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 InternationalistThe picture above shows some of the statues decorating the northern entrance of the Corvinus University in Budapest where the recent Degrowth Conference took place. The building has not always been a university. It once was a place of trade, and the statues over the entrance depict virtues which, back then, were considered central to trade. Virtues like courage, faith, love and honesty. When di...
By Fabian Scheidler In the face of climate change, financial crises and mass poverty, a growing number of people agree that we need a fundamental social-ecological transformation that includes all areas of society. Luckily, a huge variety of concepts and practices for such transformation already exists. These, however, have not yet been able to leave their niches. Why is this so difficult? Are...
Von Christiane Kliemann Nach sechs Tagen mit Workshops, Diskussionen, praktischen Aktivitäten und viel Spaß ist die Sommerschule zu Degrowth und Klimagerechtigkeit auf dem rheinischen Klimacamp nun zu Ende. Unter dem Slogan "Degrowth Konkret" wurden die eher theoretischen Ideen von Degrowth auf konkrete Aktionen wie den Widerstand gegen Braunkohleabbau zugespitzt. Darüber hinaus bot das Camp d...
