Library

By: Leonie Sontheimer

Bericht von der Degrowth Konferenz in Budapest in 2016. Aus dem Text: . . . Die eindimensionale Orientierung am Wirtschaftswachstum, welche Degrowth kritisiert, hat sich mit der Globalisierung in den letzten 50 Jahren in nahezu allen Ländern dieser Welt breit gemacht. Gerade die ehemaligen Satellitenstaaten der Sowjetunion wie Ungarn hätten diesem Narrativ viele Jahre aufgesessen, meint Zolt...

By: Eva

Amongst others, two interesting and influential books have recently been published, which question the future of capitalist market societies in the light of the third industrial revolution. Both J. Rifkin’s “The Zero Marginal Cost Society” as well as P. Manson’s “Post Capitalism” are accounts of the inherent destruction of capitalism brought about by the collapse of the market system through th...

By: François Briens

With the emergence of the Degrowth movement, the call for transitions towards sustainable “post-growth societies” is now consolidating into a multifaceted political project. Yet, such a project raises numerous questions, for instance: what concrete proposals could initiate such a transition? What could they induce in terms of employment, public debt, energy consumption, environmental impact? Et...

By: Brototi Roy

From the text: The context for a degrowth movement in India differs significantly from that of the Global North. Although founded upon the same philosophical, and ideological basis, the differences in scope between the two are sharp. For India, what is of central importance is the preservation of the “degrowth” paradigm in practice, rather than the establishment of it as a novel paradigm. Tradi...

By: Elisabeth Skarðhamar Olsen, Lisa L. Gezon, Lisa L. Gezon, Eeva Berglund

Degrowth calls for decolonizing human identities and relationships from values and visions that exalt the endless expansion of production and consumption. This multi-session explores paths toward such decolonization through initiatives to recuperate, adapt and invent sociocultural systems that change the way we humans produce and consume goods and services, and—more powerfully—the ways in which...

By: Jakub Rok, Wojtek Mejor, Nina J. Bąk

About the authors Who are we and what position do we take? Combining the roles of activists, community organizers and co-op members we reflect on our own experience within the organization. Community-engaged research and collaborative building of knowledge for the sake of evaluating successes and failures. About the Co-op A short retrospective on our initiative. Growing from an informal gro...

By: Sam Bliss

In 2015, 19 scientists and thought leaders published “An Ecomodernist Manifesto” with “the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.” Like degrowth, ecomodernism criticizes mainstream environmentalism, considers “human prosperity and an ecologically vibrant planet inseparable,” and aims to shrink aggregate environmental i...

By: KarlK

The idea of the necessity to plan cities begins with the birth of the city itself and the growth of cities is strongly linked to economic growth. The stronger urban expansion in times of the industrial revolution led to the creation of urban planning as an autonomous discpline, that has always tried to change the way cities grow, proposing many different concepts, e.g. garden cities, the just c...

By: Sylvie CONSTANTINOU

Economy, approached by Polanyi from a substantive perspective, understands the human livelihood as exchanges between human being and natural and social environment. This framework of universal reference reveals the conditions in which market and planning could coexist and made individuals free from mercantile attitude. Market economy results from a complex historical process which led to an ext...

By: Lilian Pungas

After the fall of communism, the dominant political elite in Estonia intended to get as far away as possible from the disliked planned economy as well as from the homo sovieticus. The country thus ended up on the opposite side, proudly presenting itself as the most radical neoliberalist market economy in Europe. Polanyi’s embedded economy had no chance of survival in Estonia. Nevertheless, sinc...

By: Ian Chapman

One of the key drivers of the globalised modern economy has been cheap and convenient energy, particularly oil, with governments and industry seeing low cost supplies as critical to economic growth. Despite the energy crisis of the 1970s, there is optimism that, driven by technological developments, market forces and human ingenuity there will be no shortage of supplies: further finds will come...

By: Jana Gebauer, Wolfgang Fellner, Stefanie Gerold, Gerrit von Jorck, Heidi Leonhardt, Ernest Aigner, Ernest Aigner, Lucía Baratech, Matthias Nocker

How can work be conceptualised and organised in a Degrowth society? This is a crucial question, given the importance of labour and work for our daily lives as well as for any social economic system. This special session covers the question in an interactive way, facilitated by an interdisciplinary group of researchers from all over Europe. We begin with a participatory introduction, revolving a...

By: Leida Rijnhout, Nick Meynen, Orsolya Lazanyi, Istvan Farkas, Tamás Cselószki

Through their strong buying power, and dual role as both buyer and provider to end consumers, supermarkets exert a major influence over the global food supply chain. Although most supermarkets continue to source third party brands, due to private or “white” label production, the role of supermarkets is changing. Increasingly, retailers do not act as mere traders, but become brands in their own ...

By: Miklós Antal

Language use and cognition are generally underappreciated topics in alternative economics, even if effective communication is essential for social and political impact. To challenge the economic growth paradigm, the concept and term degrowth has recently been embraced by various activists and scholars. Drawing on a body of evidence from cognitive science, psychology and related fields, we argue...

By: Giorgos

Peace is a commonly used word. However, defining peace is more complicated,. Negative peace is defined as absence of direct or physical violence while positive peace focuses on presence of conditions of well-being and just relationships. In the positive definition, the focus is on the resolution of structural (e.g. poverty, hunger, gender inequality), socio-cultural (e.g. racism, sexism, religi...

By: Pierre Tosi

«Are contemporary homo sapiens necessarily a homo faber as well? Can inspiration for a new narrative be found in the cultural past?» Interesting suggestions about this were given by Hannah Arendt, above all in her "The Human Condition" (1958). The Jewish philosopher thought that the contemporary commingling of "homo faber" (maker of handworks and instruments) and "homo laborans" (producer of h...

By: Glen Smith

Scotland’s seas and coasts are busy places. Well established industries such as oil and gas production, fishing and tourism have been joined in recent years by rapid growth in marine renewable energy development and aquaculture. A system of marine spatial planning is being introduced to manage this complex web of maritime activities. In theory this system allows for unprecedented levels of publ...

By: Susan Paulson, Daniel O'Neill, Jennifer Hinton

The panellists of the evening panel will be stimulated by an engaged facilitator to juxtapose their views on the key challenges for degrowth. The panellists come from different parts of the world, hence viewing the challenges from different socio-economic and cultural perspectives. Their discussion will meander along the key topics of the day, outlining the key degrowth challenges, such as the ...

By: A.Varvarousis

Plan C&D - Commons & Democracy – has been proposed as an alternative to austerity and stimulus for a degrowth future, but how and why does it emerge, and what challenges does it face? The proposed paper studies new commons in the context of crisis, using Greece as a case-study. Our research registered a substantial increase of commoning in health care, food provision, urban living, educ...

By: Helen Zaiser

Overcoming consumerism is one objective of the degrowth movement, to be achieved through a great social transformation by building alternatives. It inherently embraces material needs downscaling, self-sufficiency, voluntary simplicity and getting clear of neoliberal capitalist logics. Food cooperatives have the potential to embody such features, constituting a strategy for new social movements....