How can we support slow money?

[Administrator]

I'd like to start the slow money forum off with the topic 'How can we support slow money?'

Here are some ideas that might get the discussion going.  What do you think of these ideas?  Are you currently engaged in any slow money activities?  Are there some more I have missed?  How easy are they to do?  What are the benefits?

Slow Money is a quilt, a woven patchwork of many diverse economies that are centered on life-values instead of profit-values.

Slow Economics is the process of identifying, connecting, strengthening and creating grassroots, life-centered alternatives to capitalist globalization.

Some examples of slow money in action are:

• Worker cooperatives
  Community currencies
  Libraries (book, seed, tool)
  Rotating Credit Associations (ROSCAs)
  Parks
  Water fountains
  Housing Co-ops
  Hitching/ride-giving
  Shared meals
  Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
  Free exchange of ideas/dialogue
  Potlucks
  Alcoholics Anonymous self-help groups
  Carpooling/rideshare
  Parenting
  Mutual Aid Collectives
  Gleaners associations
  Community Land Trusts
  No-interest loans between friends
  Spontaneous gifts
  Consumer co-ops
  Lost-and-found
  Work barter
  Volunteer fire companies
  Volunteer ambulance squads
  Gardening (and sharing the extra zuchinni)
  Seed-saving and exchange
  Self-employment (under certain conditions)
  Hunting, trapping, fishing
  Gathering berries, mushrooms, and nuts
  Logging for use-value on the woodlot
  Earth, Sun, life itself (gifts!)
  Open source programming
  Community Development Credit Unions
  Doing favors
  Food banks
  Lending/borrowing from neighbors and friends
[li][/li]

[dreamdays]

I dont agree with the hunting, fishing, trapping part..     But I like the rest and I think theyre good ideas. :>

[Jessica]

I agree with dreamdays - I, too, can't agree with 'hunting, fishing, trapping'. Being a vegetarian this one just leavers me shuddering. But I can see it's place for the meat eaters of the world.

What I have found interesting is that as I become aware of more aspects of slow money and try to incorporate them into my life the better I feel. You know, it is that 'feel good' feeling we get when we know we are doing something for the greater good.  I also feel far more connected to life and my community too.

Some little ways I have supported or created slow money are:

• doing volunteer work in the community
• being part of a car pool
• sharing meals more often
• gathering food eg fruit and nuts, from local trees in parks and on footpaths
• shopping at consumer co-ops and farmer co-ops
• putting my money in our community credit union

The slow money concept has given new meaning to loaning and borrowing money or food from friends, family and neighbours.  Remember when it was common to pop next door to borrow a cup of sugar etc?

What are other people's experiences with slow money? I'd like to hear how other people are doing it, and any difficulties they are having.
 

[aa]

Just to cause a ruckus and have something to talk about:

Being a gardener, hunting, fishing and trapping are something I can heartily agree with.  Whether you kill them for eating or kill them by buying food that someone else raised and therefore killed animals for, everything that lives must eat, and everything that must eat must eat something living.  Not sure whether I see the difference between a chicken and broccoli plant - both take about the same amount of care and give the same weight of food and take about the same resrources, except that we can empathize with an animal more than we can with a plant. 


~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Song of the Taste
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Eating the living germs of grasses
Eating the ova of large birds

the fleshy sweetness packed
around the sperm of swaying trees

The muscles of the flanks and thighs of
soft-voiced cows
the bounce in the lamb's leap
the swish in the ox's tail

Eating roots grown swoll
inside the soil

Drawing on life of living
clustered points of light spun
out of space
hidden in the grape.

Eating each other's seed
eating
ah, each other.

Kissing the lover in the mouth of bread:
lip to lip.


Gary Snyder