To Build the World We Desire, We Need Beautiful Solutions

What if the solutions to our greatest challenges were already all around us? This idea comes from a simple yet radical belief that the wisdom to transform our world already exists in our communities. It鈥檚 in the mutual aid networks providing care where governments fail, in cooperatives fostering economic democracy, and in movements reclaiming land, culture, and sovereignty.聽

Amid ecological collapse, rising authoritarianism, genocide, and widening inequality, the urgent need for these stories and tools is clear. The challenges we face often feel overwhelming, but we are not starting from scratch. Across history and geography, people have responded to injustice and hardship with ingenuity, laying the groundwork for solidarity economies and imagining new systems that can work for all of us.聽

The stories that follow illustrate how community-driven approaches can challenge entrenched institutions, foster collective well-being, and create tangible solutions to pressing global challenges.聽 served the cuisine and culture of nations in conflict with the United States, sparking meaningful dialogue across political and geographic divides. 聽transformed its cooperative network during COVID-19 to produce essential medical supplies, proving that mutual aid and collective ownership can outpace traditional business models. Meanwhile, the push for聽publicly owned pharmaceutical systems demonstrates how prioritizing health over profit can lower costs, reduce shortages, and ensure equitable access to life-saving medications.聽

These stories are part of a larger collection we call (OR Books, 2024), a rallying cry for those ready to resist repression, reimagine thriving in our current conditions, and keep building a better world. The future we deserve isn鈥檛 a distant dream; it鈥檚 in the seeds already being sown in our communities. This collection inspires us to nurture that future, together. Written collaboratively by more than 70 contributors, and born from the lived experiences of grassroots organizers, solidarity economy practitioners, and communities on the front lines of climate and economic crisis, Beautiful Solutions demonstrates that a more just and democratic world is not only possible鈥攊t鈥檚 actively under construction.

Conflict Kitchen

Written by Sydney Arndt

Believing that the quickest way to a person鈥檚 heart is through their stomach, Conflict Kitchen sought to promote peace and build cross-cultural understanding by introducing people to the food and culture of places with which their government is in conflict. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the brainchild of artist-activists Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski, Conflict Kitchen used a simple takeout window framed by a colorful facade to serve up the cuisine, and celebrate the culture of a succession of countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Palestine, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

The takeout window functioned as a platform for public dialogue, and the food line became a space for hungry Pittsburghers to engage with people and places the media consistently distorts and misrepresents. The takeout counter was staffed by chefs and public artists trained to facilitate conversations about the featured country. Each food wrapper was printed with personal profiles of people who live in the country being celebrated, as well as articles on the country鈥檚 food, art, religion, culture, and government.

To extend the experience beyond the takeout line and further encourage cross-cultural dialogue, Conflict Kitchen also organized public events that centered around food. Pittsburgh locals and Iranians in Tehran shared a meal via webcam in a virtual, city-to-city dinner party. Both groups made the same Persian recipes, then sat down to eat together. Other events have included informal lunch-hour discussions on food and politics, dinners with invited speakers, and live cooking lessons through Skype.

In November 2014, a series of death threats forced Conflict Kitchen to close down for nearly a week. In response to the threats and allegations of being anti-Israel, the directors of Conflict Kitchen emphasized that their purpose is to hold a loudspeaker to the voices and historical experiences of people from across the world鈥擯alestinians and Palestinian Americans included. The backlash they received is proof that this type of work is necessary.聽

Conflict Kitchen offered the public many points of entry, from the taste of a new dish, to interactions with employees or fellow customers, to the interviews printed on the food wrappers, and the intimate meals with people far away. Cultural exchange was central to the project; the organizers prioritized facilitating a space for locals and people overseas to express their respective points of view.

The webcam meals between Pittsburgh and abroad provided a temporary glimpse of what it can mean to share cultures, politics, and, of course, food. By creating a zone of open dialogue and cross-cultural understanding for at least one meal, Conflict Kitchen made a world where we listen to each other and draw our own conclusions seem possible. It used food as a vehicle for cross-cultural understanding鈥攁nd also provided delicious takeout.

