Economic collapse & David Fleming - with Jonathon Porritt and Shaun Chamberlin
Channel: Dark Optimism
Date: 2016-11-29

'Could Brexit Lead to the Rediscovery of Culture Grounded in Place?', Trinity College, Oxford University, 19th Sept 2016.

In this clip, Jonathon Porritt and Shaun Chamberlin discuss collapse and the world after economic growth, at the launch of the late Trinity alumnus David Fleming’s extraordinary books 'Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It' and the paperback 'Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy'.

The full event from which this footage was taken is available at:
https://youtu.be/Pk_er-tWfeM

A different set of highlights from the event, focused on Brexit, can be found here:
https://youtu.be/lQzTpnvdRrQ

Event poster, including info on speakers: 
https://www.darkoptimism.org/OxfordFlemingPoster.pdf


More information on David Fleming's books, including reviews and how to order:
https://www.flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/books/

Schumacher College Earth Talk: Rob Hopkins and Shaun Chamberlin discuss David Fleming and the launch of his posthumous books, 
'The Late Dr. David Fleming: Community, Place and Play', 12 October 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOldfjUkElc

An August 21st 2016 written interview with Shaun Chamberlin on David Fleming and the books: 
https://www.darkoptimism.org/2016/08/21/interview-on-david-fleming-music-and-hippos/

And since 2020, Shaun and Vermont's Sterling College have been offering their online community and courses grounded in Fleming's ever-more-pertinent work - 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time':
https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/surviving-the-future

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"Each time I encountered David Fleming, he left behind something whose value I was a little too slow to recognise. A sketch for Tradable Energy Quotas. A critique of the nuclear fuel cycle. And clearest in my memory: a slim working paper entitled The Lean Economy. It took me nearly a decade to respond properly to its call. In Surviving the Future, Fleming has left behind his greatest gift: a remarkable clarity of vision—a way of seeing the world not just for what it is, but for what it might be. Hopefully, this time I’m ready for it."
~ Tim Jackson, Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Surrey; author of Prosperity without Growth

“David Fleming was an elder of the UK green movement and a key figure in the early Green Party. Drawing on the heritage of Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, Fleming’s beautifully written and nourishing vision of a post-growth economics grounded in human-scale culture and community—rather than big finance—is both inspiring and ever more topical.”
~ Caroline Lucas MP, co-leader, Green Party of England and Wales; former Member of the European Parliament

“I would unreservedly go so far as to say that David Fleming was one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, underrated, and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years. History will come to place him alongside Schumacher, Berry, Seymour, Cobbett, and those other brilliant souls who could not just imagine a more resilient world but who could paint a picture of it in such vivid colours. Step into the world of David Fleming; you'll be so glad you did.”
~ Rob Hopkins, cofounder of the Transition Network

"Why do some of the truly great books only emerge and exact their influence upon us after the death of their authors? Perhaps it takes a lifetime to accrue and refine the necessary wisdom. Or perhaps it simply takes the rest of us too long to catch up. Like Thoreau, Fleming's masterpiece brims not only with fresh insight into every nook and cranny of our culture and what it means to be human, but with such wit and humour that its challenging ideas and radical perspectives become a refreshing delight. If we’re to have a future worth surviving, this book demands to be read, re-read, and—ultimately—acted upon."
~ Mark Boyle, author of The Moneyless Manifesto and Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi

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