Library

Scientific paper • 2016

The Realities and Contradictions of the Growth Economy and Challenges for a Social Ecological Transformation

Clive will cover growth and its contradictions and challenges for degrowth and social ecological transformation. Facilitator: Filka Sekulova This media entry was a contribution to the special session „The Realities and Contradictions of the Growth Economy and Challenges for a Social Ecological Transformation“ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.

Scientific paper • 2016

The role of community enterprises in rural development

By: Melinda Mihály

Neoliberal regional development policies are not just environmentally unsustainable, but are also producing uneven regions (Harvey 2011, Smith 2008). The case of Hungary seems to confirm this. Regional disparities in Hungary has been growing in the postsocialist transition period and our accession to the EU has not improved this situation either (Tímár 2007). In the same time there is a...

Scientific paper • 2016

The role of institutions in fostering a new economic model

By: Valentina Guerra

What is the role of institutions in supporting the transition to a sustainable local economy? The present research shows the experience of four municipalities located in the north-east of Italy, namely in the region Friuli-Venezia Giulia. These municipalities established in 2014 a close cooperation for the development of a new and different agricultural model. The project was named "Pan e...

Scientific paper • 2016

The seeds of transition: cultivating social and environmental values at university

By: Susana Borràs

The present paper deals with the analysis of the educational and social innovation project, “URV’s Community Gardens”, carried out within the Campus of the University Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona, Spain. By creating community gardens, the project promotes the value-based education by adapting the university educational resources to the current social reality; the inclusion of vulnerable...

Scientific paper • 2016

The Social Embeddedness of Healing and its Natural Boundaries

By: László, Antal Z.

The examination of substantive and formal rationalities in the economic activity was the core subject of the analysis of Károly Polányi who found it crucial in his books on the social integrity of the economic activities. In parallel with the economic activity, the twofold rationality of healing can be examined in the same way. On the basis of Károly Polányi’s work in which he categorised the...

Scientific paper • 2016

The third industrial revolution and its effect on working hours in the current economic framework; on visions, possibilities and dreams in the world of profits, costs and growth.

By: Eva

Amongst others, two interesting and influential books have recently been published, which question the future of capitalist market societies in the light of the third industrial revolution. Both J. Rifkin’s “The Zero Marginal Cost Society” as well as P. Manson’s “Post Capitalism” are accounts of the inherent destruction of capitalism brought about by the collapse of the market system through...

Scientific paper • 2016

The Work Controversies in the Degrowth Literature

By: Steffen Liebig

The paper presents a dense overview of suggestions concerning (wage) labor in the international degrowth discourse and related discussions. Methodically, it is based on an extensive and critical literature review. Both empirical results as well as conceptual frameworks are analyzed and evaluated. It is argued that many degrowth concepts tend to neglect the persistent role of wage labor and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Toward New Public Management Arrangements: Some Parameters

By: John Raven

The “human brain” sifts more intelligent from less intelligent understandings through successive “experimental interactions with the environment”. At a societal level, our problem is to evolve a “learning society” which experiments and learns in a similar way. The internet is widely thought to offer a basis on which to build an information-based management system. But how are good ideas to be...

Scientific paper • 2016

Towards a micro socio-ecological economics: defining prosperity without growth at the micro level

By: Nicolas Merveille

Tim Jackson and Peter Victor (among others) have made a major breakthrough to develop a Macro Ecological Economics in order to go beyond the shortcomings of GDP and growth paradigm. However, such a breakthrough is still missing at the micro level. Despite the rapid flourishing of citizen initiatives of transition all over the world, the literature is quite silent regarding a micro...

Scientific paper • 2016

Tracking “degrowth” through the Scandinavian environmental and youth movements from the late 1960’s to the middle 2010’s

By: Pernille Gooch

Degrowth has emerged as a strong slogan against economic growth which developed into a movement. But is it something new or may it be traced back to earlier environmental- or youth movements? And if that is the case what are the linkages and what can we learn from past experiences. Thus, from a perspective of imaginary and realized alternatives, and based on a strong critique of the growth...

