We speak with Joe Guinan and Dana Brown of the Next System Project about their ambitious work to draw from new economic institutions that are being used in the United States and around the world to build real alternatives that solve the crises of economic, racial and environmental injustice. They just completed a series of teach-ins across the country. They share with us what they’ve learned so far and what exciting new initiatives are developing out of the teach-ins.
Listen here:
Relevant articles and websites:
Wealth Belongs to All of Us, Not just the Rich by Dariel Garner
The Next System Project Winter 2015 two-pager: NSP two pager Winter 2015 2016
The Next System Report #1: NSPReport1_Digital1
Guests:
Joe Guinan is a Senior Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative and Executive Director of the Next System Project. Having first worked with Gar Alperovitz and The Democracy Collaborative ten years earlier, he returned in 2012 to help design, launch and implement the Collaborative’s work on alternative political-economic systems. A former journalist, he was previously a program director at the Aspen Institute and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and has served as a consultant to the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. With a decade of experience in international economics, trade policy, global agriculture, and food security, he has been a frequently cited expert on globalization and economic development in major news media, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, BBC News, and Al-Jazeera. Born in England with dual Irish and British citizenship, he grew up in British labor movement circles and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He writes regularly for progressive outlets in the UK, including open Democracy and the journal Renewal, and is a member of the editorial collective of New Left Project.
Dana Brown joined the Democracy Collaborative in September 2015 for the launch of the Next System Teach-Ins program. She is an activist, popular educator and human rights advocate that has worked throughout the US, Latin America and the Middle East supporting communities organized in resistance to neoliberal economic reforms and military intervention. A board member of Peace Brigades International, she maintains a foot in international solidarity, assisting projects to protect human rights defenders from Colombia to Kenya, while thrilled to be based in the US working to change our political economy for the benefit of the 99%.
Dana holds a B.A. in Sociology from Cornell University and a Masters in International Relations and Peace Studies from the Universidad del Salvador (Argentina). She is a founding member of Witness Against Torture, a movement to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and end the use of torture and indefinite detention at all US-run facilities.
She is delighted to be the first Mississippian and third tango dancer to join the Democracy Collaborative staff.