Common Sense Economics is an approach to understanding and organizing economic life based on principles that are self-evident when we look at how healthy natural and social systems actually work. Rather than accepting extractive models as inevitable, Common Sense Economics asks: what would an economy look like if it were designed to serve people and the planet, rather than the other way around?
The term draws inspiration from movements like Grassroots Economics, which have shown in practice — in Kenya, South Africa, and elsewhere — that communities can design and operate their own economic tools to generate shared prosperity from within.
In nature, there is no waste — every output becomes an input for something else. A Common Sense Economy mirrors this by designing flows of value that circulate within communities rather than being extracted outward. Local currencies, mutual credit systems, and solidarity funds are practical tools that keep value circulating.
When ownership is concentrated, so is power. Common Sense Economics distributes ownership through cooperatives, community land trusts, and collective funds — ensuring that the people who create value also benefit from it.
Economic systems should meet the needs of everyone before generating surplus for the few. This shifts the organizing question from “how do we grow?” to “how do we ensure everyone has enough?“
Economic activity should restore rather than deplete — soil, relationships, time, and trust. A regenerative economy invests its surplus back into the commons: housing, education, shared infrastructure, and ecological restoration.
Healthy systems are resilient because they distribute decision-making. Common Sense Economics supports structures where people have real agency over the economies they participate in — not as consumers, but as co-owners and co-creators.
One of the most concrete tools of Common Sense Economics is the community currency — a medium of exchange that is issued locally and circulates within a defined community or network.
Unlike national currencies, which are scarce by design and flow toward existing concentrations of wealth, community currencies can be:
Projects like Cyclos provide open-source software for building such exchange networks, allowing neighborhoods, cooperatives, or municipalities to launch their own complementary currency systems.
A simple entry point is the commitment pool: community members pledge goods or services they can offer, and receive vouchers they can spend within the network. No one needs to have money to begin — only a willingness to contribute. This is how trust and reciprocity get encoded into economic life.
The Grassroots Economics Foundation has spent over a decade developing Community Inclusion Currencies (CICs) in East Africa. Their work demonstrates several key lessons:
SundRoot is exploring how these methods can be adapted for Malmö’s neighborhoods — particularly as a complement to cooperative employment and affordable housing initiatives.
Community currencies work best when they circulate through a dense network of cooperative enterprises — businesses that are owned and governed by their workers or members. Cooperatives are naturally aligned with Common Sense Economics because:
When cooperatives operate within a community currency network, they create a virtuous cycle: local purchasing power is generated, circulated, and reinvested — building community wealth from within.
SundRoot is working to plant the seeds of Common Sense Economics in Malmö, Skåne, by:
The goal is not to wait for a perfect system to emerge at the top — but to build the roots of a different economy, here, now, together.
Want to get involved? Reach out to SundRoot or follow our work on Open Collective.