Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World, a new book by London-based economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, confronts that rift, delineating the gulf between “green” growth strategies, on the one hand, and the transition to a post-capitalist economy, on the other.
What we can do, however, is to raise the call for an economics of humility; an economics that respects the diversity and dynamic flows of the natural world; an economics of localisation.
This is what I call the Death Economy, that defines success as the maximization of short-term profits for corporations and short-term accumulation of material things for individuals, regardless of the environmental and social costs.
As Giorgos Kallis has put it, “capitalism cannot survive under conditions of abundance”. MMT provides an opportunity for us to create a post-growth, post-capitalist economy.
Unless you read a book like The Case for Degrowth it is not obvious that some people are using the word to propose a radical policy package – qualitative, structural changes in ecological, social and economic relations as a necessary alternative to the economy growing quantitatively bigger.
Research & Degrowth should shift trajectories, dramatically, as soon as possible. In what direction? Political science research, and direct organizing.
Why?
We are running out of time.
My milk package, the electric cars, agriculture land use and the wood saving stoves are all examples showing why overall reduction in resources use or emissions (absolute decoupling) through substitution and efficiency is a pipe dream in a growth economy.
We should reorient the rules governing taxes and charity to discourage the concentration of power and decision-making. Taxpayers should not subsidize private fortresses of wealth and power that will exist for generations, controlled by the same families and their professional advisers.
Trade ought to be a simple thing. I give you something, you give me something else in return, and we’re both better off. But our capitalism-on-steroids society has converted the simple idea of exchange into an overly exploitative monster
But as capitalism teeters under the weight of its own contradictions, leading to such existential crises as climate breakdown, economic inequality, and violent nationalism, an obvious question on the lips of most people is, how can the Commonsverse grow larger and transform the political economy and culture?
There are practical reasons to believe that Normal is a fairyland to which we can never return. The virus has not gone away, and is likely to keep recurring in waves. But let’s focus on another question: if such a land existed, would we want to live there?
Today is the launch of Creating City Portraits – a methodological guide for downscaling the Doughnut to the city and turning it into a tool for transformative action.
