Responding with and for Joy

This piece was written for a Rethinking Marxism (2025) Symposium on The Handbook of Diverse Economies.

Dombroski and Gibson-Graham, the co-editors of The Handbook, respond to the four review essays in the Symposium with curiosity amid bizarre and dark times in the global political economy: billionaires co-opting working-class politics in the United States, colonial ambitions in Aotearoa New Zealand undermining Indigenous gains, and environmental devastation deepening despair. The Handbook and review essays together remind us that both old and new thinking tools can offer sustenance. As the reviewers note, wallowing in despair and reifying the bizarre elements of political economy reflects a privileged stance. The fleeting pleasure of being the all-knowing analytical subject—akin to the paranoid subject—offers control over horrors, but at a cost. Inspired by their reviewers, the Handbook co-editors shift from despair and control to the sustained joy of learning from multiplicity and difference, advocating for joy and speculation while inventorying diverse economies to nurture the flourishing Community Economies Institute and the related Community Economies Research Network. 

Available via Rethinking Marxism, click here.  

Open access via Massey University, click here.