News & Resources

New Economy Roundup: Feminist & Popular Economies, Agrarian Commons, and the New People’s Army

Mar 6, 2025 | New Economy Roundup

This week, we’re talking about feminist and popular economy education, grants available to cooperative farmers, building the agrarian commons, the armed people’s revolution in the southern Philippines, and a case study on municipalism in Poland.

Feminist and Popular Economies: This March, we are commemorating International Working Women’s Day (March 8th) by compiling, studying, and living in the wisdom that workers against misogyny and sexism left for us. In this resource list, we honor those resisting extractivism, precarity, debt, and all forms of exploitation… Those who are building their own economies to provide dignified work, vizibilize networks of communal care, build solidarity, collective wealth, and protect against gender-based and state violence. Download our Feminist and Popular Economies resource list for foundational texts, narratives, ethnography, case studies, and more by feminists who inspire our construction of solidarity economy.

2025 is the Year of the Cooperative: Last summer, the UN General Assembly declared 2025 the International Year of the Cooperative and Philadelphia is the first U.S. city to endorse the resolution thanks to the hard work of cooperators like Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance and the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Despite DOGE’s latest blow to grants and contracts supporting electric cooperatives in Colorado and North Dakota, Philadelphia won’t be the last city to expand cooperation across the United States. Learn more about how NEC member Rural Power Coalition is expanding cooperation and energy democracy in the U.S.

Regranting for Regenerative Agriculture: With rising food costs all around us, it’s detrimental to keep supporting the amazing work locally-led farms are holding to produce autonomous food systems and community-held farmland. You can support this mission by sharing CoFED’s regranting program for food and land justice cooperatives which is rewarding up to $10,000 with agricultural projects you believe in. You can also gift Agrarian Trust with a donation to support building the agrarian commons.

 

New People’s Army in the Philippines: Earlier this week, a fighter jet sent to bomb a regiment of the Maoist New People’s Army (Bagong Hukbong Bayan) in the southern Philippines went missing. It’s still unclear if the NPA took down the jet, but their ongoing mission to build an armed democratic people’s revolution is entering its 56th year this month. Learn more about the democratic revolution brewing in the Philippines from the documentary Revolution Selfie The Red Battalion 002 available for free on the Internet Archive.

Poland’s Municipalism: Following the end of communism, communities transferred state-run public services into locally governed municipal enterprises. Though, in this system, citizens are the de facto owners of commercial utilities like transportation and energy, access to each company’s financials and policies are inconsistent. Even through the struggle for more transparency, there’s over 3,000 publicly-owned municipal companies in Poland and they’ve been resilient against privatization promoted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Learn more about this robust municipal system with this 9-minute read in the Transnational Institute online.

Thriving Democracies from Estonia to Uruguay: In Uruguay, political parties came together to build a public energy utility. Despite a number of cyberattacks from Russia, Estonia was still able to roll out publicly owned internet platforms where citizens can request universal programs like paid family leave or submit comments to their representatives. Some countries even have cross-party pacts to protect these programs. While racism, sexism and classism keeps universal programs off the table in the United States, Natasha Hakimi Zapata says coalition building can still bring the radical ideas of the world here. Dive into this conversation with The Marc Steiner Show or skip to the source with her book Another World Is Possible.

 

 

Last week, NEC staff stewarding the Black Solidarity Economy Fund and guests from The Debt Collective, Misogy-NAH, and End State ATL hosted ‘10 Times A Rapper Spit Something Lowkey Revolutionary.’ Together, they struggled through how bars spit by an array of artists from 21 Savage and Monaleo to Dead Prez and Tupac Shakur can inspire Black solidarity economies.

A time was had! The BSEF team is grateful to everyone who showed up for this unfiltered after hours chat pushing arts and culture forward in building a solidarity economy movement in the United States. If you missed it, the good news is we’ll have more of these! 

Donors like you help us regrant almost $300k to Black-led solidarity economy projects every year. Double down on support for Black communities during a time when the federal government, corporations, and philanthropists refuse to do so by donating to the Black Solidarity Economy Fund today.

