Library

Misc • 2020

The Simpler Way: Collected Writings of Ted Trainer

By: Ted Trainer, Samuel Alexander, Jonathan Rutherford

Ted Trainer is an Australian scholar-activist who for decades has been defending and practising an 'eco-anarchist' perspective he describes as the Simpler Way. His vision is of a world where self-governing communities live materially simple but sufficient lives, in harmony with ecological limits. This anthology contains some of Trainer's most insightful and provocative essays, covering all...

Position paper • 2020

Matter and regulation: socio-metabolic and accumulation regimes of French capitalism since 1948

By: Louison Cahen-Fourot, Nelo Magalhães

This paper aims at integrating macroeconomic and institutional analyses of long run dynamics of capitalism with material flow analysis. We investigate the links between accumulation and socio-metabolic regimes by studying French capitalism from a material perspective since 1948. We characterize its social metabolism both in production- and consumption-based approaches. We show that the...

Report • 2020

How Private-Equity Firms Squeeze Hospital Patients for Profits

By: Sheelah Kolhatkar

One of the risks of not providing an universal Health Care system is not just related to the threat represented to life itself. Debt and despair can be easily taken advantage of and the article encloses how this dispossession process of hospital patients is all possible in the current financial system and kept legal by the same government.

Report • 2020

Solidarity Economics—for the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond

By: Chris Benner, Manuel Pastor

In light of the Covid-19 crisis, the article by the authors of the book "From Resistance to Renewal: A 12-Step Program for Innovation and Inclusion in the California Economy", C. Banner and M. Pastor, debunks the granted assumptions of the neoclassical theory, such as self-interested human behavior, the necessity of inequality and growth, trying to pull the threads between between the new...

Report • 2020

Internationalizing the Crisis

By: Joseph E. Stiglitz

The public-health effects and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in developing and emerging economies are only just becoming apparent, but it is already clear that the toll will be devastating. If the international community wants to avoid a wave of defaults, it must start developing a rescue plan immediately.

Report • 2020

Will COVID-19 Remake the World?

By: Dani Rodrik

No one should expect the pandemic to alter – much less reverse – tendencies that were evident before the crisis. Neoliberalism will continue its slow death, populist autocrats will become even more authoritarian, and the left will continue to struggle to devise a program that appeals to a majority of voters.

Interview • 2020

Anwar Shaikh: “The Fundamental Questions About Capitalism Seem to be Coming Back”

By: David Zachariah

Anwar Shaikh is one of the world’s leading radical economists, whose work has challenged the way we think about capitalism. In an interview with Jacobin, Shaikh gives a concise overview of the ideas set out in his landmark book Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises.

Scientific paper • 2020

Jevons' paradox and a tax on aviation to prevent the next pandemic

By: Salvador Pueyo

How is it possible that, in an era of unprecedented medical progress, humanity is once again caught in a major pandemic? Several lines of evidence suggest that advances in infectious diseases control facilitate the development of major urban centers, global high-speed transportation, industrial animal farming and ecosystem destruction. In turn, all of these are well known to favor such...

Misc • 2020

The lens of ecological law: a look at mining

By: Carla Sbert

Containing an in-depth study of the emerging theory and core of ecological law, this book insightfully proposes a 'lens of ecological law' through which the disparity between current laws and ecological law can be assessed. The lens consists of three principles: ecocentrism, ecological primacy and ecological justice. These principles are used within the book to explore and analyse the...

Misc • 2020

Degrowth: Some suggestions from the Simpler Way Perspective

By: Ted Trainer

Thirty four years ago I published Abandon Affluence and Growth, with negligible effect, so it has been hugely satisfying to see the recent emergence of a degrowth movement. However, I believe some aspects of the movement need greater attention. Degrowth transition strategies especially should deal more effectively with the sheer magnitude of the problem we

Scientific paper • 2020

'The economy' as if people mattered: revisiting critiques of economic growth in a time of crisis

By: Clive L. Spash

Coronavirus (COVID-19) policy shut down the world economy with a range of government actions unprecedented outside of wartime. In this paper, economic systems dominated by a capital accumulating growth imperative are shown to have had their structural weaknesses exposed, revealing numerous problems including unstable supply chains, unjust social provisioning of essentials, profiteering,...

