The Degrowth Alternative
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May 2017 Newsletter
Research & Degrowth, (R&D) is an academic association Web: Research & Degrowth dedicated to research, training, awareness raising and events organization around degrowth. Research & Degrowth May 2017 Newsletter Editorial Yet another editorial where the highlight is the high number of academic publications in degrowth. The multidisciplinary nature of these publications (technology, health, culture, happiness, extractivism, policies, transition, power, strategies, etc) explore the different roots, challenges and proposals of degrowth. This newsletter introduces the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA), a much needed alliance in the degrowth movement. Also, summer is approaching so we have few more interesting summer schools to attend. R&D News 1. We are happy to present the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA). This initiative is a follow-up to our meeting in Budapest about feminisms and degrowth. Everyone enjoyed it very much and definitively wanted more. Find on youtube the interventions by Bengi Akbulut and Marco Deriu. The main objectives of FaDA are to exchange information, keep in touch and push for a FaDA agenda. A mailing list was created for people interested in feminisms and degrowth, and on how to foster their alliance. Please share and invite other interested people. You/they can subscribe by sending an email to [email protected] We invite you to respond to this very brief survey. This will provide a clearer picture on how to proceed. Please feel free to launch any initiative! 2. Giorgos Kallis has published the book “In defense of degrowth”. You can download it for free in this link https://indefenseofdegrowth.com/ The book is intended as an introduction for the curious, a defense against the skeptics, and an intellectually stimulating conversation for those already convinced but willing to learn more. -
'Relocalization and Prefigurative Movements
1 ‘RELOCALIZATION AND PREFIGURATIVE MOVEMENTS’ AS SOCIAL NETWORKS AGAINST GLOBALIZATION: THE CONSTRUCTION OF LOCAL ALTERNATIVES TO GLOBAL CAPITALISM Michail Psimitis email: [email protected] Associate professor full address: Ioustinianou 3 Department of Sociology 81100 Mytilene University of the Aegean tel: (+30)22510-36514 & 23597 ABSTRACT Drawing upon an older periodization concerning worldwide social movements, we can say that the current decade is the first one of a period characterized by the strong presence of ‘relocalization and prefigurative social movements’. While earlier forms of organized collective actions either remained almost exclusively confined to the limits of the nation state (labor movements and new social movements) or explicitly rejected the nation state as the objective of their presence and chose a global action (global movements), modern relocalization movements reject both types of action and prefer an action focused directly against globalization. They act outside and away from the state and focus on territorial regeneration of the local autonomy as the cornerstone of self-governed and direct-democratic communities, with strong egalitarian social ties and a propensity for coequal participation. 2 These contemporary movements appear as forms of local resistance to globalization, but they are not showing trends of spatial or social isolation or marginalization, as happened, for instance, to most old communes and intentional communities of the past century. Instead, these are cosmopolitan communities that -
Art Schools Burning and Other Songs of Love and War: Anti-Capitalist
Art Schools Burning and Other Songs of Love and War: Anti-Capitalist Vectors and Rhizomes By Gene Ray Kurfürstenstr. 4A D-10785 Berlin Email: [email protected] Ku’e! out to the comrades on the occupied island of O’ahu. Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv Preface: Is Another Art World Possible? v Part I: The One into Two 1 1. Art Schools Burning and Other Songs of Love and War 2 2. Tactical Media and the End of the End of History 64 3. Avant-Gardes as Anti-Capitalist Vector 94 Part II: The Two into... X [“V,” “R,” “M,” “C,”...] 131 4. Flag Rage: Responding to John Sims’s Recoloration Proclamation 132 5. “Everything for Everyone, and For Free, Too!”: A Conversation with Berlin Umsonst 152 6. Something Like That 175 Notes 188 Acknowledgments As ever, these textual traces of a thinking in process only became possible through a process of thinking with others. Many warm thanks to the friends who at various times have read all or parts of the manuscript and have generously shared their responses and criticisms: Iain Boal, Rozalinda Borcila, Gaye Chan, Steven Corcoran, Theodore Harris, Brian Holmes, Henrik Lebuhn, Thomas Pepper, Csaba Polony, Gregory Sholette, Joni Spigler, Ursula Tax and Dan Wang. And thanks to Antje, Kalle and Peter for the guided glimpse into their part of the rhizomes. With this book as with the last one, my wife Gaby has been nothing less than the necessary condition of my own possibility; now as then, my gratitude for that gift is more than I can bring to words. -
After the New Social Democracy Offers a Distinctive Contribution to Political Ideas