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Solidarity Economy Shorts is a podcast collaboration between New Economy Coalition and Cooperative Journal Media. Tune in for our latest episode with NEC member Cooperate Western North Carolina on your favorite streaming platform, and learn about mutual aid, conflict transformation and tools to shift from individualism to collectivism.

PODCASTS & VIDEO
Meklit Hadero: How Solidarity Economies Can Reshape the Music Industry | Lift Economy
Mutual Aid 101: Introduction to Mutual Aid with Dean Spade | Shareable
Participatory Budgeting as a Tool to Advocate for Racial Equity | Participatory Budgeting Project
Trump’s GLOBAL far-right network is growing | Jacobin

TOOLKITS & RESOURCES
Housing for the People: How Local Governments are Building Social Housing Solutions for Public Good | Power Switch Action
State of Power 2025 Geopolitics of Capitalism | The Transnational Institute
New York City’s Community Land Trusts | New Economy Project

 

Beginning Farmer Fellowship, Unadilla Community Farm (West Edmeston, NY)
Bulk Purchasing Coordinator, Cooperate Western North Carolina
Elements for Regional Solidarity Economies Cohort, Peoples Hub
General Manager, Park Slope Food Co-op
National Media & Communications Director, Critical Resistance
Restorative Economics Organizer, Restore Oakland
Socialist Job Fair, Democratic Socialist of America (San Francisco)
Unpaid Ujima Fund Interns, Boston Ujima Project
Various Positions, Appalachian Voices

If you’re hiring, consider submitting to The Roundup.
For more opportunities, check out this job board from NEC member Post Growth Institute and this one from the U.S. Federation of Worker Coops!

 

Rural Electric Cooperative Co-lab
This learning and action lab is designed to mobilize supportive organizations and rural electric cooperative (REC) member-owners to reclaim their RECs to spread democracy and improve people’s lives in rural communities across the US. (March 11 – Virtual)

#UjimaWednesdays | Political Power with Working Families Party
This workshop series is dedicated to exploring the collective power of communities to transform ourselves and the systems that shape our lives. Join us for Political Power with Yaye Amtyh Osunbunmi Asili the Working Families Party Director of Radical Education. (March 12 – Virtual)

Feeling Seen & Heard: Affirming Dignity (VOL’s Tools-Based Workshop Series)
Join VOL in this workshop and learn how to affirm other people’s dignity so that you can create spaces where we can all exist differently. Through two hours of facilitated engagement, small group work, and discussions, we will define dignity, dignity-consciousness, and reflect on our personal experiences to cultivate an awareness of dignity-affirming practices. (March 17 – Virtual)

How to use a solidarity fund to fight ICE
Raids at work? Employers exploiting immigrants and non-immigrants? There’s a lot of power workers hold at the workplace – learn how to defend your rights and build power at work in our 2-hour virtual training. (March 18 – Virtual)

Intro to Story-Based Strategy
Join us this spring for one of our two Introduction to Story-based Strategy Trainings. In this interactive, hands-on 5-hour session, participants will learn and practice the fundamentals of Story-based Strategy (SBS). This training helps organizers, activists, community leaders, and grassroots communications experts practice creative storytelling and critical narrative analysis. (Application due April 6th – Virtual)

Introductions to Building Forum Theater
This training will introduce participants to Theater of the Oppressed NYC’s process of creating forum theater performances. This training is for community organizers, artists, and community members who plan to use forum theater to engage groups in action toward social change. (April 7-21 – Virtual)

2025 National Radical Black Organizing Conference
Bigger! Blacker! Better! Black left forces are gathering to organize with our people. The theme for this year’s conference is “Base-Building for Collective Power.” (May 30-June 1– Indianapolis) 

Learning from Feminist Cooperators in the Americas
Black feminist co-operators engage in globalizing solidarity economies through a specific form of mutual aid to meet livelihood needs. (June 3 – London) 

Socialism Conference 2025
The Socialism conference is a center of political education rooted in ideas, perspectives, and strategic debate. Our purpose is to provide a forum for addressing not just the “how,” but especially the “what” and “why” of left politics and social movements. A four-day conference featuring dozens of panels, lectures, and workshops organized by groups from all over the country. Save the Date for Socialism 2025! (July 3-6 2025 – Chicago, IL)

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