233.)

Friberg and Hettne (1985) argue that two main groups are behind the emergence of self reliant communities, viz., those holding "post materialist" values, and those who have been marginalised, such as the unemployed and the Third World poor. In Living Lightly Schwarz and Schwarz (1998) discuss the many alternative settlements they visited on a recent world tour. They say that these people "...hope that the tiny islands of better living which they inhabit will provide examples which will eventually supplant the norms of unfettered capitalism which rule us today. Their hope is not in revolution but in persuasion by example." ( p. 2.) "What is new is that small groups of Living Lightly people are now part of an articulate and increasingly purposeful global culture which promotes values that run counter to those of the mainstream." (p. 2.) "They think the empire will eventually disintegrate...In anticipation of that collapse islands of refuge must be prepared." (p. 3.) Living Lightly people "...can only hope to prevail through their own example and the gradual erosion of the dominant system through local initiatives that exchange high living standards for a high quality of life." (p. 165.) Living Lightly people "...are in revolt against the emerging global economy and want to set up viable local alternatives." (p. 150.)

The Global Alternative Society Movement includes many elements in addition to intentional communities or eco-villages. Also involved are co-housing, alternative currencies, land trusts, community development initiatives, alternative technologies, community banks, community supported agriculture and farmers' markets, community gardens, and the development of local economies. The diversity of initiatives is evident in the extensive discussion given by Douthwaite, (1996), Schwarz and Schwarz, (1998) and Hines, (2000.)

One large category of initiatives is to do with local community economic development. The New Economic Foundation in London works to promote local economic development, with a special interest in building local quality of life indicators and in establishing local currencies. Schroyer's book Towards a World That Works (Schroyer, 1997) documents many alternative community economic initiatives. "Everywhere people are waking up to the realities of their situation in a globalising economy and are beginning to recognise that their economies’ resources and socio-political participations must be regrounded in their local and regional communities." (Schroyer, 1997, p. 225) "Everywhere social and economic structures are re-emerging in the midst of the market system that are spontaneously generated social protections to normatively re-embed the market..." "It is no exaggeration to say that local communities everywhere are on the front lines of what might well be characterised as World War III." (Schroyer, 1997, p. 229.) "It is a contest between the competing goals of economic growth to maximise profits for absentee owners vs creating healthy communities that are good places for people to live." (Shroyer, 1997, p. 230.) "In Britain, over 1.5 million people now take regular part in a rainbow economy of community economic initiatives." (New Internationalist, 1996, p. 27.)

Grogan and Proscio (2000) discuss "…a rapidly expanding grassroots revitalisation movement whereby ordinary residents have formed thousands of neighbourhood based organisations in the last twenty years. Brophy (2001) reports that over four years there has been a 64% increase in the number of community development groups in the US.

There are many more or less related agencies, with titles such as the Institute for Local Self Reliance, the National Congress for Community Economic Development, The Urban Cooperative Block Project. The US National Congress of Community Economic Development includes many non-government agencies working to build low cost housing and to establish small firms. There are more than 2000 Community Development Corporations functioning within the US on self-help local development, primarily for low income groups. (Garr, 1995, Bruyn and Meehan, 1987.) In 1995 President Clinton allocated $380 million for community banks in poor areas. (Fourth World Review, 1996, p. 13.) Many of these developments fit comfortably within conventional economic policies, but nevertheless they represent a move towards more local involvement and control and are therefore helping to prepare the ground for more radical initiatives noted in Chapter 3.

An important element in the general alternative settlement movement has been the rise of urban agriculture. The United Nation’s now acknowledges the rapid development of urban agriculture and its crucial importance in coping with the growth of Third World cities. The extensive scope for food and materials production in cities comes as a surprise to many. However there are large areas of unused land in cities, such as derelict industrial sites, let alone the parks, hospital grounds, railway edges, nature strips etc that can be used for food production. In one study of 86 American cities the area available, including vacant lots, derelict factories, land beside railways, school grounds, parks was found to be almost sufficient to feed the people in those cities. (Nicholson-Lord, 1987.)

