We, organizers and participants at the Degrowth Vienna 2020 conference demand equity and justice. We stand in solidarity with the people in the United States challenging white supremacist culture and with related global struggles. As activists, academics, artists, and practitioners we aim together to put an end to systemic oppression and structural racism; as again has been recently revealed by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor or Ahmad Auber. The conference expresses its global solidarity with all victims of police violence and systemic racism, and supports the antifascist movements facing criminalization. Racism and coercion are political issues that cannot be tackled on a moral basis only. This murder is the result of an oppressive and exploitative system where racism and coercion are key in maintaining domination and the exploitation of women, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and historically marginalized trans-/queer/non-binary people, people with disabilities, the working-class, and natures. Ending systemic racism is a liberatory means towards human emancipation. This requires the rejection of a policing system based on the devalorization of human beings as well as the destruction of nature, for the sake of capital accumulation through a white supremacist culture by political and economic elites. Overcoming systemic racism includes the rejection of the prison-industrial complex, reinforcing capitalist exploitation by criminalizing lives. It additionally calls for a transformation of the organisation of executive functions, away from oppression, and instead centred on the protection of human rights. We recognise that degrowth as a movement is still white dominated and euro-centered, and thus susceptible to the same structural discrimination that plagues our systems. We commit to work consciously as a community to address and improve in regards to racism internally. As a movement we fight for a world where every human and non-human being — of any colour, any gender, any sex and/or sexual orientation, any ableness, no matter of their geographic and social origins, beliefs or opinions — is entitled to dignity and to a meaningful and decent life. Thus, the degrowth movement fully embraces the claims of the protestors throughout the United States and beyond and expresses its support. With the awareness that our paths are still detached, we aim to advance our convergence and struggle forth in unity.
On top of the ethical, environmental and epidemiological arguments, the animal liberation perspective can also provide an alternative historical view on growth. This article explores the historical connections between animal exploitation, growth and violence, and the lessons these offer for degrowth today. A previous article on this blog argued that degrowth should incorporate an eth...
I come from the dark side. Between 1994 and 1999, I studied at two business schools. Then I worked in advertising and marketing from 1999 until 2016 — for 17 years. First I was an employee in a couple of advertising agencies. Then I got a doctorate in Marketing and helped build our own specialised agency, with a group of friends and colleagues. The one over-riding goal of everything was alwa...
The arrival of smartphones, self-driving cars and the Cloud are all symptomatic of a profound shift that is re-writing modern society from within: the Fourth Industrial Revolution. New technologies claim to provide answers to a host of problems, but is technology unbound always a force for good? In the first of a three-part series on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, EcoPolítica’s Paz Serra...
