“This book gave me a new lens to see the world.”—Robert Krulwich, former co-host of WNYC’s Radiolab

Layoffs upend people’s lives, cause enormous stress, and lead to debilitating personal debt. The societal harm caused by mass layoffs has been known for decades. Yet, we do little to stop them. Why? Why do we allow whole communities to be destroyed by corporate decision-makers? Why do we consider mass layoffs a natural, baked-in feature of modern financialized capitalism?

In Wall Street’s War on Workers, Les Leopold, co-founder of the Labor Institute, provides a clear lens with which we can see how healthy corporations in the United States have used mass layoffs and stock buybacks to enrich shareholders at the expense of employees. With detailed research and concise language, Leopold explains why mass layoffs occur and how our current laws and regulations allow companies to turn these layoffs into short-term financial gains.

Original and insightful, Wall Street’s War on Workers places US labor practices in the broader context of our social and political life, examining the impact financial strip-mining and legalized looting are having on party politics, destroying the integrity of democratic institutions. Leopold expertly lays out how the proliferation of opioids coupled with Wall Street’s destruction of jobs in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have led to widespread mass layoff fatalism. Democrats have unarguably lost the longstanding support of millions of urban and rural workers, and Leopold points out how party leaders have been wrong about the assumption that the white working class is becoming less progressive and motivated to abandon the Democratic Party by reactionary positions on divisive social issues.

With deep analyses, stark examples, and surprisingly simple proactive steps forward, Leopold also asserts that:

• • Surviving and thriving in a competitive global economy does not require mass layoffs.

• • A new virulent, financialized version of American capitalism is policy driven.

• • To end mass layoffs, Wall Street’s domination of our economy must end.

• • The accepted “wisdom” about white working-class populism is wrong.

• • Ending stock buybacks and changing corporate officers’ pay structures could eliminate mass layoffs.

• • Mass layoffs are not the result of inevitable economic “laws” or new technologies like artificial intelligence.

Both groundbreaking and urgent, Wall Street’s War on Workers not only offers solutions that could halt mass layoffs but also offers new hope for workers everywhere.

“Leopold offers a contrarian yet compelling take on America’s “white working class” . . . [and says] Democrats in 2024 ignore this massive, potentially sympathetic voting bloc at their peril.”—Booklist (starred review)

The post Wall Street’s War on Workers (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

“This book gave me a new lens to see the world.”—Robert Krulwich, former co-host of WNYC’s Radiolab

Addressing the pressing issues affecting everyday Americans during an election year is essential—and one of our nation’s most profound challenges is the devastating impact of mass layoffs. Layoffs upend people’s lives, cause enormous stress, and lead to debilitating personal debt. The societal harm caused by mass layoffs has been known for decades. Yet, we do little to stop them. Why? Why do we allow whole communities to be destroyed by corporate decision-makers? Why do we consider mass layoffs a natural, baked-in feature of modern financialized capitalism? And what are our elected officials going to do about it?

In Wall Street’s War on Workers, Les Leopold, co-founder of the Labor Institute, provides a clear lens with which we can see how healthy corporations in the United States have used mass layoffs and stock buybacks to enrich shareholders at the expense of employees. With detailed research and concise language, Leopold explains why mass layoffs occur and how our current laws and regulations allow companies to turn these layoffs into short-term financial gains.

Original and insightful, Wall Street’s War on Workers places US labor practices in the broader context of our social and political life, examining the impact financial strip-mining and legalized looting are having on party politics, destroying the integrity of democratic institutions. Leopold expertly lays out how the proliferation of opioids coupled with Wall Street’s destruction of jobs in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have led to widespread mass layoff fatalism. Democrats have unarguably lost the longstanding support of millions of urban and rural workers, and Leopold points out how party leaders have been wrong about the assumption that the white working class is becoming less progressive and motivated to abandon the Democratic Party by reactionary positions on divisive social issues.

With deep analyses, stark examples, and surprisingly simple proactive steps forward, Leopold also asserts that:

• Surviving and thriving in a competitive global economy does not require mass layoffs.
• A new virulent, financialized version of American capitalism is policy driven.
• To end mass layoffs, Wall Street’s domination of our economy must end.
• The accepted “wisdom” about white working-class populism is wrong.
• Ending stock buybacks and changing corporate officers’ pay structures could eliminate mass layoffs.
• Mass layoffs are not the result of inevitable economic “laws” or new technologies like artificial intelligence.

Both groundbreaking and urgent, Wall Street’s War on Workers not only offers solutions that could halt mass layoffs but also offers new hope for workers everywhere.