Cohousing is a significant element in the overall movement. This involves clustering new housing to enable more land to be put into productive uses, and to enable sharing of facilities and therefore considerable reduction in resource use. In one case sharing of laundries reduced the number of washing machines needed by 90%. (McCammant and Darrant,1988.)

One of the most widely adopted alternative initiatives has been LETS. (Local Employment and Trading System.) This enables people to begin working for each other and trading even though they have no conventional money, thereby stimulating the development of a local economy. There are several hundred members of the Australian Blue Mountains LETSystem . There are many other monetary and financial systems in operation whereby communities invent or print their own currencies to enable trade at the local level. (Many are reviewed in Douthwaite, 1996.)

There are also alternative banking systems through which communities ensure that their local savings will be available only to local people and firms, thereby guaranteeing that their capital will be used to develop the town or suburb in desirable ways. An elected board makes loans according to principles voted on by the townspeople. South Shore Bank is America’s oldest community bank, serving a deprived Chicago area. In the later 1990s it employed 350 people and has enabled the establishment or survival of 8000 small firms. The assets held by Community Development Finance institutions in the UK increased by some 30% in three years. (New Economics Foundation, 2001.)

Another important step has been taken with the development of Community Supported Agriculture and farmers markets. In many localities people have begun to arrange for a local farmer to deliver boxes of fruit and vegetables, sometimes in exchange for contributions to farm work. This enables small farms to survive, avoids concerns about pesticides in food, cuts the transport costs of food, enables recycling of food wastes to soils, and reinforces consciousness of localism. A major objective of the International Society for Culture and Ecology (2000) is to establish these schemes in order to promote localism in general. They report that there are more then 40,000 families in the UK getting fruit and vegetables from CSA schemes, and 2600 farmers' markets in the US.

The concern to regenerate ailing rural towns is another element within the Global Alternative Society Movement. The United Town Organisation works to establish national associations of towns and local groups, claiming that "...there is a world wide counter movement toward local autonomy." The Town Meeting initiative is based on the conviction that a growing grassroots movement sees the future of the US in self-reliance and home town development. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance has worked in more than 100 US towns and cities since 1973.

In the early 1980s the decline of towns in Finland led to the Village Action project which by 1992 had grown to involve 2800 village committees. Their concern is to take collective action to improve the town and to build community self-sufficiency. Working groups build and restore community facilities. Economic growth is explicitly rejected as a goal. (Paietila, 1993.)

The Rocky Mountains Institute has worked with many US towns to regenerate the local economy. It focuses on "plugging the leaks", i.e., reducing the flow of money out of the town to pay for goods and services. This involves finding items that can be produced locally rather than imported, and cutting demand in the first place, for example by insulating houses to reduce the need for heating fuel.

Possibly the best known town that is pioneering alternative ways in rich countries is Maleny in southern Queensland, Australia. Over the past 20 years 16 cooperatives have been set up, including a credit union (town bank), business incubator, publishing enterprise, youth club and community radio station. A community development fund and a community insurance fund have been established through voluntary taxes. There are several social, leisure and cultural cooperative groups, including groups for arts, film and theatre. By 1993 the bank had lent $14 million, in a tiny region with only around 9000 people, enabling the creation of 33 businesses. There are skills registers, a LETS and recycling businesses at the local rubbish tip. Some entire alternative communities, including Crystal Waters, have been set up near Maleny funded in part by the Maleny Credit union, thereby reducing the need to borrow from normal banks. Many people work part time; they will tell you "We are far too busy to work for money." The region now has an unusually low unemployment rate. (Its main problems are to do with the population growth generated by people attracted to settle within the area.) Many are looking to Maleny as an emerging model for the way towns can move towards sustainable forms. (Douthwaite, 1996, Schwarz and Schwarz, 1998.) It would seem fair to say that Maleny’s success has been due to a number of somewhat unconnected and uncoordinated initiatives. The focal concern in Chapter 6 below is to work towards a strategy whereby a town Community Development Cooperative can take a coordinated, integrated and wholistic approach to building a new economy.