fitzpatrick cvr 8/8/03 11:10 AM Page 1 Social democracy has made a political comeback in recent years, After thenewsocialdemocracy especially under the influence of the Third Way. However, not everyone is convinced that this ‘new social democracy’ is the best means of reviving the Left’s social project. This book explains why and offers an alternative approach. Bringing together a range of social and political theories After the After the new new social democracy engages with some of the most important contemporary debates regarding the present direction and future of the Left. Drawing upon egalitarian, feminist and environmental social democracy ideas it proposes that the social democratic tradition can be renewed but only if the dominance of conservative ideas is challenged more effectively. It explores a number of issues with this aim in mind, including justice, the state, democracy, welfare reform, new technologies, future generations and the new genetics. Employing a lively and authoritative style After the new social democracy offers a distinctive contribution to political ideas. It will appeal to all of those interested in politics, philosophy, social policy and social studies. Social welfare for the Tony Fitzpatrick is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social twenty-first century Policy, University of Nottingham. FITZPATRICK TONY FITZPATRICK TZPPR 4/25/2005 4:45 PM Page i After the new social democracy TZPPR 4/25/2005 4:45 PM Page ii For my parents TZPPR 4/25/2005 4:45 PM Page iii After the new social democracy Social welfare for the twenty-first century TONY FITZPATRICK Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave TZPPR 4/25/2005 4:45 PM Page iv Copyright © Tony Fitzpatrick 2003 The right of Tony Fitzpatrick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. -
A Book Review of the Case for Degrowth
Journal of Health and Social Sciences Advance Publication Online Published Online February 15, 2021 doi10.19204/2021/rcnt7 The Italian Journal for Interdisciplinary Health and Social Development BOOK REVIEW IN COVID-19 Recentring our economy around wellbeing following the COVID-19 pandemic: A book review of The Case for Degrowth Theo RASHID1, Toby PEPPERRELL2 Affiliations: 1 M.Sci., School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, England 2 B.Sc., School of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, England Corresponding Author: Theo Rashid, M.Sci., School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, England Email: [email protected]. KEY WORDS: Economics; environmental policy; global health; global warming; socioeconomic factors Competing interests: none declared Copyright © 2021 Theo Rashid and Toby Pepperrell Edizioni FS Publishers This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. See http:www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Cite this article as: Rashid T, Pepperrell T. Recentring our economy around wellbeing following the COVID-19 pandemic: A book review of The Case for Degrowth [published online ahead of print February 15, 2021]. J Health Soc Sci. doi 10.19204/2021/rcnt7 Received: 18 Nov 2020 Accepted: 07 Feb 2021 Published Online: 15 Feb 2021 The scale of disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was not inevitable. Frailties in the Global North’s social, health and economic systems have been exposed. Over the past decades, rising inequality, an artefact of the current economic system, has resulted in poorer health outcomes for deprived populations [1]. -
Curriculum Vitae Giorgos Kallis
Curriculum Vitae Giorgos Kallis Corsega 438 08037 Barcelona, Spain Tel: 34 93 581 3749 e-mail: [email protected] 1. POSITIONS 2010c Institute of Environmental Science & Technology Barcelona, Spain Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ICREA Professor (tenured) 2008-2010 Institute of Environmental Science & Technology Barcelona, Spain Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ICREA Researcher 2005-2007 Energy and Resources Group Berkeley, U.S.A. University of California at Berkeley Marie Curie International Fellow 1998-2004 Environmental Planning Laboratory Athens, Greece University of the Aegean Principal Investigator 2000-2005 Mediterranean S.O.S Athens, Greece Vice-President 1996-2001 European Research Network Ltd London, U.K. Co-Founder and Managing Director 1995-1996 European Parliament Luxembourg Scientific & Technological Options Assessment Unit Research Scholar 2. EDUCATION July 2012 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (BGSE) Masters Degree in Specialized Economic Analysis 1 of 17 Specialization in International Trade, Finance and Development. Final project on “The economic case for reducing work hours”. June 2007 University of California, Berkeley Advanced Post-Doc Training. Marie Curie Career Development Plan including auditing courses in “History of Ecological Economics” (Richard Norgaard), “Advanced readings in Political Ecology” (Nancy Peluso), and “Natural Resource Geographies” (Michael Watts). May 2003 University of the Aegean European Doctorate1 on Environmental Policy and Planning. Granted with Cum Laude. Thesis: “The role of Institutions in the Sustainable Management of water. The Case of Athens” (supervisors: Pr. Harry Coccossis and Pr. Peter Nijkamp, VU Amsterdam). Oct 1994 Imperial College, University of London MSc in Environmental Engineering. Thesis: “Plastics recycling in the European Union” (Distinction). Oct 1993 Imperial College, University of London BSc in Chemistry. -
Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D'alisa and Federico Demaria, the Case for Degrowth, Cambridge
Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D’Alisa and Federico Demaria, The Case for Degrowth, Cambridge: Polity, 2020. ISBN: 9781509535620 (cloth); ISBN: 9781509535637 (paper); ISBN: 9781509535644 (ebook) If a tree falls in the forest, does it contribute to GDP? There are some circumstances in which it could. For instance, if the tree is felled by a paid forester, or if the wood is commoditized as lumber, or even if the forest is part of a nature reserve wherein a managing conservation agency is paid to ensure it fulfills its ecosystem function via decomposition – then yes, a fallen tree contributes to economic growth! By the same token, a growing tree can contribute to GDP as well, if a worker has been paid to plant it, or if the tree is part of a paid carbon-offset program, or if its fruit is harvested for market, etc. GDP it is merely a dollar figure based on the value sum of consumer, government, and private sector spending, checked by net exports. So does an increase in GDP contribute to environmental degradation? In theory an increase in GDP does not necessarily have to come alongside increases in material throughput, if, for instance, the spending in an economy is primarily oriented around regeneratively-produced or low-impact goods and services. This theoretical “decoupling” of GDP growth from its material impacts serves as a foundation for the idea of “green growth”, the dominant framing promoted by governments seeking to make the world more sustainable. Enter The Case for Degrowth, the latest book to join a growing degrowth “canon”. -
Growth and Its Discontents: Paving the Way for a More Productive Engagement with Alternative Economic Practices
Growth and its Discontents: Paving the Way for a More Productive Engagement with Alternative Economic Practices Dr Javier Lloveras, and Dr Lee Quinn Cite this paper as: Lloveras, J. and Quinn, L. (2016) ‘Growth and its discontents: Paving the way for a more productive engagement with alternative economies,’ Journal of Macromarketing, (online first), available at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0276146716670213 Abstract Fragmented marketing debates concerning the role of alternative economies are attributable to the lack of a meaningful macromarketing dimension to which alternative economic practices can be anchored. The research frames an evaluation of existing macromarketing developments aimed at reformulating the mindless fetish for economic growth. Raising concerns with the treadmill dynamics of marketing systems, three different approaches - green growth, a-growth and degrowth - are critically evaluated to: (a) introduce degrowth as a widely overlooked concept in the macromarketing literature; (b) expose how each perspective entails a specific organization of provisioning activities; and (c) foreground the role of alternative economic practices beyond the growth paradigm. The article concludes by arguing that socially sustainable degrowth is central to elucidating current marketing debates concerning the future direction of alternative economic practices. Key Words: Alternative economies; green growth; a-growth; degrowth 1 “Lack of realism consists in imagining that economic growth can still bring about increased human welfare, and indeed that it is still physically possible.” - Gorz (1980, p. 13) Our research is sensitive to the fact that complex civilizations should never be characterized as anything but fragile and impermanent. We therefore open with a powerful reminder that human history is littered with examples of highly complex and prosperous socio-economic systems that once flourished but eventually faltered and failed (e.g. -
Revolutions in Reverse O
Minor Compositions Open Access Statement – Please Read This book is open access. This work is not simply an electronic book; it is the open access version of a work that exists in a number of forms, the traditional printed form being one of them. All Minor Compositions publications are placed for free, in their entirety, on the web. This is because the free and autonomous sharing of knowledges and experiences is important, especially at a time when the restructuring and increased centralization of book distribution makes it difficult (and expensive) to distribute radical texts effectively. The free posting of these texts does not mean that the necessary energy and labor to produce them is no longer there. One can think of buying physical copies not as the purchase of commodities, but as a form of support or solidarity for an approach to knowledge production and engaged research (particularly when purchasing directly from the publisher). The open access nature of this publication means that you can: • read and store this document free of charge • distribute it for personal use free of charge • print sections of the work for personal use • read or perform parts of the work in a context where no financial transactions take place However, it is against the purposes of Minor Compositions open access approach to: • gain financially from the work • sell the work or seek monies in relation to the distribution of the work • use the work in any commercial activity of any kind • profit a third party indirectly via use or distribution of the work • distribute in or through a commercial body (with the exception of academic usage within educational institutions) The intent of Minor Compositions as a project is that any surpluses generated from the use of collectively produced literature are intended to return to further the development and production of further publications and writing: that which comes from the commons will be used to keep cultivating those commons. -
