Political Hope - Charles Eisenstein

I want to share with you this deep and far-ranging conversation I had with Indy Rishi Singh for a podcast called Political Hope. (Spotify, Apple). We could sure use some hope right now, at a time of vicious partisanship, entrenched power structures, intensifying paralysis, and political deadlock.

What is politics, but the way human groups make collective decisions? The barriers to solving any of the world’s problems are political, not technical. If there is no political hope, then there is no hope, period.

Where is hope to be found? Pardon the cliché—it is to be found in democracy. In this conversation Indy and I explore (among other things) what democracy is and isn’t using two recent examples: India and Ecuador. In both places, a massive popular movement has succeeded in stopping and reversing horrible government policies.

In Ecuador, a mass indigenous-led movement has gained concessions from the right-wing neoliberal government following a nation-wide strike. Campesino families, from grandmothers to little children, mobilized to block roadways and paralyze transportation. Huge crowds converged upon the cities, braving police violence to make business-as-usual impossible. The government capitulated. It agreed to the movement’s demands to halt new mining and oil and gas drilling in national parks, indigenous territories, and water supply areas, and gave indigenous people veto power over future projects.... Keep Reading

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