Another category of initiatives has emerged within the welfare system. Many individuals and groups struggling on inadequate resources to provide for the unemployed, homeless children, prisoners, old people, addicts, refugees, victims of domestic violence and people recovering from psychological problems have based their activities on community gardens and workshops enabling self sufficiency and communal living. These provide participants with useful work, experience of community, a sense of making an important contribution, an opportunity to learn social and practical skills and an opportunity to produce to meet food and other needs directly. The video entitled The Homeless Garden Project shows how great the intangible benefits can be, including restored sense of self worth. (The Homeless Garden Project, P. O. Box 617, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.)

No part of the overall transition has been more significant than the Permaculture movement. Permaculture is an approach to the design of settlements which minimises the need for external or artificial inputs while maximising yields, permanence and ecological sustainability. (Mollison, 1989, 1991.) Landscapes are carefully planned so that all available productive niches are filled with plants, animals and largely self-maintaining systems (e.g., for water catchment, fire protection, wind protection, leisure, providing animal fodder) that will meet many food, material and social needs. Especially important are tree crops (eliminating fuel use and erosion losses from ploughing), recycling nutrients, and the researching of the most resilient and productive plants for specific localities. The Permaculture movement has recently had its twentieth birthday and more than 5000 people have passed through its courses. Its basic principles are foundational to the Global Eco-village Movement since its focus is on ways whereby households and settlements can become highly self-sufficient.

Some reference should also be made here to the alternative technology groups. As well as promoting the well known renewable energy forms, these groups are increasing the use of cheap and effective building methods, such as earth and straw bales, and sewage recycling, e.g., via composting toilets and reed beds. The best known alternative technology demonstration site, The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, has been functioning for more than 20 years, has some 25 people living on the site, and hosts 50,000 visitors each year. Again these are in general not overtly politically radical organisations but by increasing understanding of the alternative technologies they are building the store of skills and outlooks that are crucial for the development of materially simple ways and more self-sufficient settlements.

Most if not all of these groups would see themselves as anything but revolutionary. Many of their participants are simply trying to organise more satisfactory living conditions for themselves within a system they are not consciously challenging fundamentally. Some are assisted by the state. They could be seen as instruments the state uses to placate potentially angry disadvantaged communities and to keep people within and sympathetic to the social system that has impoverished or alienated them in the first place. However this does not affect their revolutionary potential because irrespective of motives these ventures are establishing many of the practices that will be central in the new society. To some extent they all involve local people in using their own resources to build some degree of local cooperative and participatory economic self-sufficiency based on some understanding that if they don’t look after themselves no one else will. At this stage many of these ventures seem not to be accompanied by the sort of critical global consciousness required, but the crucial points are that they have all begun to travel in the right direction whether they know it or not, and secondly there is a core group of people who are deliberately about building the required post consumer-capitalist society.

In the Third World.

Possibly even more impressive than developments in rich countries are those in the Third World where many people have long since realised that conventional development will never solve their problems. (This claim is detailed in Trainer, 1995a, 1997.) There is now a considerable literature dealing with this recognition and the attempts to pioneer a "people-centred" development strategy which makes local resources available to local people to devote directly to meeting their needs via relatively simple systems and standards under their own control. The basic principle is of course not new, owing much to Gandhi, but it can be argued that we are witnessing a surge of interest in it now given the failure of conventional development. "...a new pattern of development is taking place at community and village level in rural areas of the Third World. In the spirit of self-reliance, numerous 'grassroots' groups have decided to take charge of their own development in rural villages throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. (Schneider, 1988, p. xi.) Similar generalisations and cases are given by Galtung, (1980, p. 162), Shiva, et al, (1997), Rist, Rahnema and Esteva, (1992), Holmberg and Timberlake, (1991), Burkey, (1993), Ekins, (1992, pp. 100-108), Chopra, (1989), Lang and Hines, (1993), Ife, (1995, p. 95), Page, (1995), Craig, (1995), Higginbotham, (1995), Goldsmith, (1998), Esteva and Prakash, (1996), Amon, (1994), Korten, (1990), Human Settlements Program, (1994), Rich, (1994), Pereira and Seabrook, (1992,) Appfel-Marglen, (1998), Elgin and LeDrew, (1997).

