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Community & Place

Stories

America

Why is the Pluralist Commonwealth an American system? What resources for a Pluralist Commonwealth can be found in the American tradition? read more

Stories

trade

Trade

Why are current approaches to trade problematic? How would the Pluralist Commonwealth approach trade? What existing efforts point toward a sustainable and just trade regime? read more

Stories

bureaucracy

Bureaucracy

Why is bureaucracy problematic? What can be done in a pluralist commonwealth to minimize necessary bureaucracy? What contemporary interventions or potential interventions illustrate democratic control of large-scale entities? read more

Stories

Principles of a Pluralist Commonwealth: Introduction

If the design of corporate capitalism is unable to sustain values of equality, genuine democracy, liberty, and ecological sustainability as a matter of inherent systemic architecture, what systemic ‘design’ might ultimately achieve and sustain these values? read more

Stories

Commonwealth

What does it mean to hold wealth in common? Why is wealth held in common and democratized at various scales, so important for the design of a next system? What are some examples of how “common wealth” builds a “commonwealth” today? read more

Stories

Community

Why is community important to the pluralist commonwealth? What are institutional mechanisms aimed at undergirding rather than undermining community in a Pluralist Commonwealth? What current developments point towards the restoration of community as a central category? read more
Community, Democracy, and Mutual Aid

Community, Democracy, and Mutual Aid

In this first place at-large entry in the Next System Essay Competition, members of the Symbiosis Research Collective present a vision of how to expand the networks of “dual power” from the rebel city towards the system level. read more
From Perception to Participation

From Perception to Participation

In this first place undergraduate entry in the Next System Project Essay Competition, Raghav Sharma charts a path out of the crisis of liberal democracy and its attendant marginalizing blindspots towards a renewed direct democracy grounded in everyday family and community life. read more
How Philanthropy Can Help Community Development Survive Trump

How Philanthropy Can Help Community Development Survive Trump

Co-founders of the Democracy Collaborative Gar Alperovitz and Ted Howard discuss the destruction that Trump’s administration could have on community development and the main beacon of hope in the form of philanthropy in this article for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. read more