“Leopold offers a contrarian yet compelling take on America’s “white working class” . . . [and says] Democrats in 2024 ignore this massive, potentially sympathetic voting bloc at their peril.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Wall Street’s War on Workers  the book neither party wants you to read . . . [It] penetrates one of the chief media deceptions of the 21st century, namely that working-class voters are driven by racism and xenophobia, and not by a more simple, enraging motive: they’ve been repeatedly ripped off, by the wealthy donors to both parties.”—Matt Taibbi

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Named a “Best Book for Budding Farmers” by Country Living

“Flower Farming for Profit does a deep dive into the least glamorous, but most important part of farming—how to run a profitable business. This must-have book is incredibly thoughtful, well organized, and brimming with real-life examples. Lennie’s down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach to the numbers is a breath of fresh air.”—Erin Benzakein, owner, Floret Farm; New York Times bestselling author of Floret Farm’s A Year in Flowers

With practical, step-by-step instructions and on-the-ground examples at every scale, Flower Farming for Profit is a comprehensive, beautiful guide to achieving profitability as a cut flower farmer.

When Lennie Larkin set out to become a flower farmer, she found all sorts of resources about growing flowers but a scarcity of reliable information on how to build a profitable cut flower business. How do you create efficient systems and adequately value your own time and effort through your pricing? When and how should you consider scaling up your farm? How can you make doing what you love support you financially?

In Flower Farming for Profit, Larkin answers these questions—and many, many more. With instructive lessons and savvy business tips from her own and other successful farms around the world, she explores:

• The diverse challenges of both wholesale and retail sales channels, from florists and farm stands to farmers markets
• Streamlining weddings for the farmer-florist, from communications to floral design
• Efficient recordkeeping and bookkeeping
• Steps for conducting your own cost-of-production analysis
• Marketing and growth strategies
• Business planning, goal setting, and making financial projections
• Crop planning based on local climatic conditions, market demand, and sales projections

The cut flower industry continues to experience wild growth. To successfully do what they love while expanding the market for sustainably produced flowers, new and experienced farmers alike must deliberately step back from the field and into the office. Flower Farming for Profit is a one-of-a-kind guide to creating the type of numbers-driven business that will allow individual farms to prosper and local flower economies to thrive.

The post Flower Farming for Profit first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

*From one of the Vogue Business 100 Innovators List – 2023

“[T]his wonderful project and book, executed with great charm and creativity, is an important message.” Anya Hindmarch

In this personal investigation into ethical and traceable leather, fashion designer Alice Robinson begins a ground-breaking journey into the origin story of leather and its connection to food and farming.

As a fashion student, Alice started to question the material she worked with. Leather is universally acknowledged as a luxury material, from which desirable bags, shoes and clothing are made. But how much do we know about where it comes from?

Alice’s questions led back to her childhood home in rural Shropshire, where she decided to buy Bullock 374 and follow its journey from a local farm to the abattoir, then to the butchery and finally to the tannery. The journey culminates with Alice’s own design practice as she creates a collection based on this single hide.

In doing so, Alice would begin to see the bigger picture – and connect farm, food and fashion for the first time to understand the true meaning of provenance, value and beauty.

The post Field, Fork, Fashion first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

A fascinating and provocative investigation into the global business of herbal supplements and products—asking whether it delivers on its healing promise to consumers, suppliers, and the environment.

Using herbal medicines to heal the body is an ancient practice, but in the twenty-first century, it is also a worldwide industry: In 2019, consumers spent over $9 billion on herbal supplements. Yet most consumers know very little about where those herbs come from and how they are processed into the many products that fill store shelves.

Author Ann Armbrecht, director of the Sustainable Herbs Program of the American Botanical Council, reveals the inner workings of a complicated industry, with players that range from small farms where herbs are harvested by hand, to wild collectors who gather herbs using traditional practices, to industrial production fields where herbs are harvested by combines. Her investigation brings up questions about whether the health benefits of medicinal herbs can be preserved when production expands to an industrial scale. Armbrecht shares stories from the people and places she visits around the world, including:

• A massive industrial facility in New Jersey that produces herbal supplements on a factory floor the size of a soccer field
• A mid-scale herb processing company in Poland struggling to implement rigorous fair-trade certification standards
• A mission-driven farm in Vermont building a network of herbalists committed to buying certified organic and domestically grown herbs for their products
• An ecologically conscious herb company working to protect endangered hornbills in India by creating a market for the fruit of the bibhitaki trees in which they nest

The Business of Botanicals is the first book to explore the interconnected web of the global herb industry and its many stakeholders, and will be an invaluable resource for consumers who want to better understand the safety and efficacy of the products they buy.

The post The Business of Botanicals (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

Art hacks life when two filmmakers launch a project to cancel more than £1m of high-interest debt from their local community.

Bank Job is a white-knuckle ride into the dark heart of our financial system, in which filmmaker and artist duo Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn risk their sanity to buy up and abolish debt by printing their own money in a disused bank in Walthamstow, London. Tired of struggling in an economic system that leaves creative people on the fringes, the duo weave a different story, both risky and empowering, of self-education and mutual action. Behind the opaque language and defunct diagrams, they find a system flawed by design but ripe for hacking. This is the inspiring story of how they listen and act upon the widespread desire to change the system to meet the needs of many and not just the few. And for those among us brave enough, they show how we can do this too in our own communities one bank job at a time.

The post Bank Job (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

With a new epilogue about Bill Gates’s global agenda and how we can resist the billionaires’ war on life

Widespread poverty and malnutrition, an alarming refugee crisis, social unrest, and economic polarization have become our lived reality as the top 1% of the world’s seven-billion-plus population pushes the planet—and all its people—to the social and ecological brink.

