Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
While we understand the necessity – and some argue, the inevitability – of degrowth, the public relations work of degrowth remains lacking, in spite of the efforts of many learned scholars and activists.
In 1989, the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre developed a new model of democratic participation, which has become known internationally as participatory budgeting (PB). Through this process, community members directly decide how to spend a portion of a public budget. In other words, the people who pay taxes (all of us) decide how they get spent.
If we were to demand our fair share, if we were to refuse to give away our lives and bodies and freedom to choose, if we were to abandon this class to a real and true independence with nothing taken from us, then this culture would end. It is that fragile. It is that unreal. It is a sham.
When the economy is way too big, the stresses and strains are too much for a liberal democracy to handle. That leaves the steady state economy, at an optimal level, as the greatest hope for maintaining the ideals of liberal democracy.
From rural towns to bustling cities, pioneering enterprises are challenging conventional notions of ownership, governance, and economic exchange. These trailblazers are reimagining fundamental structures and forging pathways to shared prosperity.
Dave Darby of Stroud Commons and Lowimpact.org talks with Rosie Bristow and Nick Evans of Fantasy Fibre Mill, working to resurrect the flax / linen industry in the UK, as a commons.
To the Western mind, the presence of lush oases in the middle of deserts is a strange aberration, almost a dream. What moderns fail to appreciate is that oases are actually deliberate human creations, socio-ecological examples of commoning.
What if we purposefully turn the ‘control knobs’ in our own lives to shift how we approach a post-growth future by embracing reality – instead of unrealistic tech solutions – redirecting our focus towards deeper interconnection with community and local systems?
Making consumption reduction a key part of our climate strategy would have the added benefit of addressing looming resource shortages and the many other environmental problems we face – from plastic gyres and ‘dead zones’ in the oceans to the destructive impacts of mining.
Changing our political and economic systems to make a decent human existence possible in a big-picture future is crucial, but so is learning to live within the existing systems in ways that are decent in small ways today.
Ultimately, the question of democratic and ecological cities is a deeply political one, as it requires the collective deliberation of the future we want.
But insofar as it is possible to confront, confound and supercede capitalism, a future in which electricity is used less wastefully, more equitably, and within bounds set collectively with a view to avoiding catastrophic climate change, is surely plausible.
