Here we describe what we mean by a living economy, and what we intend by engaging with this issue. Zone: 2here Landscape: 1material Family: Home
# Decades of development The foprop project arose from decades of focus on the necessity and possibility of alternative economy, commencing in the 70s with 'labour process' economy within neo-Marxism, emergent environmental issues (like 'limits to growth', energy consumption and exhaustion, and ecosystem destruction) in the radical technology field, and 'the real economy' of means of subsistence and wellbeing, as distinct from (in opposition to) matters of money, profit, exchange etc, which are secondary characteristics of capitalist economy: to be altered in the practice of making alternatives.
The work has come into its present focus here through a number of routes, including:
Shadow work - a construct by Ivan Illich that highlights the way commodities 'never' meet needs, thus invoking local work to produce actual usefulness. A pivotal element of a 'use value' economy.
Struggles in-and-against The professional-managerial class in post-Fordism, and commitments to renewed skill and vernacular, regenerative capability in everyday life. Ivan Illich is foundational here too.
Post-development The mounting force of decolonial struggles, insights into post-development, fights for reparation for harms to generations of peoples (and the planet) through supremacies and enclosures, and movements of solidarity across global uneven development.
Non-state formations that seek to organise means of life through deepened direct vernacular capability of peoples: for example bioregions, and the pluriversal jineoloji practice in the historical landscapes of Kurdish habitation.
Development of a new global focus on Politics of commoning, 'the insurgent power of the commons' and the fight (for example, by indigenous people to re-assert ancient commons, sustain 'territories of life', and free means of subsistence and wellbeing from colonial-capitalist enclosure.
Development of perspectives on Solidarity economy including Grassroots economic organising and Solidarity economy principles and practices
Work on alternative economic regimes like the work described and promoted by JK Gibson-Graham and Global tapestries of alternatives: especially embracing feminist economics and recognitions of domestic labour, care work and invisible work.
The provisioning of Digital infrastructure in the commons
# From economics to organising The characteristic focus of foprop is to engage not 'the economy' (and constellations of alternative economic practices) per se - as if 'it' was an entity or self-contained system - but the producing and sustaining of the formations of activists, who might be capable of producing and sustaining a living economy: an actual working constellation of practices (with their cultures and aesthetics) under radically altered social relations. This is the characteristic foprop focus on formación: a move **'from economics to organising'**. A practice of formación
Everything is **practice**. We essentially are concerned with the producing and sustaining of formations of radical activist practice. The foprop narratives are narratives of activist living and weaving, not studies of 'economies'.
# Alternatives? Altered! 'Alternatives' are dealt with in foprop by addressing the significantly altered relations of production, that are being embodied in actual material practice, as live forces of production. This dual focus, on forces and relations of production is what leads to the tag: foprop. Forces of production, relations of production - to be added xxx
# Living economy 'Living economy' is chosen here after working through various other terms.
'Social economy' was a framing used from the early noughties (as in 'the new social economy', or 'social and solidarity economy').
> Murray 2009, *Danger and opportunity - Crisis and the new social economy*, Nesta. pdf 
, downloaded March 2018. Links broken: a copy exists locally at assetspdf .
'Civil economy' is a term later adopted by Robin Murray in his 2012 article for the Global Civil Society Yearbook. It's 'civil' reference and its activist context is more politicised than the flabby 'social' of the 'social innovation' perspective.
> Murray 2012, 'Global Civil Society and the rise of the civil economy', Global Civil Society Yearbook, reprinted in *Opendemocracy* webpage. A copy is held locally at assetspdf
Solidarity economy - to be added xxx
'Living economy' is a term used by Robin Murray in his last recorded interview in 2016.
> Robin Murray 2016, 'Late environmental economist Robin Murray's views on creating a new economy', Upstream podcasts podcast , downloaded nov 2023. A partial transcript is held locally pdf
We use the term here because: - It emphasises the centrality of living labour - practice - in the operation, orientation and making of 'the real economy'. - It resonates with climate crisis and the threatened status of species and ecosystems. - It contrasts with the dominance of 'dead labour' - capital sunk in technological means and in infrastructures.
Next: A practice of formación
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