Library

By: Branko Milanovic

A blog post by Branko Milanovic which is the third part of a discussion between him and Jason Hickel. Chronology of the discussion Original blog post by Branko Milanovic "The illusion of “degrowth” in a poor and unequal world" First reply by Jason Hickel "Why Branko Milanovic is wrong about de-growth" Reply by Branko Milanovic "The illusion of degrowth: Part II" Second Reply by Jason Hic...

By: Richard Swift, Naresh Giangrande

Co-Founder of the Transition Movement, Naresh Giangrande in conversation with Richard Swift, author of SOS Alternatives to Capitalism and a former editor of New Internationalist magazine for more than two decades. These two thinkers were brought together in the Caribbean island of Dominica, with Earthbooktv's Jessica Canham and Timothy Speaks Fishleigh at the Earthbook retreat centre in the...

By: Matthias Schmelzer, Alberto Acosta

Interview mit Alberto Acosta, geführt von Matthias Schmelzer Spätestens seit Geflüchtete im Sommer 2015 das europäische Grenzregime vorübergehend aus den Angeln gehoben haben, ist die Beschäftigung mit Fluchtursachen zu einem politischen Dauerbrenner avanciert. Dabei wird die Diskussion vor allem von Seiten der Regierungen und der Rechten geführt, mit dem Ziel, Migration von vornherein zu ve...

By: Mauro Bonaiuti

Keywords: Involuntary degrowth; Promethean technologies; Declining marginal returns on innovation; Georgescu-Roegen bioeconomics; Complex system theory; TFP growth

By: Alf Hornborg

Keywords: Resilience, money, degrowth, capitalism

By: Leandro Vergara-Camus

Summary: In the third post of the Ecology after capitalism series, divided in Part I and Part II, Leandro Vergara-Camus argues that the root causes of the socially and ecologically destructive character of capitalism is not to be found in growth, but in capitalist accumulation. He suggests that growth can be greened in a post-capitalist society if the institutions and dynamics that force capita...

By: Raul Zelik

Teaser: Zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte der Menschheit leben wir in einem echten Weltsystem: dem Kapitalismus. Er ist dabei, sich zu Tode zu siegen. Der Ausstieg aus der heißlaufenden Maschine Kapitalismus stellt eine gewaltige Herausforderung dar. Auf der Suche nach gesellschaftlichen Alternativen kommen wir um die Frage nach dem Gemeineigentum nicht herum.

By: Madalina Balau

Presentation by Madalina Balau In Romania all parents want to offer their children a better life and a better future, sometimes with their own sacrifice, yet the years following communist regime have brought unsustainable development, present in environmental degradation and social insecurity. After living in communism and knowing how bad it was, people have been accustoming for the last 26 ye...

By: Jan C. Zoellick

Presentation by Jan C. Zoellick Degrowth is a conglomerate of several streams of thought offering a variety of sometimes conflicting positions (Demaria et al., 2013). Some of these tensions smoulder inexplicitly below the surface of celebrated diversity. This proposal explicates the tension between conservative and reformist approaches on the one hand and revolutionary approaches driving for...

By: Alexander Capistran

A skilled and interdisciplinary use of empowering technologies and proactive visionary thinking is, due to Accelerationist thinkers as Armen Avanessian or Nick Srnicek, the most viable strategy for emancipative transformation. Referring to a long history of left thinking (back to Marx himself), Accelerationist theoreticians claim that emancipation from the oppressive capitalist system should dw...

By: Jan C. Zoellick

Degrowth is a conglomerate of several streams of thought offering a variety of sometimes conflicting positions (Demaria et al., 2013). Some of these tensions smoulder inexplicitly below the surface of celebrated diversity. This proposal explicates the tension between conservative and reformist approaches on the one hand and revolutionary approaches driving for fundamental change on the other ha...

By: Dennis Eversberg, Barbara Muraca, Eric Pineault

Modern western societies stabilize themselves through economic growth. As long as growth is maintained, stability is continuously, yet dynamically restored. It is getting increasingly obvious that this dynamisation logic is reaching its limits, triggering negative effects for the socio-economic, political and cultural reproduction of capitalism. In industrialized countries, further growth seems...

By: Mikael Malmaeus

Historically, value theories used to be at the heart of critiques of capitalism. However, contemporary economists rarely focus on value theories, and the labor theory of value has not been discussed in relation to macroeconomic growth or in the context of degrowth. In this article it is theoretically and empirically demonstrated that economic values at the macroeconomic level are fundamentally ...

By: Kristoffer Wilén, Marko Ulvila

In our study, we take a closer look at the ‘Anthropos’ (i.e. the humans) who have caused the processes and changes in the environments, which then have led to the “Anthropocene”. The “Anthropocene” narrative is predominantly presented as something that the entire humankind, the human species, is responsible for. But what happens when you apply a class perspective to the analysis? Hence, we will...

By: Barbara Muraca

In her keynote speech, Barbara Muraca will outline the key strategies for degrowth, specifically reflecting on the following topics, which are also the guiding topics of the third day of the conference: -Changing networks of production and consumption and driving political action -Degrowth as a fundamentally social challenge, involving structural changes of social practices, institutions and ...

By: Steffen Lange

Several recent contributions have discussed the feasibility of establishing a non-growing or a degrowth society within capitalism (Brand, 2014; Foster, 2011; Hahnel, 2012; Klitgaard, 2013; Magdoff & Foster, 2010). These analyses come to the conclusion that capitalism and degrowth are not compatible. A first set of reasons is connected to central dynamics of capitalism, in particular market ...

By: DEFNE

Environmental justice movements are taking place at an ever accelerating rate through out the world. Through mobilization of people with diverse societal backgrounds, race, ethnicity, age, gender and income levels, they not only challenge the existing state-society-economy spectrum but also contain important clues about an alternative to capitalism. As crisis vocabulary has become a chronic par...

By: Phedeas Stephanides, Esra Erdem, Esra Erdem, Bianca Elzenbaumer Fabio Franz, Ana Inés Heras, Lise Skou

Rethinking Degrowth with Diverse Economies (Panel 1): Narratives and visions of actually-existing degrowth praxis As there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist status-quo, the task of overcoming capitalism through degrowth appears daunting. This implicates that degrowth concepts become confined to either pre-capitalist cultures or a future society. How, then, might we escape this stult...

By: Phedeas Stephanides, Ana Inés Heras, Tuomo Alhojärvi, Tuomo Alhojärvi, Bronwen Morgan

As there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist status-quo, the task of overcoming capitalism through degrowth appears daunting. How, then, might we escape this impasse and build an emancipatory narrative? This two-part session brings together researchers affiliated with the international Community Economies Research Network (CERN) to start this dialogue. Analyses inspired by locally gene...

By: Matthias Rätzer

Within a general orientation towards growth, ecologic (Meadows et al. 2004), economic (e.g.Martinez Alier 2009) as well as social (Hirsch 1976) problems remain unsolved. Modern approaches seek applicability in reduction of emissions (see Kyoto protocol, COP 21 2015) and Green-New-Deal-trade-offs to cope with a globalized village. The maxim is to produce, act and be ‘sustainable’ – but – within ...