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Developments in the study of human prehistory hold clues about our times, our world, and ourselves.
An artist group’s ‘Remember the Future’ podcast shines a light on the solidarity economy
The evidence tells us that cooperative and pluralistic governments were at least as common as and more resilient than despotic states in the region.
Many work to curb the global trash crisis by sharing goods with their neighbors.
The free and shared goods economy is creating community resilience and alternatives to trash culture for millions of people.
Democratic impulses, similarly provoked and suppressed inside workplace autocracies, have not yet matured into social movements that are strong and focused enough to overthrow autocracy inside workplaces.
Many people are already investing themselves in the local peace economy as they divest from the economy of war.
Looking to our cultural evolutionary origins might help us improve society at many levels.
If the internet were a country, it would be the sixth biggest user of electricity.
When the way things are isn’t working, we can build something better if we draw from our collective power and focus on care and interconnection.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the shortcomings of our mega-food industries and the necessity to localize food production.
Efforts by governments and cities across the nation to defund the public library indicate a misunderstanding of the essential role that libraries play.
The Boston Ujima Project’s assembly All About Love: Community Care Systems asks: What would it take to love and care for the most marginalized people in the city?
Due to decades of activism by a coalition of Indigenous groups, commercial fishers, concerned citizens and environmentalists, Oregon and California state governments committed to removing four dams along the Klamath River.
China concluded that in the United States, achieving prioritized social goals happened more when public and private resources were coordinated and focused to do so.
Raising the minimum wage can and should be one basis for a mutually beneficial alliance between wage workers and small businesses.
From the Black Panthers to Shepard Fairey, artists have been behind some of the biggest acts of political resistance in the U.S. The anonymous artist collective behind the naked Trump statues that appeared around the U.S. in 2020 released a documentary about protest art during the 2020 election season.
Can we pinpoint a time in our evolutionary trajectory when we wandered from the path of empathy, compassion and respect for one another and for all forms of life?
Mark Changizi’s study offers a scientific and anthropological explanation for a phenomenon many take for granted.
Legible and open urban plans with widespread access to services and power tend to be associated with more collective, less autocratic forms of governance, says a new study.
It is necessary to challenge some pervasive myths that fundamentally shape not just what we think about the past, but why so many see history as irrelevant when it comes to guiding the present and shaping the future.
Grief spaces and community listening circles in Ashland, Oregon, model ways for communities to navigate these trying times—from fires to COVID-19 to racist police killings.
A people-powered effort to move to fossil fuels to alternatives at the local level is building across the U.S. and the globe.
Yoga teachers who work with oppressed communities say the practice is a key way to navigate stress, trauma, and disruption.
Anthropologists' research on the origins of war, going back to the beginning of human history and our closest ape relatives, suggests war is not part of our evolution. They also find systems of peace work, and many already exist.
Rupa Marya, a physician and musician, studies how social structures impact health. She says colonial capitalism fractures the critical relationships that keep us healthy.
A 2021 study on the effects of climate crises in ancient Mesopotamia found increased cooperation and a more widespread distribution of power.
An interview with the creator of the short film “Ode to Joy,” which celebrates connection with nature as a portal to deeper connection with self and each other.
Artists have always been on the front lines of protest and social shift, taking the pulse of culture and society.
A new report breaks down how elections are run and how votes are detected and counted. Readers will bring an evidence-based mix of skepticism and realism to this foundational feature of American democracy.
By Duncan A. Buell, Steven Rosenfeld in Voting and Elections | Independent Media Institute | English | October 2022
How Paicines Ranch in California works to bring business and investment up to date with our times and closer to nature—prioritizing ecosystem health, habitat, and the sequestration of carbon through soil practices.
The movement to revillage our modern world seeks to combat mental illness, housing and climate disasters.
Community support throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings against racial injustice around the world prove the necessity of mutual aid for survival during times of crisis, and beyond.
The role of the state is central to this decline of capitalism in one area and form and its ascent in another area and form.
In reality, markets are useful institutions for capitalists to manipulate for profit.
Fascism can indeed “happen here,” but in unique fashion.