The magnitude of the movement is suggested by a table Brown presents indicating thousands of grassroots organisations in several countries, e.g., an estimated 12,000 organisations in India 8,000 villages in Sri Lanka , and 100,000 Christian Base Communities in Brazil. (Brown 1989, p. 157.) He describes Indian mobilisation of "...massive work teams to do everything from building road networks to draining malarial ponds...." (p. 156.) Green says "...local communities all over sub-Saharan Africa are forming self-reliance groups to eliminate hunger and save their environments by diversifying cereal, fruit and vegetable crops and building community fields, village granaries, and anti-salination structures. No one knows how many groups there are. In Kenya alone figures of 16,000 to 25,000 groups have been quoted." (1990, p. 49.)

Mies and Shiva give a similar account of self-reliant village development in Maharashtra, saying that throughout India there are "... many thousands of examples of alternative practice." (1993, p. 160.) These movements "...radically reject the industrialised countries' prevailing model of capitalist-patriarchal development. ...they...want to preserve their subsistence base intact, under their own control." Self (2000, p. 157) says, "By the late 1980s 100 million rural poor were practising grass roots development." Jones (1993, p. 197) also puts the number at over 100 million.

Possibly most impressive of all is the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka which involves some 3 million people and 7000 full time employees in 8000 villages in communal efforts to meet basic needs using local resources and simple technologies. (Ekins, 1992, p. 100.)

Mies and Shiva say the people who "...actively participate in such movements radically reject the industrialised countries’ prevailing model of capitalist-patriarchal development...they want to preserve their subsistence base intact, under their own control." (Mies and Shiva, 1993, p. 302.) They discuss the resolutions of the 1989 African conference entitled Alternative Development Strategies which endorsed "...people-centred development, planned disengagement from international capitalism, regional food self-sufficiency, development from below, concentration on small and medium sized enterprises, and self-reliance." They conclude that "...catching up development ...is neither possible nor desirable." (Mies and Shiva, 1993, p. 302.) Maria Mies has been influential in arguing that the notion of "subsistence" focuses attention on the contradiction between conventional development and what has been termed appropriate development above, and in drawing attention to the resurgence of commitment to it. (Bennholdt-Thomsen, Faraclas and Von Werlhof, 2001.)

The Zapatistas in Mexico also seem to be taking a radically alternative approach to local development. (See the Fourth World Bulletin, 3, 2. (1990, p. 49.) The Zapatistas strenuously reject integration into mainstream Mexican society and are fighting for local autonomy and self-government. "The Zapatista model may well be the model for a new world order..." (Ibid.)

Esteva and Prakash (1996) claim that many Third World people are "de-linking", they are "...starting to protect themselves ...by rooting themselves more firmly in their soils, their local commons, cultural spaces that belong to them and to which they belong." They refer to "a proliferation of localised initiatives." (1996, p. 25.) Foutopoulos says, "... a whole series of recent initiatives and struggles have developed in both the South and the North, which represent...attempts by local people to reclaim the political process and to re-orient it within the local community." (1997, p. 133.) Appfel-Margllen (1998) describes the large-scale Andean peasant movement as a grass-roots, non-confrontational phenomenon of direct alternative building. There is a "…withdrawing from and creating alternatives to the dominant system, rather than challenging it directly." (p. 39). This group does not seek recognition of their territory by the state; that would be to acknowledge that the state had authority.

