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  • The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy by Michael Lewis, Pat Conaty
  • Deborah A. Schrader
The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy by Michael Lewis and Pat Conaty. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2012. 400pp. Paper $26.95 (US/CDN).

The Resilience Imperative, co-written by Michael Lewis and Pat Conaty, is an in-depth investigation into North American and European cultural conceptualizations of and responses to the global challenges of peak oil, climate change, and financial inequality. The book’s central message explains how transitioning into local, cooperative, and resilient steady-state economies builds “strategic pathways through which to bring into balance our relationships with each other and with the earth” (p. 2). It does this through an incredible depth and breadth of cases—community-based projects from around the world—which is a key strength of the book. At their core, each project questions infinite economic growth as a central cultural and social goal. The cases are exciting and inspiring, providing a dynamic foil to the negative rhetoric that often accompanies discussions of “alternative” economics. The authors smoothly link the cases to the philosophical foundations and rationale for the work of transition. Each case contributes to a contextualized model of change, with the optimism that both individual and community-wide change was happening even as the book was being written.

Lewis and Conaty construct a framework for transition by “connecting the dots” between three basic human needs—shelter, food, and energy production—with the dots of three “cross-cutting functions”—finance, land tenure, and economic democracy. At the heart of this framework is the concept of resiliency. Numerous cases in the book highlight the vitality of connections between those dots. As one dot (such as need for shelter) is considered, or its position changes, the reality and impact of others also change. The Japanese consumer food cooperative, Seikatsu, provides a living example of this dynamic. Twenty women came together in 1965 with shared concern for a safe and secure food supply for their families. Today their co-operative has 350,000 members who have transformed local food chains, each step guided by a set of agreed-upon values. What began as an initiative to address the basic need for food has also profoundly affected and built functions of finance, energy production and usage, and economic democracy, beginning at the local level. Resilience in this initiative results when a change to one aspect of life—food supply—inevitably highlights and forges durable but flexible relationships to other aspects of life. In turn, this builds a stronger community. Connectivity rings true through this case, as it does throughout this book.

The authors never urge the replication of any grand change template. This is satisfying when we consider that human situations and local geographies are worthy of particular attention towards solutions. Rather, the authors offer a “pedagogy of transition:” broadening how we see and live on our planet; seeking strategic pathways towards balance; sharing what we learn; and securing these pathways against opposition. It would be informative for the reader to have an analysis of the feasibility and application of this pedagogy in relation to specific projects and communities.

The book reads effortlessly, as it was written using a narrative structure. This approach provides a clear flow between vast ideas, the theoretical and philosophical backgrounders, by giving a sense of familiarity to the cases, as though the authors were weaving stories in person. The prose is accompanied by figures and images that reinforce the points made. In the third chapter, the Hartwick Family is introduced, a hypothetical and very average middle-class, North American or European family. This family appears periodically throughout the book to more concretely explore the implications of various proposals: fee-based lending for their mortgage; savings resulting from community land-trust ownership of their property; community-based energy efficiency initiatives; and supporting fair and sustainable food production. The implications are described in both qualitative and numerical terms at the end of the book. By the final accounting, as [End Page S60] a Canadian wage earning and mortgage-paying family, the Hartwicks have net savings of $286,969 over...

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