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Redistribution, not growth - why the Left should embrace degrowth

09.11.2015

By Giorgos Kallis

A new Left has to be an ecological Left, or it won’t be left at all. Environmental change ‘changes everything’ for the Left too, Naomi Klein argued. Capitalism requires constant expansion, an expansion predicated on exploitation of humans and non-humans, that irreversibly damages the climate. A non-capitalist economy will have to sustain itself while contracting. But how can we redistribute or secure meaningful work without growth? There is not yet a concrete ‘economics of degrowth’. Lamentably, Keynesianism is the most powerful tool the Left, even the Marxist Left, has for dealing with issues of policy. But this is an economics of the 1930s when unlimited expansion was still possible and desirable.

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Happy 10th birthday Degrowth!

By: Federico Demaria

From a provocative activist slogan to an academic concept towards policy making This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first international degrowth conference in Paris (2008). This event introduced the originally French activist slogan décroissance into the English-speaking world and international academia as degrowth. I want to take stock of the last decade in terms of conference...

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Räume schaffen zum Erproben einer anderen Wirklichkeit

By: Christiane Kliemann

Eindrücke von der Degrowth Sommerschule und dem Klimacamp im Rheinland Zum zweiten Mal ist jetzt die Degrowth Sommerschule auf dem Klimacamp im Rheinland zuende gegangen mit ca. 800-900 Teilnehmenden auf dem Camp. Während es letztes Jahr  vor allem um Klimagerechtigkeit ging und darum, die Degrowth- und Klimagerechtigkeitsbewegung zusammenzubringen, ist dieses Jahr daraus eine solide Partnersc...

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Who says what is absurd? - Experiences of Defamiliarization

By Corinna Burkhart Humans get used to quite a lot of things and live their daily life through a set of what we can call habits. Everyday experiences are not much worth a thought as long as everything is like it always is. This can be driving by car to town, only to get stuck in the usual traffic jam, or something very simple like flushing the toilet or using knife and fork to eat a grilled pi...