Carolina Textile District and COVID-19

Guided by Marciela Lopez

Written by the Industrial Commons Team

Western North Carolina has long been a center for manufacturing, especially of textiles and furniture. Despite free-trade agreements, which stripped jobs from communities on both sides of the U.S.鈥揗exico border, one in four people in North Carolina鈥檚 Western Piedmont region still work in manufacturing. Many Guatemalan Mayan immigrants have settled in the area to work in textiles and furniture production. Over the years, they have shaped the region by campaigning for dignified workplaces. Organizer Molly Hemstreet witnessed their struggle to unionize a production facility in Morganton, North Carolina, and began to wonder: Could workers own and operate their own companies?

In 2008, Hemstreet and leaders from the Mayan community co-founded a sewing cooperative, Opportunity Threads. They drew on inspiration from Frank Adams, an early architect of the Highlander Folk School (now the Highlander Research and Education Center). Opportunity Threads has become one of the largest immigrant-led sewing co-ops in the United States, with more than 50 workers as of 2020.

Aiming to expand cooperativism across the textile industry and strengthen local supply chains, Hemstreet collaborated with the area鈥檚 economic development association and a textile research and development center to establish the Carolina Textile District (CTD). Fueled by its mantra, 鈥淏e big by being small together,鈥� CTD is a network that brings together over 30 small manufacturers, including Opportunity Threads, and is led by nine partners, representing 1,500 workers in total. Members cooperatively govern, train new workers, share contracts and contacts, develop strong ethical standards for the industry, and share their struggles and joys.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the United States in early 2020, CTD was well-positioned to produce personal protective equipment and cloth face masks. Pivoting its textile and furniture member-companies to manufacture medical supplies was a challenge with many moving parts. It required consulting with doctors and public-health professionals, navigating ever-changing federal guidelines, prototyping masks and gowns, sourcing medical-grade materials, organizing the cohorts of manufacturers, connecting with markets and sponsors, developing a cohesive warehousing and distribution center, upscaling production, and overseeing quality control. As factories in Western North Carolina were shuttering, CTD was not only safely keeping open their plants, but hiring as well. The pandemic underscored the need for CTD and accelerated the network鈥檚 growth.

Opportunity Threads was the hub for CTD鈥檚 sewn goods during the pandemic. Worker-owners responded quickly, putting their technical skills to use in developing market-ready goods. Other CTD members came on board to help. Since CTD members had several years of 鈥渃oopetition鈥� under their belts, the network rapidly developed new products and increased production. At one point, they were producing 50,000 units per week, which kept more than 60 mills humming. 鈥淲e have achieved so many things that we probably would not have been able to accomplish in a company owned by one person,鈥� says Maricela Lopez, a worker-owner at Opportunity Threads.

Through this project, CTD supplied 190,000 sanitary gowns to North Carolina鈥檚 Department of Health and Human Services and more than 500,000 face masks and other personal protective equipment to frontline workers. Additionally, it generated $2 million in revenue for its textile and furniture manufacturers. According to Sara Chester, CTD co-founder and Industrial Commons co-executive director, 鈥淲hen weekly mask production hit 40,000 units, [we] realized something tremendous was being achieved.鈥�

Instead of communities having to wait for companies to come in and to solve economic, health, and social problems, cooperative industry networks can solve critical problems quickly and creatively. This model is one replicable example of how rural communities can actively build an industry ecosystem where workers own a secure supply chain, collaborate in mutually beneficial ways, and solve their communities鈥� most pressing problems.

Public Pharmaceuticals

Written by Dana Brown

The global medicines market is dominated by large private drug companies responsible for a decline in meaningful innovation as well as skyrocketing prices, recurring shortages, troubling safety issues, and corruption in the institutions that are supposed to regulate them. These trends are harmful to our health, economies, and democracies鈥攁nd they are inevitable outcomes of an industry driven by profit maximization.

So-called 鈥淏ig Pharma鈥� companies spend less than one-fifth of their revenue on research and development, but half of their revenue on marketing. Many also regularly distribute more than 100 percent of profits to shareholders by selling off assets, taking on more debt, and downsizing production鈥攊nefficient and extractive practices in an industry we depend on for our health and well-being.