Scientific paper • 2016

Transition movements on the ground: activist’s career and relationship to the political

By: Ludivine Damay, Anne Guisset

In different cities around the world, one can find a lot of citizen initiatives that propose alternatives to the main consumerist and capitalist logic of production and consumption (Pleyers, 2011). They defend other conceptions of society through cooperative, networks for exchanging goods and services, collective vegetable gardens, “repair cafés”, local currencies, etc. This communication is...

Scientific paper • 2016

Travel for Transition

By: Robert Orzanna

This session shares the main results from the Travel for Transition project that has started in February 2016. A group of travelers and volunteers visited various WWOOF, Workaway, HelpX projects and other intentional communities to document map their practices. The main objectives of the project were the documentation of personal transitions of the volunteers as well as channelising the...

Scientific paper • 2016

Un-common business sense

By: Jana Gebauer

Empirical studies on firm size and growth show that the larger proportions of companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), are voluntary or forced non- and slow growers. Yet, the generally unquestioned postulate is that growth is the entrepreneurial raison d’être and an indispensable (societal) obligation for an economic actor. In this spirit, ‘non-growth’ appears to be a...

Scientific paper • 2016

Understanding capitalism. Marx meets degrowth

By: Elke Pirgmaier

This paper is a theoretical contribution to the economics of degrowth. It is motivated by the fact that degrowth proponents attack capitalism for its drive for accumulation which relates to a range of socio-ecological crises. The emphasis on growth translates rather quickly into the development of concrete degrowth proposals. While the activist spirit is admirable, a profound understanding of...

Scientific paper • 2016

Understanding the good life beyond growth: insights from Degrowth, Human Development and Buen Vivir

By: Adrián Beling, Julien Vanhulst

Since the early 70's three approaches to development thinking have emerged to criticize and try to overcome the dominant perspectives of "economic development" and "economic growth". These include the ideas of Degrowth, Human Development and Buen Vivir. Proponents of Degrowth aim to create a post-growth society based on material sufficiency, individual and collective well-being and ecological...

Scientific paper • 2016

Understand the Chinese New Rural Reconstruction Movement (NRRM) as an example of Degrowth Theory

By: Rowan Alcock

From my research on Degrowth China is conspicuous in its absence. Degrowth theory, in order to be a global movement, should begin to research this increasingly important country in more detail. People may believe that one of the world's biggest environmental polluters where multiparty elections are illegal could not possibly have an indigenous degrowth movement. However in my paper I argue that...

Scientific paper • 2016

Unpackaged: factors that drive consumers to package-free retail

By: Hana Hrstkova

Sustainable food systems signal a need to return to local, organic and low footprint food provisions, implying also reduction of waste and packaging. Rather than looking at the waste issue from the post-consumption perspective (approaches that have dominated over the recent decades), this paper attempts to shed more light on the prevention of consumer packaging waste through unpackaged...

Scientific paper • 2016

Vulnerability and Energy Economy Nexus at the Sector Level: Analysis of Czech Republic

By: Mikuláš Černík

Today's fossil fuel dependent economies face two main problems. Firstly they must reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to avoid dangerous consequences of climate change. Secondly, they must cope with reduced availability, increasing cost and price volatility of fossil primary energy sources, most importantly of oil and gas due to declining conventional sources and geopolitical...

Scientific paper • 2016

Water, Traditional Cultures and a Degrowth Future

By: Rajni Bakshi

Water, Traditional Cultures and a Degrowth Future: the quest for a steady-state economy By Rajni Bakshi Degrowth as a concept does not sit well in most societies today. But water is a key to fostering new imaginaries and new visions that will be not merely acceptable but inviting. By 2040 an estimated 33 countries, including USA, China and India, will face severe water scarcity. India has a...

Scientific paper • 2016

Weal - the reorientation of well being

By: gyfolk

György Folk: Weal – the reorientation of well-being Degrowth may appear for the majority in the developed world a sacrifice of the human comfort we live in, a loss of the present standard of life or well-being. Weal proposes a radical reorientation of our understanding about the human good. Biological and social research produced a multitude of partial results that shed light on how humans live...