We at Research & Degrowth are repeatedly being told that our framing won't work. That we are preaching to the choir by the way we frame our proposals, and that we will never convince the broader public. So, here are our policy proposals re-framed in the language of the U.S. elections.
Abolish all income tax on incomes lower than $50,000 dollars per year. Finance this tax break by establishing a sovereign carbon fund financed by charges to the oil, coal and natural gas industry and by a carbon fee on trade imports.
Make Friday a day off that we can dedicate to our families, friends and communities. Do not reduce salaries: same pay for four days of work. President Roosevelt did it during the Great Depression. This alone can create 10 million new jobs.
No bank should lend more than its deposits. Banks cannot be allowed to create money out of thin air, while all the rest of us have to work hard just to get by.
Each and everyone should have the freedom to choose how to live their lives free from illness, hunger or fear. Establish a permanent freedom income of $800 per month, for every American. Pay for the income like Alaska did with a sovereign carbon fund. If this is not enough, finance it with a sovereign capital fund, funded by a progressive fee on excessive capital.
Hard-working Americans should have the right to inhabit housing assets that are left unused for more than one year for the purpose of speculation.
This article is part of a series on degrowth.info discussing strategy in the degrowth movement. The introduction to the series and an ongoing list of contributions can be found here. In the article “Beyond visions and projects…”, by Herbert, Barlow, Frey, Ambach, and Cigna, the authors persuasively set out the case for a more explicit debate on strategy in the degrowth movement. Highlighting...
One of the most controversially discussed key tracks during the 5th International Degrowth Conference 2016 in Budapest was “Degrowth and other social movements”. Can degrowth be considered a movement? Does degrowth embrace all kinds of movements struggling for a sustainable future? On one hand, the notion of “degrowth movement(s)” was rigorously criticized for fragmenting the political struggle...
Bestehende Ansätze der Postwachstumsökonomik entspringen allesamt der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Perspektive. Die einzelwirtschaftliche Dimension einer Wirtschaft ohne Wachstum blieb bislang weitgehend außer Acht. Diese Forschungslücke ist frappierend, da volkswirtschaftliche Konzepte mit dem Ziel einer Wachstumsrücknahme wie das bedingungslose Grundeinkommen, die Umverteilung von Erwerbsarbeit, zinslose Geldsysteme oder Suffizienz zwar notwendige aber nicht hinreichende Bedingung für tragfähiges wachstumsneutrales Wirtschaften [...]
