Logo degrowth

Blog

"The dollar is approaching its collapse, which will force a reconfiguration of our systems of money, finance and banking"

14.02.2014

Interview with Ole Bjerg Ole Bjerg is associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School. He writes for the ephemera Journal and is one of the organizers of the conference "Organizing for the post-growth economy". He gave us a short interview for the Stream towards Degrowth.  

Imagine we're living in the future, say in the year 2030, in a time of well-being. Humanity
enjoys a good life beyond economic growth. Let's look back at the last few decades.
1. In what respect did society depend on growth? Society depends on the growth of living organisms, plants and animals. However, this kind of growth is taking place within a natural cycle of life and death so that nothing grows infinitely. 2.What obstacles impeded a turning away from economic growth? The major obstacle was the creation of money by banks as interest bearing debt. As soon as this obstacle was overcome through a monetary reform the need for perpetual economic growth became obsolete. 3. How did your actions contribute to a society beyond growth? Through my writing and teaching I played an active role in raising the awareness of the detrimental effects of the past monetary system and the benefits of the implementation of a new system based on full reserve banking. 4. From your point of view, what does well-being imply in a society that consciously chose low production and consumption levels? Freedom in the sense of being in control and in contact with the means of one’s own subsistence. 5. Which signs for a world beyond growth did you already notice in 2013? That the dollar is approaching its collapse, which will force a reconfiguration of our systems of money, finance and banking.

Share on the corporate technosphere


Our republication policy

Support us

Blog

Manifesto for the Reorganisation of the City after COVID-19

Kaspars upmanis nd2wzczrlle unsplash scaled

By: Massimo Paolini

The following text is a repost of an open letter to the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, setting out a manifesto for a reorganisation of the city in response to COVID-19. The manifesto currently has over 1600 signatures. Visit the manifesto website for more details and to add your signature: manifiesto.perspectivasanomalas.org/en The COVID19 pandemic and the experience of confinement h...

Blog

The neoliberal fuel to the anti-gender movement

Capture d e%cc%81cran 2019 11 20 a%cc%80 14.53.41

By: Elena Zacharenko

If progressives want to fight the movement against so-called ‘gender ideology’, they need to break with neoliberalism The number of newly elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who oppose women’s reproductive rights, gender equality, sexuality education, same sex marriage and the Council of Europe Convention on Violence Against Women (Istanbul Convention) stands at around 30 per...

Blog

Registration open, basic programme available

We are pleased to announce that registration to the conference is now open and the basic conference programme is available on our website: As of now, it includes seven keynote speeches and more than 20 panel discussions in addition to chosen scientific and artistic sessions. In the course of the coming weeks we will be completing the programme by around 250 further workshops and scientific sess...