There are alternatives to the Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates and curtailing money supply growth but they are ignored.
Capitalism’s political problem arose from its intrinsically undemocratic juxtaposition of an employer minority and an employee majority.
The obscenely rich have thus driven the U.S. economy and society further from anything remotely resembling a “level playing field.”
Inflation deeply affects societies that suffer them, yet no democratic process determines where, when or how employers’ decisions to inflate prices lead to those impacts.
Every other economic system in human history was born, evolved, and ceased to exist at some point. The most reasonable expectation is that capitalism will also cease to exist one day.
Defenders of capitalism criticize kinds of capitalism that lack the particular adjectives that matter most to them.
“Free” and “unregulated” markets simply do not define capitalism, and are not marked by anything like “liberty.”
In China today, like the USSR a century ago, transition to a post-capitalist society has been stalled.
The Mesoamerican city of Monte Albán is a powerful case study that early investments in public infrastructure and goods foster longer-term sustainability.
Law professor Mary Wood breaks down how people can protect their right to clean air, water, and land as well as fortify their climate change resiliency.
Today’s hot-button issue is actually as old as the human race.
Removing the taboo around talking about money, two collectives are helping people work toward securing their financial well-being.
A global movement is building for a just, sustainable economy that prioritizes people and the planet over endless profit and growth.
Spawned in the wake of World War II, tool libraries lend implements and devices and provide practical guidance to community members who can’t afford to own or store their own tools.
A look at successful programs that already exist as alternatives to police, and which policy changes and actions might restructure the U.S.’s policing and justice systems.
It’s undeniably true that Republican-controlled states are worse-off, almost across the board.
The utter failure of private capitalism to prepare for the coronavirus should have surprised no one. Private capitalism, as business school graduates repeat, focuses on profit. The “profit incentive,” they learn, makes private capitalism the superior, “most efficient” economic system available. That is its “bottom line” and “chief goal.” The problem is that to produce adequate numbers of testing components, masks, gloves, ventilators, hospital beds, etc., and then to store, secure, monitor, maintain and demographically stockpile them were not and are not privately profitable businesses.
Jobs, real wages, consumption, profits and investments are growing more in China, India and Brazil than old capital centers.
Republicans believe that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán has figured out the “secret sauce” to turn a republic into a hard-right oligarchy, and today they’re in Budapest drinking deep from his insights on the fine points of destroying democracy.
As one of the leading voices in late-night TV for social justice and racial equality, Trevor Noah’s take was disappointingly pedestrian at best, and reinforced bipartisan elite propaganda at worst.
American veterans poisoned at Camp Lejeune can finally seek justice, thanks to a new law.
Mission
The Independent Media Institute (IMI) is a nonprofit organization that educates the public through a diverse array of independent media projects and programs. They work with journalists and media outlets to shine a spotlight on stories that are vital to the public interest, using multiple media formats and distribution channels.
Approach
IMI amplifies the reach and impact of the work produced by their partner journalists, public intellectuals, and editorial teams on the leading issues of our times. The goal is to educate, inspire, collaborate with movements and visionaries who are fighting for social change—and prevent the worst from happening.
The organization provides a range of services to its partners: editing and quality control, visual design, project design and fundraising development, syndication to partner publications, and media bookings through its extensive email and social media channels.
History
Since 1983, the Independent Media Institute has served the public through the creation and distribution of content about political and social issues. In 1998, IMI founded AlterNet, an award-winning news website that published original reporting by independent investigative journalists, syndicated a broad range of partner publications, and reached diverse audiences for more than 20 years, reaching a peak of an average of 6.5 million unique monthly visitors in 2016, and publishing 1,000 articles a month.
In early 2018, IMI transferred AlterNet to new ownership, allowing IMI to re-focus its work on creating and distributing original, thoughtful explorations of social justice and public interest issues. Through both its own reporting and via programs and partnerships with other organizations, IMI continues its pursuit of excellence and social impact in media.
Associated Authors
Aric Sleeper is an independent journalist whose work covers topics including labor, housing, food, and more.
Events with this organization
