The Institute for Local Self-Reliance on building local equity through redistribution.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) discusses the release of its 2015 annual report. I refer to this fact primarily owing to the opportunity to emphasize a specific passage.

Building Local Equity: ILSR’s Impact in 2015

 ... Since our founding, building equity has been a core value and aim of our work. The word “equity” originally meant fairness or equality. Today the term has degenerated into a narrow reference to the ownership of property or stock. A growing movement is trying to recapture its original emphasis, and is shaping public discourse from the neighborhoods of Baltimore to the Vatican to the Presidential campaign trail. ILSR is part of that movement.

The conventional debate about economic inequality focuses on income redistribution. We believe a redistribution of power makes possible a redistribution of income. 

ILSR fights the centralization of economic and political power in pivotal sectors – energy, waste, telecommunications, retail, and banking – and argues for decentralized systems and rules that are just and fair ...