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 InternationalistAs policy makers return from Marrakesh puzzling over what a Trump presidency means for the Paris agreement, it is fascinating and wonderful to watch, from a desk in one of the biggest anti-poverty and development organisations, the increased energy, depth, and passion of the degrowth movement. But this movement is unfortunately peripheral to many development conversations. Perhaps that is be...
Von Dennis Eversberg und Matthias Schmelzer Auch wenn Wachstumskritik en vogue ist – in einer Rangliste der „Top 10 Grassroots Movements“ des australischen „Shift Magazine“ nahm es jüngst sogar den ersten Platz ein – gibt es zu Degrowth als einer sozialen Bewegung bisher kaum Forschungen. In einem neu erscheinenden Aufsatz im Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen präsentieren wir – basierend a...
By Lyda Fernanda Forero There is an increasing consensus on the need and urgency to tackle climate change and its consequences. This consensus is reinforced by the human and environmental disasters (tragedies) that occur every year due to extreme climate events, such as the typhoons of growing intensity including Haiyan(2013) in the Philippines or the hurricanes that devastate Central America....
