Do you think it’s unfair that twelve men have more wealth than four billion people? Do you believe no-one should go hungry? Then you’re an anti-capitalist. Viral economist Clara Mattei explains.
Red Hot World
@redhotworld.bsky.social
"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value" - Albert Einstein. Another world is possible.
Half the Mayflower colonists died that first winter. The rest survived because the Wampanoag taught them to grow corn, fish local waters and navigate land they didn’t understand. Without mutual aid, no Plymouth Colony. By way of thanks, they got germs and their land stolen.
Copenhagen built "Urban Rigger" student housing out of old shipping containers, floating on the harbour. 75% of heating comes from the sea itself. Up to 95% of heat is recovered from ventilation. One structure, dozens of homes, almost no new land used. Another world is possible.
France made ecocide a crime back in 2021. Up to ten years in prison. €4.5 million fines. For destroying the air, water and soil we all depend on. It's not perfect. It only covers intentional damage, not negligence. But it's a start, and other countries should follow.
Ghent, Belgium was once Europe's second largest city. Today it's leading the way in making cities for people rather than cars. Its centre is split into traffic sectors so cars can't cut through, only loop via the ring road. Car use has dropped from 40% to 27%. Cycling is up 25%. Go visit!
In the 60s, the land at Auroville, India was barren. Then volunteers from dozens of countries planted millions of trees, turning desert into forest, bringing back 100 bird species, and building the Matrimandir, a golden dome for silent meditation. Another world is possible.
In 1980 people in Cambridge, Massachusetts began serving free vegan meals outside a bank to protest military spending while people went hungry. 45 years later there are hundreds of Food Not Bombs chapters across 65+ countries recovering and sharing food that would otherwise be wasted.
India's Cockroach Janta Party started as a meme about a judge's insult. It ended with the education minister resigning and the government using tear gas and painting over graffiti in panic. Founder Dipke's last words at the site: "This is not the end. We will meet again soon."
In the 1970s locals occupied the Duke of Infantado's unused estate in Marinaleda, Andalusia. It's now farmed as a cooperative - everyone including the mayor earns the same wage of €47 a day. Housing costs €15 a month. Unemployment is close to zero. Another world is possible.
A Supreme Court judge called India's youth "cockroaches" and "parasites." Like the Suffragettes before them, they reclaimed the insult. Thousands now sit in demanding accountability for a broken exam system that hits millions. The cockroaches are organising. wagingnonviolence.org/2026/07/indi...
The strategic satire of India’s Gen Z ‘Cockroach’ movement
India’s Cockroach Janta Party started as a meme, but it has transformed into a real youth movement challenging failed institutions.
wagingnonviolence.org
All it takes is one right-wing government to turn the situation from bad to worse.
Red Hot World@redhotworld.bsky.social · 2w agoFinland cut homelessness by two-thirds since the 1980s using one radical idea: give people homes first, with no conditions attached. No sobriety tests. No job requirements. Just housing as a right, then support to rebuild. It works. So why won't other countries try it?
Finland cut homelessness by two-thirds since the 1980s using one radical idea: give people homes first, with no conditions attached. No sobriety tests. No job requirements. Just housing as a right, then support to rebuild. It works. So why won't other countries try it?
Italian fascists spent 20 years demonising pasta as unmanly & un-Roman.🤡 So the Cervi family celebrated Mussolini's fall in 1943 by serving macaroni to their entire town. Six of the Cervi sons would be executed by firing squad months later. Eat pasta on 25 July. Remember why.
When Covid hit the UK in 2020, neighbours self-organised into mutual aid groups almost overnight. There were over 4,225 such groups across the UK, broken down to street level so people knew who they were helping. Many of the resulting street WhatsApp groups are still thriving.
Aged 83, nature lover Yvon Chouinard didn't want to sell Patagonia or take it public, distrustful of what either would do to its values. So he gave it away. Ownership now sits with a trust and a climate nonprofit that gets £75m a year to spent on it its sole shareholder: Earth.
Kuapa Kokoo, a cooperative of 100,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers, co-founded Divine Chocolate in 1998 and once held the majority stake. Farmers still hold 40% of board influence and get a direct share of profits. Not perfect but it shows companies can be about more than extraction.
Since the 1970s, heat from the power station in Kalundborg, Denmark has warmed 3,500 homes and a fish farm whose sludge becomes fertiliser. Fly ash becomes cement. Sulphur becomes plasterboard. Neighbouring firms wiring their leftovers together. 17 partners now, millions saved.
Mondragon Corporation, the Basque cooperative federation, has run for seven decades with workers electing management, capping executive pay at roughly 6x the lowest wage and reinvesting profits into the community rather than distant shareholders. Another world is possible.
Times Square, 2009. NYC trialled closing the space to cars, painted the road and dropped in some lawn chairs and beach umbrellas People used it immediately. Traffic accidents fell. The "temporary" plaza became permanent. You don't always need a huge masterplan to improve a city.
Free Stores exist in over 30 countries. No prices, no profits, no barter, no "what can you offer me?" You take what you need and give what you can. The People's Free Store in Boston provides furniture, clothes, books, all free, all the time. Another world is possible.
Peter Thiel's secretive network Dialog planned a WWIII strategy retreat in Ireland: 220+ guests, a NATO commander, Trump officials. Activists occupied the hotel, jammed its phones, protested for weeks. The venue cancelled. Power needs rooms and staff; we can deny them these.
Something inspiring is happening in Albania and even Dua Lipa is talking about it. The Flamingo Revolution started as a protest against Jared Kushner's resort being pushed through at the expense of nature. Now it's a youth-led, meme-led, nonviolent uprising against a failing two party system.
A movement that doesn’t achieve all its goals at first may prove to be more successful in the long view.
Red Hot World@redhotworld.bsky.social · 3w agoKefaya ("Enough") rose in 2004-5 to challenge Mubarak, something no-one had dared do publicly in Egypt for decades. By 2008 the movement was over, apparently a failure. But it trained organisers and broke the fear. In 2011, many of its veterans were in Tahrir Square when Mubarak finally fell.
Kefaya ("Enough") rose in 2004-5 to challenge Mubarak, something no-one had dared do publicly in Egypt for decades. By 2008 the movement was over, apparently a failure. But it trained organisers and broke the fear. In 2011, many of its veterans were in Tahrir Square when Mubarak finally fell.
Will Ed Miliband go down in history as one of the few politicians who actually did what needed to be done? Or will he trash his reputation for all eternity?
Joe Taylor@climatejoe.bsky.social · 3w agoMy message to Ed Miliband: I have two young children and what I want more than anything is for them to have the opportunity to grow old on a broadly liveable planet. Since 2009, you have been a pretty solitary example of someone in a position of power in the UK who has made that more likely.
Pontevedra, Spain pushed cars out of its centre in 1999. Zero traffic deaths since 2011. 12,000 new residents. Zermatt banned petrol cars in 1931. Now it's run on tiny electric vehicles, capped at around 500. Two very different towns. Same idea: streets for people, not engines.
The USA is a place with no healthcare, but 1000 billionaires. At least 49 of those billionaires made all their money from Private Healthcare. Perhaps you can connect the dots.