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
The 6th International Degrowth Conference finished on Saturday, the 25th of August with a demonstration under the rain in the center of Malmö. Typical weather for the end of August in Sweden, and very welcomed after the past worryingly dry months. The subtitle 'Dialogues in Turbulent Times' would summarize the week quite well. The strangely hot summer experienced by all of us was frequently ...
By Oscar Krüger By now, there are likely few who have not heard of Pope Francis's recent encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si'”. And as many of the readers of this blog might already know, the Spanish and Italian versions contain what appears to be a direct endorsement of degrowth: the use of the term „decrecimiento“ (sp) and „decrescita“ (it), even if this is watered down to „decreased ...
Auf der Tagung der Attac Gender AG “Schneewittchen rechnet ab” am 3. November 2012 arbeiteten über 100 Teilnehmer_innen gemeinsam dazu, was (queer-)feministische Ökonomie leisten kann. Wo stößt sie an Grenzen und wie kann eine sinnvolle Weiterentwicklung gedacht werden? Welche Alternativen der Arbeit und der Produktion gibt es? Und nicht zuletzt: Wie wollen wir leben? Im [...]