To get different outcomes, we need a different design. Democratic, public ownership of pharmaceutical institutions at scale would remove the profit motive and help reclaim medicine for the common good. Public ownership of pharmaceuticals can exist at any or all points in the supply chain, from research for new medications to manufacturing and distribution services. Since they are not beholden to shareholders and have some insulation from market pressures, they can focus on goals other than maximizing profits鈥攍ike contributions to public health, scientific advancement, and local economies.

From Massachusetts to the U.K., Thailand, India, and beyond, there are many existing examples of states turning to public ownership of pharmaceutical companies in efforts to combat high prices, medicine shortages, and political interference by multinational corporations.

Since 1960, Cuba鈥檚 entire pharmaceutical sector has been public. It produces both low-cost generic drugs and first-in-class discoveries, while providing thousands of good jobs and educational opportunities in the national economy. Known principally for its innovations鈥攍ike the world鈥檚 first lung cancer and meningitis B vaccines鈥攖he industry also manufactures most of the domestic supply of medicine and shares its technology with numerous low- and middle-income countries, lessening those countries鈥� reliance on Big Pharma to meet health care needs.

When properly resourced, Public Pharma can lower drug prices, reduce inefficiencies, and ensure broad, equitable access to new drugs. Public control of manufacturing, wholesale distribution, or retail pharmacies can serve as the basis for large-scale investments in public health, creating educational opportunities and decent jobs and increasing resilience in supply chains. South Korea, for instance, supports small and medium pharmaceutical companies with publicly owned manufacturing facilities, which generate local jobs and purchasing power that broadly benefit the economy.

Public Pharma can also assure that medications most essential to public health are prioritized for development. State-owned pharmaceutical companies in both Cuba and Brazil operate with explicit mandates to develop medications ignored by the market, like those for neglected tropical diseases, while Big Pharma companies prioritize medications that generate the most profit鈥攐ften copies of existing products.

Public Pharma can contribute to the creation of a biomedical commons in which life-saving technologies, and the information needed to produce and improve upon them, are treated as collective resources for all of humanity. Large-scale public ownership and control of the benefits of pharmaceutical innovation, for instance, could help facilitate programs in which the wealth created by the industry could prioritize serving historically marginalized communities, rather than perpetuating neglect in the name of business imperatives. Public Pharma is a vital tool for reorienting the purpose of health care from profits to human needs.

Successful examples from around the world can inform the design and development of a robust Public Pharma sector for any country. Sweden鈥檚 state-owned Apotek Produktion & Laboratorier AB has found a niche in specialty pharmaceutical manufacturing, selling products to dozens of countries, and directing any profits it earns to its only shareholder: the Swedish state. China鈥檚 and India鈥檚 state-owned drug companies have long produced a significant portion of the world鈥檚 supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Brazil鈥檚 state-owned labs produce more than 100 essential medications that allow its national health service to offer free and reduced-price medications to low-income patients.

Around the world鈥攅ven in the United States鈥攑ublic-sector labs were historically responsible for the development of most vaccines. Insulin as a treatment for diabetes was developed in a public lab in Canada and the subsequent sale of the rights to produce insulin to private United States manufacturers remains a powerful cautionary tale about the harm that can happen when privatizing public goods. Despite being a century-old drug, insulin prices in the U.S. have skyrocketed in recent years as the three companies that control virtually the entire insulin market make small tweaks on their products in order to take out new patents and continually raise prices. This trend has produced a uniquely American epidemic of cost-related deaths because of people rationing insulin.

Because of the U.S.鈥檚 outsized role in global trade talks and the utter dominance of its Big Pharma firms in the global medicines market, developing a public pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. in particular would be decisive in global efforts to roll back Big Pharma monopolies and reclaim medicine as a public good. It would reduce regulatory capture and shrink corporate lobbying, opening up political space for much broader input into the priorities and outputs of this critical industry. With democratic, public-sector institutions innovating and producing medications at scale, Big Pharma鈥檚 interests would no longer dominate, and public institutions would have incentives to cooperate instead of competing in times of public health crises.