Spring Campaign for Writers at the Edge

This week, meet our founder, Peter Barnes

“If we look at the world today, it doesn’t look good. Our planet, our democracy and our society are all teetering on edges. In such a world, we more than ever need refuges for sanity and hope, retreats from which ideas and words can ripple out and change the world. I founded the Mesa Refuge 25 years ago to be a ‘place for writing at the edge.’ By that I meant two things: first, writing at a place that is physically at the edge between civilization and wildness; and second, writing that inspires change in the larger world.

Being physically at an edge opens the mind to new perspectives, while writing at an edge in its larger sense means seeing beyond old paradigms and pointing the way to new possibilities. I am thrilled that the Mesa Refuge is and can continue to be such a place, and I’m so grateful to everyone who has made that possible.”

Watch Peter talk about his new book in the New Economic Thinking Interview (2022)

The Mesa Refuge founder, Peter Barnes, is an entrepreneur and writer who has focused on fixing the tragic flaws of capitalism—its unceasing destruction of nature and widening of inequality among humans. His books and writings explore a possible path to protect and share common wealth, including Ours: The Case for Universal Property, Pawns: The Plight of the Citizen-Soldier, Who Owns the Sky?, Capitalism 3.0, and With Liberty and Dividends For All.

Peter began his career as a reporter on The Lowell (Mass.) Sun, and was subsequently a Washington correspondent for Newsweek and west coast correspondent for The New Republic. In 1976 he co-founded a worker-owned solar energy company in San Francisco, and in 1983 he co-founded Working Assets Money Fund. He subsequently served as president of Working Assets Long Distance (now Credo Mobile). In 1995 he was named Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. Find out more about Peter on his website.

Will you support writers like Peter Barnes by donating to our spring campaign?
DONATE HERE

Campaign photos by Jean Melesaine