Freedom Road: natural capitalism

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

Patrick Jones tells a powerful and dramatic story that is important for its insights into civil rights history: the debate over nonviolence and armed self-defense, the meaning of Black Power, the relationship between local and national movements, and the dynamic between southern and northern activism. Jones offers a valuable contribution to movement history in the urban North that also adds a vital piece to the national story.

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Blurbs:

Think you know the full story of the civil rights era? Patrick Jones's masterful study of the movement in Milwaukee will make you think again. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Selma of the North provides a devastating rebuttal of many of the conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. Here a vibrant nonviolent movement in the de-industrializing Midwest grows into a Black Power movement led by urban youth and a white Catholic priest who use confrontational direct action to lay bare the fissures of racial inequality in the 'liberal' North.
--Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, editor of Freedom North and Groundwork

A well-researched, well-written, and important history. Based on a rich array of sources, this book enhances our understanding of civil rights activism in the postwar urban North and establishes a useful foundation for the comparison of similar developments elsewhere in the country.
--Joe William Trotter, Jr., Carnegie Mellon University, author of Black Milwaukee

This book fills a serious gap in the literature of the civil rights revolution, joining studies on other cities in laying the groundwork on race and civil rights in the postwar urban North. Jones tells a good story, capturing events that might otherwise be lost to history.
--Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans, author of Making the Second Ghetto

The Selma of the North is an insightful and invigorating addition to the growing literature on black freedom struggles outside of the South. Jones's important and informative account writes Milwaukee back into the narrative of the civil rights-Black Power era and in the process expands our understanding of postwar America.
--Peniel E. Joseph, Brandeis University, author of Waiting Till the Midnight Hour

The Selma of the North is a riveting new story of the civil rights movement in America, a tale on par with Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery in its power and importance. Jones's magisterial research and magnetic prose illuminate the untold story of the battle for the urban north in the 1960s, a battle that shows how race has always been the Achilles heel of white progressives. This story transcends easy dichotomies of black and white, North and South, radical and reformist. How did a group called 'the Commandos' define nonviolence? How did a white Catholic priest become a 'Black Power' leader? If this is not a saga for the age of Obama, I don't know what is.
--Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University, author of Radio Free Dixie and Blood Done Sign My Name

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Solutions: "Natural Capitalism"?

At the outset of this blog, I wrote that we not only need to name the problems in our society and world, but we need to offer visionary solutions that are proactive and concrete. One of the massive problems we face today is a global economic system that produces vast inequalities and destroys the environment. My good friend Justin Kemerling is a big fan of "natural capitalism," a set of ideas put forth by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. At their website, they write:

Most businesses still operate according to a world view that hasn't changed since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Then, natural resources were abundant and labor was the limiting factor of production. But now, there's a surplus of labor, while natural capital - natural resources and the ecological systems that provide the vital life-support services - is in decline and relatively expensive. The next Industrial Revolution, like the first one, will be a repsonse to changing patterns of scarcity. it will create upheaval, but more importantly, it will create opportunities. Business must adjust to these new realities. Innovative companies are already doing just that. They're profiting and gaining decisive competitive advantage - and their leaders and employees are feeling better about what they do, too. They're the vanguard of a new business model: "natural capitalism"

Here is their website:
Natural Capitalism

Here is an article from Mother Jones:
Mother Jones article

A more comprehensive report on "natural capitalism" from the Harvard Business Review can be found in pdf format at the Wikipedia site on the subject:
Harvard Business Review article

Natural capitalism has its critics, particularly among progressives and environmentalists. For example, a reviewer in FEASTA Review, a journal of economic sustainability, writes,

Perhaps the most widely discussed recent book on the transition from a wasteful, unsustainable economic system to a more sustainable one is Natural Capitalism.. Unfortunately, the book is deeply flawed because, like most US books of its type, it pretends that the transition will be so highly profitable that the market alone will bring it about and that government regulation and legislation are unnecessary. Surprisingly, it maintains this position despite an excellent chapter on the ways in which markets can fail.

Here is the whole review:
FEASTA Review review

Here is another review by William Greider, a brilliant progressive economic journalist:
Greider review

Can, as the authors of Natural Capitalism claim, "business strategies built around the radically more productive use of natural resources... solve many environmental problems at a profit"? Or, is this wishful thinking, having our cake and eating it, too?

What do you think? Is this the best viable alternative to the current version of global capitalism? Or, is it a utopian pipe dream as some critics suggest?

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"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Solutions: "Natural Capitalism"?