Library

By: Christian Kerschner, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers

Abstract: The way our society sees and relates itself to technology is crucial for the debate on economic degrowth. Latouche and others have recognized this and propose, a highly critical if not pessimist attitude. A position which goes back to Georgescu-Roegen but more importantly to Ivan Illich and those authors which describe technological systems as autonomous social systems; most prominent...

By: Jeppe Graugaard

Abstract: If visions and strategies for a post-growth world are to be effective they will have to engage with the ways in which our sense of reality is imagined and produced symbolically, narratively and cognitively. This involves engaging with the way particular worldviews are constituted through a web of metaphors, cultural myths and social conventions, and brings into play the foundational a...

By: Maja Goepel

Abstract: Humans create stories about why they are here, what the purpose of this journey is and how to relate to their human and natural environment. These stories rest on some core ideas that feed into the common language and sense-making that people apply when engaging in collaboration, the design of institutions or legitimization of domination. Looking at what the story of neoclassical econ...

By: Markus Flück

Abstract: My starting point is that the “green revolution” and free trade policies haven’t been successful towards solving hunger problems and might even endanger the nutrition system of the whole human society. On the consumption side, especially in the north, but also in the wealthy social classes in the south, feeding habits need more and more energy and produce too much rubbish. A hopeful c...

By: Francesca Gardiol

Abstract: Today the frantic search for well-being seems to be a social must: living well has become the new imperative, sadness, anger, anxiety, are feelings to be deleted. Subjective well-being is actually a normative construct, that is the product of the values and core principles in a culture. In the consumer society the most important aim is a "happy life"; the necessary condition for being...

By: Claudio Cattaneo

Abstract: Eco-communities are specifically planned and set up for people to come and live together with the goal of living and working according to ecological principles by promoting a degree of sharing (see also work-sharing) and pursuing well-being through more sustainable life-styles, direct democracy and a degree of autonomy. Participative DIY non-monetary practices are applied for agricult...

By: Corinna Burkhart

norms, normality, practical defamiliarization, cross-normality experience, change

By: Sebastian Brand

Abstract: Current social and cultural constructions of reality are a co-cause of ecological overshoot, i.e. the way we think and perceive the world’s ecosystems and their resources is a major reason why we as a species exceed the ecological limits to growth. These socio-cultural "Ways of Worldmaking" (Goodman) are therefore a major obstacle for a more ecological economy and a more sustainable s...

By: Kay Bourcarde, Karsten Herzmann

Abstract: The paper addresses a core assumption of economic policy, namely, the assumption growth by steady high rates being typical to economies. In the seventies such exponential growth has been criticized in the bestseller “The Limits to Growth” to be a hazard to the environment and to mankind as a whole. However, as the paper demonstrates, almost all western economies show mere linear growt...

By: Bengi Akbulut, Prof Fikret Adaman, Murat Arsel, Duygu Avci

Abstract: That degrowth agenda has not taken an explicit stance vis-à-vis the organization of the economic relations has been a point of sharp criticism, especially regarding the viability of a degrowth trajectory. While the critiques have predominantly emphasized the material role of economic growth in the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, we argue that the notion of growth a...

By: Harald Welzer

In dieser Kolumne in der Deutschen Ausgabe des National Geographic Magazins wundert sich Harald Welzer über allerlei Normalitäten unserer Zeit. Darunter: Kreuzfahrten, Innovation, Turbokapitalisten, mangelnde Wertschätzung, Smartphones, Fremdenversorgung, Aufrüstung und Gipfeltreffen. Zitat aus "Abkoppelung von da draußen": . . . Wenn wir mal unsere soziale Umwelt im haeckelschen Sinn ökolog...

By: Paul Verhaeghe

Noch nie, heißt es, ging es uns so gut – doch noch nie haben wir uns so schlecht gefühlt. Die neoliberale Ideologie durchdringt unser Leben inzwischen bis in den letzten Winkel: Sie prägt unsere Selbstwahrnehmung, unsere Beziehung zu unserem Körper, unseren Partnern und Kindern – in anderen Worten, unsere Identität. Offenbar hat die neue Freiheit und Selbstverantwortung eine dunkle Kehrseite. ...

By: Frank Schirrmacher

Dieses Buch erzählt davon, wie nach dem Ende des Kalten Kriegs ein neuer Kalter Krieg im Herzen unserer Gesellschaft eröffnet wird. Es ist die Geschichte einer Manipulation: Vor sechzig Jahren wurde von Militärs und Ökonomen das theoretische Model eines Menschen entwickelt. Ein egoistisches Wesen, das nur auf das Erreichen seiner Ziele, auf seinen Vorteil und das Austricksen der anderen bedacht...

By: Yoshihiro Nakano

From the introducion: . . .From this vantage, Serge Latouche’s Sortir de la société de consommation (SSC) (2010) makes a fresh contribution to our understanding the problem of development. In this book, he discusses limitations of productivist development model by illuminating flaws in its ethical system. In this article, I examine the contents of the book in the following manner. In the second...

By: Samuel Alexander

degrowth; grassroots; sufficiency; sustainable consumption; transition towns; voluntary simplicity

By: Vincent Liegey

8 short videos, between 2 and 8 minutes long, about some basic facets of the degrowth movement: #1 Degrowth as a provocative slogan #2 Degrowth as concept of reappropriation of fundamentals of life #3 The physical limits to growth #4 Degrowth and the religion of Growth #5 Degrowth Project #6 History of Degrowth #7 Degrowth and the crises #8 About the book « A Degrowth Projet »

By: Erwin Wagenhofer

alphabet-film.com: . . . Denn neuerdings weht an den Schulen ein rauer Wind. „Leistung“ als Fetisch der Wettbewerbsgesellschaft ist weltweit zum unerbittlichen Maß aller Dinge geworden. Doch die einseitige Ausrichtung auf technokratische Lernziele und auf die fehlerfreie Wiedergabe isolierter Wissensinhalte lässt genau jene spielerische Kreativität verkümmern, die uns helfen könnte, ohne Angst ...

By: Mary P. Murphy

degrowth, eco-socialism, employment, care, political alliances, imaginaries

By: Hartmut Rosa

Der Verlag: »Was ist ein gutes Leben – und warum haben wir keins?« Die rasante Beschleunigung des sozialen Lebens ist eines der hervorstechenden Merkmale der Gegenwart, wird in den Sozialwissenschaften aber häufig übersehen. Hartmut Rosa hat mit seinen maßgeblichen Untersuchungen diesbezüglich Grundlagenarbeit geleistet. In seinem neuen Essay legt er dar, wie eine kritische Gesellschaftstheori...

By: Giorgos Kallis, Viviana Asara, Emanuele Profumi

Degrowth, autonomy, direct democracy, revolution, Castoriadis, democracy, social imaginary