In Oneness vs. the 1%, Vandana Shiva takes on the Billionaires Club of Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg, as well as other modern empires whose blindness to the rights of people, and to the destructive impact of their construct of linear progress, have wrought havoc across the world. Their single-minded pursuit of profit has undemocratically enforced uniformity and monocultures, division and separation, monopolies and external control—over finance, food, energy, information, healthcare, and even relationships.

Basing her analysis on explosive, little-known facts, Shiva exposes the 1%’s model of philanthrocapitalism, which is about deploying unaccountable money to bypass democratic structures, derail diversity, and impose totalitarian ideas based on One Science, One Agriculture, and One History. She calls for the “resurgence of real knowledge, real intelligence, real wealth, real work, real well-being,” so that people can reclaim their right to: Live Free. Think Free. Breathe Free. Eat Free.

The post Oneness vs. the 1% (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

A new “farm-to-closet” vision for the clothes we wear–by a leader in the movement for local textile economies

There is a major disconnect between what we wear and our knowledge of its impact on land, air, water, labor, and human health. Even those who value access to safe, local, nutritious food have largely overlooked the production of fiber, dyes, and the chemistry that forms the backbone of modern textile production. While humans are 100 percent reliant on their second skin, it’s common to think little about the biological and human cultural context from which our clothing derives.

Almost a decade ago, weaver and natural dyer Rebecca Burgess developed a project focused on wearing clothing made from fiber grown, woven, and sewn within her bioregion of North Central California. As she began to network with ranchers, farmers, and artisans, she discovered that even in her home community there was ample raw material being grown to support a new regional textile economy with deep roots in climate change prevention and soil restoration. A vision for the future came into focus, combining right livelihoods and a textile system based on economic justice and soil carbon enhancing practices. Burgess saw that we could create viable supply chains of clothing that could become the new standard in a world looking to solve the climate crisis.

In Fibershed readers will learn how natural plant dyes and fibers such as wool, cotton, hemp, and flax can be grown and processed as part of a scalable, restorative agricultural system. They will also learn about milling and other technical systems needed to make regional textile production possible. Fibershed is a resource for fiber farmers, ranchers, contract grazers, weavers, knitters, slow-fashion entrepreneurs, soil activists, and conscious consumers who want to join or create their own fibershed and topple outdated and toxic systems of exploitation..

The post Fibershed (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

The original Mid-Course Correction, published 20 years ago, became a classic in the sustainability field. It put forth a new vision for what its author, Ray C. Anderson, called the “prototypical company of the 21st century”—a restorative company that does no harm to society or the environment. In it Anderson recounts his eureka moment as founder and leader of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s largest carpet and flooring companies, and one that was doing business in all the usual ways. Bit by bit, he began learning how much environmental destruction companies like his had caused, prompting him to make a radical change. Mid-Course Correction not only outlined what eco-centered leadership looks like, it also mapped out a specific set of goals for Anderson’s company to eliminate its environmental footprint.

Those goals remain visionary even today, and this second edition delves into how Interface worked toward making them a reality, birthing one of the most innovative and successful corporate sustainability efforts in the world. The new edition also explores why we need to create not only prototypical companies, but also the prototypical economy of the twenty-first century. As our global economy shifts toward sustainability, challenges like building the circular economy and reversing global warming present tremendous opportunities for business and industry. Mid-Course Correction Revisted contains a new foreword by Paul Hawken, several new chapters by Ray C. Anderson Foundation executive director John A. Lanier, and interviews with Janine Benyus, Joel Makower, Andrew Winston, Ellen MacArthur and other leaders in green enterprise, the circular economy, and biomimicry.

A wide range of business readers—from sustainability professionals to green entrepreneurs to CEOs—will find both wise advice and concrete examples in this new look at a master in corporate and environmental leadership, and the legacy he left.

The post Mid-Course Correction Revisited (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.

How to Articulate and Assess What Success Looks Like

The Social Profit Handbook offers those who lead, govern, and support mission-driven organizations and businesses new ways to assess their impact in order to improve future work rather than merely judge past performance.

For-profit institutions measure their success primarily by monetary gains. But nonprofit institutions are different; they aim for social profit. How do you measure the success of these social profit institutions, where missions are focused on the well-being of people, place, and planet?

Drawing upon decades of leadership in schools and the foundation and nonprofit worlds, author David Grant offers strategies—from creating mission time to planning backwards to constructing qualitative assessment rubrics—that help organizations take assessment back into their own hands, and improve their work as a result. His insights, illustrated by numerous case studies, make this book a unique organizational development tool for a wide range of nonprofit organizations, as well as emerging mission-based social venture businesses, such as low-profit corporations and B Corps.

The Social Profit Handbook presentsassessment and evaluation not as ends in themselves but as the path toward achieving what matters most in the social sector. The result: more benefits to society and stronger, more unified, more effective organizations prepared to make the world a better place.

The post The Social Profit Handbook (Audiobook) first appeared on Chelsea Green Publishing.