A Letter from ILSR’s Co-Directors: Remembering David Morris (1945-2025)

Dear ILSR Community,

We are deeply saddened to share that David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and a pioneering voice for community-scaled economics and local self-determination, passed away on June 11, 2025, at the age of 79.

How do you honor someone whose five decades at the organization included the roles of co-founder, vice president, author, public voice, researcher, activist, and mentor — and whose work profoundly shaped a way of thinking about power, place, and policy? There’s no tribute equal to the task. We can only express our deep sorrow at losing him.

David and his co-founders envisioned a world in which communities could chart their own futures — equipped with the authority, responsibility, and capacity to govern themselves wisely and well. He believed that community-scaled systems and enterprises weren’t just viable; they were often far superior to large-scale ones, because their decision-making was rooted in place and strengthened the capacity of communities to govern themselves.

Although he imagined radically different ways of organizing society, his thinking was never sentimental or untethered. He demanded rigor. ILSR’s task, he believed, was to put “hard numbers on soft dreams.” His questions were deep and exacting, often reaching beyond what conventional research could answer. They called for extrapolation, structural analysis, and a deep understanding of how industries are organized and operate.

David understood that how we live, how our economies function, and how power is distributed are not inevitable outcomes of accident or fate. They are the result of policy choices. He expressed this through the creation of ILSR’s New Rules Project, with its tagline, “We make the rules and the rules make us,” which became an enduring motto for our work. Although that specific project has since concluded, its core idea continues to guide ILSR’s efforts to dismantle concentrated corporate power and build just, sustainable, and democratic communities.

Looking back at David’s more than 50 years of writing and speaking, what stands out is how remarkably prescient he was. He was an early and astute critic of the wave of corporate consolidation that began in the 1980s, the free trade orthodoxy that took root in the 1990s, and the “bigger is better” ideology that underpinned both. Today the consequences of those policy choices are widely evident and understood. David sounded the alarm before they were made.

But what made David truly exceptional among critics of the prevailing system was that he devoted significant energy to building alternatives. He was a visionary on multiple fronts. To take just one example: the ideas he proposed in the 1970s about local solar energy seemed far-fetched at the time. Yet we now live in a world where solar is the fastest-growing source of new power — and thanks to the work of David and others, much of it is locally owned.

David was committed to making ILSR’s ideas concrete and practical — to turning them into living, breathing realities. His influence has meant that ILSR has never been a traditional think tank. Together with partners on the ground, we have pioneered public broadband, built community-scaled recycling and composting systems, developed new local businesses, and much more.

Whether you’re encountering David’s work for the first time or have known him for decades (as many of us have), we invite you to join us in celebrating a life dedicated to creating a better world. We salute his many talents and accomplishments, and send our love and best wishes to Harriet and his family as we mourn this collective loss.

On behalf of all of us at ILSR,

Stacy Mitchell and John Farrell
ILSR Co-Executive Directors

Read David’s obituary here.

Learn more about and revisit highlights from his work and career here.