From Alleviation to Empowerment: Ruminations on Poverty, Capitalism, and Communities

*In collaboration with Sixto K Roxas (Maximo T Kalaw Institute for Sustainable Development, Philippines)This book focuses on a community as a grassroots bargaining unit with requisite skills and capacities sufficient to restore some balance with governments and enterprises, specifically relating to resource allocation and land-use. Specifically, it presents a deployable operational platform for communities to represent their contributions and the value of their assets. Three fundamental requirements anchor the platform: (1) a specific boundary of a community defined in terms of its physical habitat and its ecological-economic-social linkages, (2) an underlying ideology synthesizing theories on epistemology, growth, development, evolution, sociobiology, human settlements, and integral thinking, and (3) a supportive community-based valuation system depicting the value of community assets, incorporating ecological dimensions.A compendium of updated papers, essays, and project reports, this book is based principally on a program by economist/community activist Sixto Roxas, who championed poverty eradication in impoverished communities for nearly 30 years. Readers will see this advocacy and grounded work not only in terms of a fruitful discourse but as an opportunity for an engaged reality.