"Because we know in our hearts that the very nature of a capital economy with its narrow notion of the meaning of investment must result in some people being rich and some people being poor, those of us concerned with poverty seem almost reconciled to accepting that the poor must always be with us. And so our language has changed - we no longer seek to eradicate poverty, we seek to alleviate it. Poverty is no longer an injustice, a blot on our civilisation and society- it is an inevitable part of it." - Stan Thekaekara

The writer of that statement is the person with whom I am working these days. He brought me here to Pondicherry and we are researching the sharing system in fisher communities in on the coast of South India. What we are learning is fascinating and we hope to publish these findings in case study in which we put forward an idea of participative capital.

How the hell did I get involved in this? Well that's a much longer story and I will tell you more about it soon, I hope. But the larger picture is this group called Just Change, of which Stan is one of the visionaries and founders, and the group's goal of directly linking "local" communities, across India and locally, in a more just trading relationship. In this relationship, the owner of capital is not the only one who makes the profits, but rather all members of the production process, producers (laborers), investors, and consumers gain benefits. This type of production with a focus on benefits for all forms the basis of our alternative vision of participative capital.

Perhaps this seems a bit too much to digest all at once, but a movement has already started, and the more I learn the more I'm amazed. It all started with Stan's group ACCORD, and the Adivasis he has been working with for the past 20 years. They went from landless unskilled laborers to tea-plantation owners, and now they have begun trading their tea with other communities in India as well as with poor communities in the UK. These other communities either add value to the process, in the UK they market and distribute the tea, and thus gain benefits; and here in India the other communites trade in other commodities, such as rice, dhal and coconut oil. Our goal is to work within the market, to create more just trade relationships, and work for local control over the economy.

It's the next step after the Fair Trade Movement, and it's very exciting. I'm learning so much everyday and so grateful for this time I'm spending in India. I'll probably return to the US next year and either work for another year, or if I get in, go to the law school of my choice. But that's all in the future, right now I'm living, and it's amazing work. If any of you are interested in learning more about the Just Change concept, in helping out, from wherever you are in the world, or in becoming a potential investor in the Just Change idea, please contact me. There's a lot of work we need to do together to develop these ideas and the proper legal and financial instruments that will be required to make this work possible.

My next step is to work on setting up a socially responsible investing enterprise, in which people from around the world can invest in another tea plantation to be managed by Adivasis, in which they get to reclaim their land, and produce tea for the Just Change network. The Investors will be guaranteed a supply of high-quality tea for a long time in the near future. Interested? Read more about Stan, his work, and Just Change here, this is a lecture he delivered in Scotland, : http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/thekaekara2.htm

"In their rhetoric, governments of rich countries constantly stress their commitment to poverty reduction. Yet the same governments use their trade policy to conduct what amounts to robbery against the world's poor. When developing countries export to rich-country markets, they face tariff barriers that are four times higher than those encountered by rich countries. Those barriers cost them $100 billion a year- twice as much as they receive in aid."