Economy

A ‘Real’ Green New Deal? Policies for a Post-Growth Economy (Part III of Ecological Civilisation)

By Samuel Alexander, originally published by The Simplicity Institute

March 11, 2022

What would a ‘real’ Green New Deal involve? In this presentation Samuel Alexander argues that it would require policies to create a post-growth economy. This is Part III of the Ecological Civilisation series.

SECTIONS

00:00 – Intro and review

03:00 – Overview

05:40 – Limits to Growth

08:47 – Defining Growth

10:57 – Arguments for and against growth

21:40 – Policies for a post-growth economy

46:44 – Transitional challenges

The introduction to this series is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxC-r…

The series is grappling with the problems of consumerism and the growth economy; envisioning alternative, post-carbon ways of life; and considering what action can be taken, both personally and politically, to help build an ecological civilisation.

New presentations will be added to this playlist over time:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

You can support this channel by purchasing an e-book from the Simplicity Institute, available on a ‘pay what you can’ basis (edit the price as you choose for a donation): https://249897.e-junkie.com

Paperbacks are available here: https://au.permacultureprinciples.com…

Samuel Alexander’s work is available here: http://samuelalexander.info

The Simplicity Institute website is here: https://simplicityinstitute.org

FURTHER READING ON DECOUPLING:

http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns…

https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-de…

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10…

https://www.resilience.org/stories/20…

FURTHER READING ON LIMITS TO GROWTH:

https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/jo…

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science…

https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146…

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/ha…

ARTICLE ON TRADABLE ENERGY QUOTAS:

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/17/…

ARTICLE ON MODERN MONETARY THEORY:

http://samuelalexander.info/wp-conten…

FURTHER READING:

https://johnmenadue.com/it-will-take-…

https://www.realgnd.org

Thanks to Andrew Doodson, Jordan Osmond, and Antoinette Wilson for offering invaluable production advice. The opening image is kindly provided by Melissa Davis.

Other image references are available here: http://samuelalexander.info/image-ref…

The music is provided by Mortimer’s Method: https://mortimersmethod.bandcamp.com

Teaser photo credit: Thoreau’s Cove, Concord, Massachusetts. By Detroit Publishing Co. copyright claimant, publisher. – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID det.4a22665.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16429985

Samuel Alexander

Over the last ten years Dr Samuel Alexander has been a lecturer and researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia, teaching a course called ‘Consumerism and the Growth Economy: Critical Interdisciplinary Perspectives’ as part of the Master of Environment. He has also been a Research Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and is currently co-Director of the Simplicity Institute.

Alexander’s interdisciplinary research focuses on degrowth, permaculture, voluntary simplicity, ‘grassroots’ theories of transition, and the relationship between culture and political economy. His current research is exploring the aesthetics of degrowth and energy descent futures.

His books include Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary (2019, co-authored with Brendan Gleeson); Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future (2018, co-authored with Josh Floyd); Art Against Empire: Toward an Aesthetics of Degrowth (2017); Just Enough is Plenty: Thoreau’s Alternative Economics (2016); Deface the Currency: The Lost Dialogues of Diogenes (2016); Prosperous Descent: Crisis as Opportunity in an Age of Limits (2015); Sufficiency Economy: Enough, for Everyone, Forever (2015); and Entropia: Life Beyond Industrial Civilisation (2013); he is also editor of Voluntary Simplicity: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture (2009) and co-editor of Simple Living in History: Pioneers of the Deep Future (2014). In 2016 he also released a documentary called A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, co-produced with Jordan Osmond of Happen Films. Alexander blogs at www.simplicitycollective.com.