By Emily Kennedy, Huffington Post

I bet you haven't heard of the global movement that's demanding a democratic economy. The one that's unsatisfied with the corporate business model and the way banks dominate the system. The one that's been occupying the social change arena since 1844. They're the Co-Operative Movement.

By Stephen Healy and Boone Shear, Truthout.net

The early characterization of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement as a group of rudderless kids with no real chance of success was fantastically misplaced. The 99 percent continues to occupy more cities, more headlines and more of our collective imagination.

By Mira Luna, Shareable.net

Local currencies generally develop for one of two reasons — the desire for local economic control (for a variety of reasons, from democracy to sustainability to social justice,) and a scarcity of national currency. In the current situation, both reasons weigh heavy.

Equal Exchange of W. Bridgewater, MA, the worker cooperative which initiated fair trade with coffee farmers more than 20 years ago and one of the worker cooperative movement's oldest and more successful democratic organizations released a statement Oct. 27, 2011 "strongly" supporting, and urging others to support Occupy Wall Street. 

http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2011/10/27/equal-exchange-stands-with-occupy-wall-street/ 

by Ethan Miller

Previous: Part Six, "From Necessity to Possibility" and "From 'The Economy' to Economic solidarity and Democracy" (principles #4 and #5)...