Most of these initiatives are small but Auroville and Ananda Nargar are large scale developments in India, within the general Eco-village model. Auroville extends over 1000 ha and includes many villages. Some of the most impressive pictures I have ever seen are of Auroville land initially little more than red sand but 20 years later heavily forested after the planting of literally millions of trees. Ananda Nargar is more like a city. It covers 110 square km, has 23 agricultural research centres, many large biogas generators, 65 bee keeping operations and many industries including building, food, clothing, medicines and paper.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the potential significance of the shift taking place in Cuba towards alternative agricultural strategies. With the downfall of the USSR Cuba lost its subsidised sugar export market and therefore has since been unable to import fuel for agriculture. It has been forced to facilitate local and urban agriculture along Permaculture lines, especially using minimal inputs of energy and artificial fertilisers and developing small scale localised systems. There are now hundreds of community gardens and commons in Havana. There is also a very poor town in Ecuador that has planted 1500 fruit trees along its streets. (International Permaculture Journal, 44, 5.) Permaculture teams have assisted in the establishment of these projects. The development of alternative agriculture in Cuba could turn out to have been one of the most significant events in the history of the Third World because if these initiatives succeed they will demonstrate to oppressed people everywhere that there is an alternative path to conventional growth and trickle down development, one that is independent of transnational corporations and one that conceives of development in terms of local people using local resources to meet local needs.

As with the initiatives in the rich world, most of these Third World developments are not clearly based on any critical theory. In fact most hardly seem to involve any theory at all. Rist says, "These many ways of rejecting ‘development’ do not add up to a ‘theory’ that could be contrasted to others..." (Rist, 1997, p. 245.) Esteva and Prakash (Undated.) say most of the people who are really making a difference are not interested in theories of social transformation and in fact are unaware of them. The activists are merely solving local problems with local resources." Yet most are contributing to a potentially highly subversive movement. They involve people cooperatively using the resources around themselves to develop simple arrangements that will enable them to produce for themselves most of the things they need for a satisfactory quality of life. The core concept is the highly self-sufficient and cooperative village existing in a sustainable relationship with its local environment.

Conclusion.

This chapter has given no more than an indication of the many organisations and projects now practising and living to some extent within the new paradigm. Most of these initiatives have come into existence within less than twenty-five years. There are now many people in small groups attempting to build particular aspects of The Simpler Way, or whole societies more or less of the required form. There is in other words a considerable Global Alternative Society Movement under way.

These initiatives are not highly visible so most people do not realise the scope the movement has now assumed. It is no longer just a movement about ideas, possibilities and utopian dreams. We now have many sites where ordinary people, as distinct from governments, corporations or officials, are actually building and experimenting with more sustainable ways and settlements. We have now actually gone beyond beginning the building and have entered the next phase where the experience gained from these trials is being reviewed. For example Douthwaite’s Short Circuit (1996) is a 400 page description and critical evaluation of alternative economic initiatives to do with local a currencies, banks, food and energy production. Before long we should be able to draw on the accumulating experience to write the guide books that will enable communities to follow tried and tested strategies .

It is a very diverse movement. Many elements within it are not in themselves very radical in nature or intent and many could be seen as developments which fit smoothly within the normal economy. Many derive from self-interest and are not driven by much if any concern to save the planet. However within the diversity there are some initiatives which are in my opinion enormously inspiring examples of settlements and projects which are deliberately working to establish the sort of vision sketched in Chapter 3. One of our central purposes should be to work to strengthen and widen this core.

It could be argued that the diversity and lack of clear and unified purpose prohibit the use of the term "social movement" to cover this realm. (Fotopolous, 2001, p. 417, would probably argue this way.) Such a debate would not affect my basic argument, which is that all these elements and subgroups involve ideas and practices of the kind that must be adopted if a sustainable society is to be achieved, that many people are pushing in that general direction, wittingly or otherwise, and that within this domain is where we should be working. I have used the term Global Alternative Society Movement mainly for convenience, rather than to imply the existence of a cohesive and integrated thrust and I have emphasised that its significance lies primarily in its potential rather than in its current form or achievements.

Twenty or thirty years ago far fewer of these elements existed, and some that were in existence, such as communal settlements, were much less numerous. In that historically short period there has been a rapid growth of a considerable Global Alternative Society Movement. If a just and sustainable society is achieved in the coming century the emergence of this Movement is likely to be recognised as one of the most significant turning points in modern history.