|
WHO WE ARE:
The Common Wheel Collective is a radical community group based on the North Shore of Staten Island. Our main objective is to move ourselves and our neighbors (ever so gradually) toward a more just, democratic, and egalitarian society. Philosophically, we believe that a truly just society must be one free of all inequality, domination, and hierarchy.
In our present, still-formative stages, we have focused most of our
energies
on outreach and the sharing of information. As these efforts develop,
we are
discovering that we are a publishing collective as well. The Common
Wheel
Collective is also participating with other groups in street fairs,
public
tablings, workshops and demonstrations. We have been discussing plans
to
build up a public meeting space and an information center.
We are deeply committed to anti-poverty work. We believe that a world dominated by economic power, in which moneyed interests control people’s lives, is inherently unjust. By fostering individual and collective self-empowerment, we hope to help people overcome the competition and exploitation on which the current system thrives.
We intend, also, to treat our comrades within the collective the same way we would want people to treat one another in the society at large. We will always regard one another as equals and will try our best never to engage in the power grabbing or back stabbing that you see in so many other supposedly egalitarian groups. We will do as much as we can to avoid the very problems that we describe in the Collective Book on Collective Process. We intend, at all times, to resist any temptation to become grandiose, “all-knowing,” or arrogant. Within the collective as well as beyond it, we will reject domination and hierarchy. |
PROJECTS:
Book on Collective
Process
Our most widely received effort to date is the Collective Book on Collective Process, a handbook exploring democratic process within collectives, focusing on the problems that develop and possible approaches toward fixing those problems.
Chapter drafts of this book are presently being posted on our Web page, http://www.oocities.org/collectivebook. We are inviting people to join the Common Wheel Collective in order to help us put together this book, but we seek input and collaboration from people outside the collective as well.
Anti-Capitalist
Money-Saving Tips
We are also publishing a series of flyers, “Anti-Capitalist Savings Tips.” These flyers are designed to help people cope with living on a limited income in the face of various pressures from the current economic system. The flyers contain a good number of practical savings tips, yet they also contain advice on how to gain economic autonomy by rejecting the capitalist, consumerist messages with which we are so constantly bombarded. Eventually, we hope, these flyers will explore methods of collective action and resistance. View the text of the flyers:
MONEY-SAVING Tips: FOOD
MONEY-SAVING Tips: BILLS
MONEY-SAVING Tips: BUDGET
MONEY-SAVING Tips: CREDIT CARDS
Web Journal
"Living on Less" An often-updated journal of thoughts and personal essays by the members of The Common Wheel, many centered on the subject of poverty and economic injustice, plus links to interesting, odd, and serious web sites.
LINKS
Links to resources on living on less and thought-provoking essays against consumer culture.
CONTACT US:
The Common Wheel Collective
thecommonwheel@yahoo.com |