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.
Read the whole article in the New Internationalist
„Wer von der Akkumulation des Kapitals nicht reden will, soll zum Wachstum schweigen,“ so einer der vielen prägenden Sätze des Politikwissenschaftlers Elmar Altvater, der am 1. Mai gestorben ist. Als Lehrer, Redner, Autor und kritischer Denker ist sein Werk prägend für die deutschsprachige wachstumskritische Debatte und darüber hinaus. Die Diskussion um Postwachstum und Degrowth hat viel von ih...
The fifth international Degrowth Conference is over, the call to host the sixth has been opened. A lot could be said about the conference, yet I do not intend to give a comprehensive overview, nor examine how it stands in relation with the former conferences. Instead, I want to share five aspects of the conference, which I found particularly insightful. 1. A Degrowth Conference in Hungary? ...
The climate crisis is a consequence of our economic system. Economic solutions, like carbon trading were supposed to be a problem solver. Despite such efforts, CO2 levels kept rising. Should we consider changing our economic system instead? And which role do environmental NGOs play in the battle for climate justice? Joanna Cabello, activist and researcher on environmental justice and part of...
