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
Was hat Cola mit gesellschaftlichen Utopien zu tun? Elena Tzara im Interview mit Tobi Rosswog Vom 04. - 06. November fand in Berlin die erste Utopie-Ökonomie-Konferenz UTOPIKON statt. 300 Menschen tauschten sich in 20 Workshops und 5 Keynotes zu Wegen und Herausforderungen in eine geldfrei(er)e Gesellschaft aus. In einer kleinen Inverviewreihe stellen wir einige der Referent*innen vor. Wir b...
Another UN climate summit is over and despite the prevalent rhetoric of hope, the gap between the 1,5 or 2 degree target agreed in Paris last year and the real commitments to achieve this target is nowhere near to closing. Worse, this gap hasn't even been a focus of this year's UN climate talks in Marrakesh although time is running: Recently published analyses of this emission gap warn that the...
By Mark Burton Most ecological economists argue that continued economic growth is incompatible with ecological safety. That is to say continued increases in Gross Domestic Product, (GDP and also Gross Value Added, GVA) cannot happen while reducing ecological impacts in general, and climate change-causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in particular. It isn’t a popular message, and is one that ...
