Living Economies Expo

Friday 31 March to Sunday 2 April 2017
Lyttelton

Expo website

Imagine a country which respects the living planet; whose people enjoy fair land tenure, good housing, good health, wholesome food, a rewarding livelihood, free education, a compassionate justice system, and an adequate income: a country with an inclusive democracy grounded in vibrant communities.

This could be Aotearoa New Zealand – together, we can make this vision a reality.

The Living Economies Expo is an event recognising the interconnection of all major global issues around the driving force of our dysfunctional debt-based money system. The event will showcase examples of people doing things differently, creating healthy solutions, demonstrating what is possible, what gives hope and direction to our communities and country. Through the momentum of this event we hope to seed systemic change.

Speakers

Gar Alperovitz

Co-Founder, The Democracy Collaborative and Co-Chair, Next System Project

Gar Alperovitz has had a distinguished career as a historian, political economist, activist, writer, and government official. For fifteen years, he was the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, and is a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University; Harvard’s Institute of Politics; the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

Gar is the author of critically acclaimed books on the atomic bomb and atomic diplomacy. As a well known policy expert, he has testified before numerous Congressional committees and lectures widely around the country. Among his many achievements is having been the architect of the first modern steel industry attempt at worker ownership in Youngstown, Ohio. In addition, Gar was nominated to be a member of the Council of Economic Advisers by leading national consumer, labor, and environmental organizations.

He is also the president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives and is a founding principal of the Democracy Collaborative, a research institution developing practical, policy-focused, and systematic paths towards ecologically sustainable, community-oriented change and the democratization of wealth.

Gar lives in Washington, DC.

Deirdre Kent

Deirdre Kent is a New Zealand activist and former mathematics teacher. She stood for the Values Party in 1975 and was a Tauranga City Councillor. After a decade as a full time paid lobbyist for tobacco control, she taught lobbying skills and was active in the Green Party. She wrote The Indicator newsletter, started NZ Banking Reform, and was a founding trustee of the Living Economies Educational Trust. After forming Otaki Transition Town group and Otaki Timebank she co-founded the New Economics Party a group who worked on policy combining monetary reform and land tax. She is the author of Healthy Money Healthy Planet “ Developing Sustainability through New Money Systems and is currently writing A New Political Economy.

Niki Harré

Niki Harré is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland. Her recent research projects have focused on sustainable communities and schools, positive youth development and political activism. Niki lives in Pt Chevalier, Auckland and has three children. She is a founding member of the Pt Chevalier Transition Town, cycles to work, learns the guitar from a musician who lives on her street, and has a large organic garden thanks to her husband. In 2007 Niki edited, with Quentin Atkinson, the book Carbon Neutral by 2020: How New Zealanders Can Tackle Climate Change. In 2011 she released a second book, Psychology for a Better World: Strategies to Inspire Sustainability. It can be downloaded for free from www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/psychologyforabetterworld. Her latest work is on life as an infinite game: www.infinite-game.net.

Gary Flomenhoft

Part-time sailor, full-time commoner

Student of Herman Daly in Ecological Economics and Public Policy at the University of Maryland.  Currently a PhD student at UQ in communal property rights in mining. 12 year Fellow and Lecturer at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. Initiated bills for Green Taxes, Subsidy Reform, Common Assets Basic Income, and Public Banking in the Vermont Legislature.  Currently working on helping to establish the first Community Land Trusts (CLTs) in Australia.