Ecodynamism Alive and Well in Stroud

A change of focus away from the world of global financial exploitation and towards local investment to develop resilience and build the green economy in our communities. A new renewable energy co-operative was born in Stroud on 25 January, when Ecodynamic's founding Community Share Offer was launched, appropriately enough in our local micro-brewery Stroud Brewery.

Ecodynamic has been founded in association with the Biodynamic Land Trust, as an anchor investor, to reinvest surpluses from renewable energy into sustainable food projects. Ecodynamic is seeking to raise £350,000 by 22nd March to purchase and run a new 55KW Endurance wind turbine in Cornwall. Shares have a projected annual return of 3% rising to 5% after year three over the 20 year life of the project. Greg Pilley said at the launch, ‘I will invest £1,000 in Ecodynamic to keep the local community investment revolution fermenting for renewable energy generation.’

Ecodynamic is applying to HRMC for EIS relief, which if successful, will allow UK tax payers to get 30% tax relief in year one, so a £1000 investment will attract £300 tax relief, if EIS is approved. As a mutual organisation, all members will have equal votes in how the society is run and what projects will be supported.

Founding Ecodynamic director Martin Large, (who set up Fordhall Farm’s pioneering charitable co-op structure in 2005-6, and who is a director of Stroud Common Wealth) says that, ‘Ecodynamic offers the attractive combination of both getting interest on your investment in a community energy project, which is backed financially by the government’s Feed in Tariff , and also reinvesting any surplus into viable food and energy projects.’

Ecodynamic directors are experienced in business, co-ops, renewable energy, farming, banking and finance. Ecodynamic respects co-op principles and has a vision to create a ‘co-operative turn’ towards a sustainable social economy, just like the West Mill Co-op. James Mansfield, also a Director, said ‘I see Ecodynamic as having tremendous potential to contribute to our society’s present and future wellbeing, by reinvesting surpluses from renewable energy projects into sustainable, biodynamic and organic food production.’

If you have some money to invest and you would like to see it used to build resilience into our local economies you know where to go.

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A Modest Proposal in the Age of Google

Today's proposal from Graham Allen to commodify our children and sell profitable bonds in them could be read as the translation of the traditional fear of the feckless poor into the era of financialisation. No longer any need to fall into moral panic - rather see intergenerational disadvantage as a business opportunity.

The Labour MP's call for 'early years intervention' to prevent a cycle of 'dysfunction and under-achievement' appears so attractive at first sight that you may find me churlish even to question it. But it is when we get to the part about how the proposal is to be funded that my suspicions are aroused. Two things I have learned about capitalist innovation: it often involves shifting value through time, and it requires the commodification of some vehicle to carry that value. Children might provide just such a vehicle - and the younger the better.

Allen notes that this is not a good time to be asking people to invest in our future citizens, no matter how desperate their needs. According to Children and Young People Now website:

'the funding of initiatives is still a matter Allen is investigating. This month he made a public call for submissions of evidence to the review. "Given the economic climate, it's unrealistic to ask the government for funding," he says. "We want people with expertise in delivering financial tools to raise the money." Proposed ideas include social impact bonds that offer private investors the opportunity to earn a profit through social investment.'

This rampant desire to intervene when babies have barely emerged into the world is dressed up as concern for those who fail to share the hegemonic and culturally validated qualities of thrift and industriousness. Crack and computer games have replaced gin and the cock-fight, but the sentiment of disgust and the desire for control ring true through the ages.

In 1729 Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal was that a solution to the problem of the fecundity of the poor be found in their children's sweet flesh: a source of cheap protein for the same poor who were having trouble affording enough to eat. Financial innovation has moved on apace in the past 300 years. In Allen's proposal the future value of the children of the poor is to be commodified and issued in profitable bonds, thus tempting private equity funds to invest, although not for charity but for profit. The main difference is not the moral content of the two proposals but the fact that Swift's was satirical whereas Allen is deadly serious.
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