Misc • 2020

Building Counter-Institutions: A Call for Activism beyond Raising Awareness

By: Joël Foramitti

Around the world, social movements are rising up in response to the multiple crises of our time. However, only few seem to focus on the task of building concrete institutions that could challenge existing structures and change the rules of our system.

Misc • 2020

Degrowth and Domesecration: a Historical View on Nonhuman and Human Violence

By: Lukas Leitinger

A previous article on this blog argued that degrowth should incorporate an ethic of animal liberation to achieve its aspired ‘good life for all’. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, similar calls to dismantle factory farming – which is a breeding ground for disease – have become louder. Both of these arguments critique the

Scientific paper • 2020

Unlearning: From Degrowth to Decolonization

By: Jamie Tyberg

In Unlearning: From Degrowth to Decolonization, Jamie Tyberg makes a timely intervention into the degrowth discussions, reorienting degrowth as a means to an end, that end being decolonization. Through the lens of the Green New Deal, and later the Red Deal, Tyberg ties together theory and real life examples highlighting how degrowth is, can, and must be, part of the post-COVID-19 response....

Misc • 2020

How to celebrate the 2020 Global Degrowth Day

By: Ana Poças

On June 6th we will once more celebrate the Global Degrowth Day (GDD). On this day, like last year, we want to show that there are alternatives to the capitalist growth society and that a good life for all is possible!

Scientific paper • 2020

Quantifying the potential for climate change mitigation of consumption options

By: John Barrett, Diana Ivanova, Dominik Wiedenhofer, Biljana Macura, Max W. Callaghan, Felix Creutzig

Around two-thirds of global GHG emissions are directly and indirectly linked to household consumption, with a global average of about 6 tCO2eq/cap. Changes in consumption patterns to low-carbon alternatives therefore present a great and urgently required potential for emission reductions. In this paper, we synthesize emission mitigation potentials across the consumption domains of food,...

Misc • 2020

Smart Green World? Making digitalization work for sustainability

By: Steffen Lange, Tilman Santarius

In this book, Steffen Lange and Tilman Santarius investigate how digitalization influences environmental and social sustainability. The information revolution is currently changing the daily lives of billions of people worldwide. At the same time, the current economic model and consumerist lifestyle needs to be radically transformed if society is to overcome the challenges humanity is facing on...

Scientific paper • 2020

Structure, action and change: a Bourdieusian perspective on the precondition for a degrowth transition

By: Max Koch

A deprioritization of economic growth in policy making in the rich countries will need to be part of a global effort to re-embed economy and society into planetary boundaries. However, societal support for a degrowth transition remains for the time being moderate, and it is not well understood as yet why this is the case. This article argues that Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology can help theorize...

Misc • 2020

The case for degrowth in a time of pandemic

By: Susan Paulson, Giorgos Kallis, Federico Demaria, Giacomo D'Alisa

The time is ripe for us to refocus on what really matters: not GDP, but the health and wellbeing of our people and our planet.

Scientific paper • 2020

Environmental conflicts and defenders: a global overview

By: Brototi Roy, Federico Demaria, Leah Temper, Daniela Del Bene, Arnim Scheidel, Grettel Navas, Juan Liu, Joan Martínez-Alier, Sara Mingorría, Irmak Ertör, Sofía Avila

Recent research and policies recognize the importance of environmental defenders for global sustainability and emphasize their need for protection against violence and repression. However, effective support may benefit from a more systematic understanding of the underlying environmental conflicts, as well as from better knowledge on the factors that enable environmental defenders to mobilize...