Jean Baudrillard's Karl Marx — Productivist Ideology, and the Future of the Left
Fast Capitalism ISSN 1930-014X Volume 8 • Issue 2 • 2011 doi:10.32855/fcapital.201102.009 Jean Baudrillard’s Karl Marx — Productivist Ideology, And The Future of the Left Gerry Coulter Introduction The grand Marxist promise has ended (Baudrillard, 1985:95). Marx believed that in economics and its dialectical procedure he found fundamental agency, all he found was what haunts it (Baudrillard, 1993a:237). The place of Marx’s writings in scholarly circles has changed greatly over the past 40 years – the four decades in which Baudrillard published over 40 books. Marx found his way into a significant place in 29 of these texts. Baudrillard’s passage through Marx is telling of important developments in intellectual culture in recent times. None of these is any more important than the future of Marx’s writings. While many in the West continued to believe that Marx’s ideas could provide solutions to capitalist political economy, Baudrillard was among the first on the Left to become deeply dissatisfied with Marx’s writings. The break with Marx was an important part of Baudrillard’s coming to grips with radical uncertainty – an uncertainty which accelerates and envelopes all of us in the continuing mutations of fast (hyper) capitalism. For anyone interested in the future of Marx, Baudrillard’s encounter with him after 1968 is crucial. Just as Baudrillard was not especially comfortable in the “post-Marxist” world – many scholars who are not fond of Baudrillard have come to recognize that the Marx we have today, for better or worse, is one that has passed through Baudrillard and his contemporaries. -
Political Framework of Green New Deal: a Comparative Analysis of the EU and US Proposals
Political Framework of Green New Deal: A comparative analysis of the EU and US proposals 1 Taedong Lee, Myungsung Kim, Natalie Chifamba Green New Deal (GND) proposals are suggested as a solution to cope with climate emergency, economic recession, and social inequality. This study aims to conceptualize GNDs through the political questions of who gets what, why, and how. This research defines the politics of GND as a government’s stimulus policy to tackle climate change, economic downturn, and inequality by building up sustainable infrastructure, industries, and communities through investment, job creation, and innovation. The politics of the GND framework consists of actors, aims, contents, and measures. By applying this framework, empirical analyses examine the similarities and differences in the GND proposals of the EU and the US. This finding suggests that varying comprehensiveness and concreteness are presented in these proposals. The preliminary analysis demonstrates that measures for funding should be identified for implementing effective GND plans. Research applying the political analysis framework into recently announced Korean GND would contribute to enhancing the policy plan and implementation process. Keywords: Green New Deal, Climate Change Politics, Just Transition, Carbon Neutral, USA, EU ** Taedong Lee([email protected]) is professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations in Yonsei University, Seoul. His areas of research include global and subnational environmental politics and policy, NGO politics, international political economy and social network analysis. His articles have appeared in journals including Policy Sciences, Voluntas, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Review of Policy Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, Policy Studies Journal, and Global Environmental Politics. -
Degrowth and Educative Deconstruction of the Neoliberal Subject: Alternatives to Build up a Sustainable Society
Degrowth and Educative Deconstruction of the Neoliberal Subject: Alternatives to Build up a Sustainable Society Enrique Javier Díez-Gutiérrez1 and José María Díaz-Nafría2 1 Universidad de León, León, Spain [email protected] 2 Madrid Open University, Madrid, Spain [email protected] Abstract. The paper makes a literary review of degrowth pedagogy. Degrowth has become one of the fundamental approaches posed to sur- vive in a world of limited resources and to face the profound causes of the current crisis. Learning to live better with less turns out to be not a moral postulate but a vital necessity of our species. The paper analyses the current investigations in the field, as well as the relevant publica- tions in 88 peer review articles, focused on degrowth published between 2006 and 2019, including 41 proposals for action, among which 14 are specialized in the field of education. The conclusions point to the urgent and imperative need to change economic and environmental policies, but also mentalities. Decolonising the collective dominant imaginary trapped in consumerism and individualism; educating in a collective and shared lifestyle of voluntary sobriety; deconstructing the productivist reason and adopting an alternative model of eco social future in the unique world we have. The education and the school, as discussed in the paper, has a fundamental role to play in this endeavor. Keywords: Degrowth · Ecological sustainability · Emancipatory ed- ucational research · Environmental education · Critical pedagogy. Growing continuously, as the capitalism insistently proposes as it were one of its fundamental postulates, is simply impossible in a limited world, like ours, for obvious material constraints [40, 56, 57, 100].