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 InternationalistOne argument of those who defend growth is that growth is the natural and inevitable course of the economy. Liberated from governmental or other restrictions, and left to their own powers, entrepreneurs will make an economy grow, as they are endlessly inventive in growing their own incomes. Growth is then seen as the natural product of a free, ‘self-regulated market’. The destiny of the economy...
Aus unserem Projekt Degrowth in Bewegung(en) Artivism ist keine Bewegung im eigentlichen Sinne. Es ist eher eine Haltung, eine Praxis in den fruchtbaren Grenzbereichen zwischen Kunst und Aktivismus. Artivism entsteht, wenn Kreativität und Widerstand ineinander fallen. Es ist das, was passiert, wenn unsere politischen Aktionen genauso schön werden wie Gedichte und genauso effektiv wie ein perfe...
http://www.degrowthindiainitiative.org/We are very excited that there's now a promising degrowth-iniatiative in India. The Degrowth-India initiative and blog aims at re-politicizing the Indian debate on the much needed socio-ecological transformation. A press-article about the kick-off of the initiative is available here. If you're interested in the further development of the debate, stay tune...
