Austerity, Welfare State and Eco-Socialism:With special reference to the United Kingdom (original) (raw)
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Austerity, Welfare State and Eco-Socialism; With special reference to the UK
In the clash between austerity and Keynesian stimulus paradigms in the advanced capitalist economies in general and the United Kingdom in particular, this paper argues that in the era of global climate change and global warming, merely proposing stimulus in opposition to austerity is flawed. In contrast, the paper proposes that an eco-socialist perspective with emphasis on green economy, sustainability and equality is of historic importance and relevance.
Austerity: An environmentally dangerous idea
Kaika, M., Calvário, R., & Velegrakis, G. (2024). Austerity: an environmentally dangerous idea. Journal of Political Ecology, 31(1), 67-81; DOI: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5420 , 2024
The article examines austerity as a policy and practice that is dangerous not only for human societies and economies, but also for more-than-human ecologies and lives. Often presented as an economic tool that can 'fix' an economic crisis, austerity nevertheless carries serious environmental consequences which are not systematically documented or theorized. Here, we sketch a political ecology agenda for understanding austerity as environmental politics, focusing on three facets. First, austerity as justification for intensifying environmental destruction in the name of economic recovery. Second, austerity as a catalyst for increasing socio-environmental inequality, exacerbating colonial extractivism, and complexifying North/South binaries. Third, austerity as a socio-environmental condition that can kindle innovative environmental protection movements; but can also exacerbate climate denialism and new forms of 'othering.' The framework we offer here is pertinent at the aftermath of consecutive economic, pandemic, and inflation-induced austerity periods, when aggressive progrowth agendas fast become normalized as prime recovery strategies.
Basic Income Studies, 2006
eds) Palgrave MacMillan: New York, 2002, 226 pp ISBN 0-333-91984-X Environment and Welfare can be divided into three parts. The first part, consisting of the first four chapters, is the most theoretical. The first chapter by Tony Fitzpatrick and Michael Cahill introduces three main green criticisms raised against social policies: a criticism of economic growth and of consumer society, a criticism of the full-time full-employment target and a criticism of full-bodied political centralization. The second chapter by John Barry draws some distinctions necessary for understanding the different schools of green thought. On one hand, the anthropocentric view attributes intrinsic value only to human lives and treats the environment as valuable instrumentally. On the other hand, the ecocentric view holds that the environment is valuable in itself, independently of its effects on human lives. The third chapter by Mathew Humphrey attempts to pin down what constitutes green ideology and
Two Cheers for Environmental Keynesianism
Advocates of environmental Keynesianism argue that investing in 'environmentally-friendly' industries is the key both to overcoming global environmental challenges and to putting the economy on a long-term footing of financial sustainability. This essay supports the analysis underlying the case for environmental Keynesianism, but criticizes its conclusions. While attractive, environmental Keynesianism contains fatal contradictions: in order for it to work economically, it implies the continuation of conventional growth in the consumer economy, which by its own terms it deems environmentally unsustainable. This flaw applies not just to the 'economic wing' of this school (who see in such investments a boost to growth) but also to its 'environmental wing' (who focus more on the avoidance of environmental costs). This does not mean that the proposed objects of environmental Keynesianism are wrong; what is wrong is to frame them as conventional economic investments. The essay concludes that environmental Keynesianism represents a failed attempt to save capitalism from its environmental contradictions; and that the perception of this failure should be the prompt to more radical thinking.
An introduction to Assessing Austerity
2016
Contributions in Political Economy which reflect on the history, theoretical justification, and the spatial and social implications of austerity policies. This remarkable range of articles explores the political economy of austerity policiesits intellectual origins and justifications, the politics and politicking surrounding austerity, and its uneven spatial and distributional implications. The Economics of Austerity: The Rise and Fall of Keynesian Konzelmann's (2014, this issue) paper sets the stage for understanding the evolution of ideas about economic austerity. After World War Two, when the welfare state was firmly in placeand its social and political popularity protected it from serious cut-backsausterity took a periodic macroeconomic form, designed to stabilise economic activity, protect employment, prevent inflation and avert financial crises. Steeply progressive tax regimes ensured that the cost of these measures was borne proportionately more by the better-off. As a result, during the decades that followed, egalitarianism and an extended period of economic growth delivered greater economic equality and unprecedented improvements in living standards. However, this social and economic progress was undermined, as Kalecki (1943) had predicted, by the failure to create social and political institutions capable of supporting continuously high levels of employment. State management of the economy was ultimately destabilized by the crisis-ridden 1970s, which also discredited worker-friendly legislation, trade union organisation and collective bargaining. The resulting counter-reaction to Keynesianism was led by neo-liberal theorists, who portrayed unemployment as a "natural" phenomenonmade worse by trade union activity, legally enforceable The theoretical justification for austerity was provided by Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff; and this was seized upon by politicians wanting to reverse course. Reinhard and Rogoff's (2009) study of the long-term historical relationship between public debt and economic growth suggests that following a financial crisis, output and employment recover very slowly and that the average duration of debt overhang episodes is 23 years. This implies a substantial cumulative loss in output, raising concerns about the long-term negative consequences of high levels of public debt. From this, they conclude that in the current context, since growth is slower when public debt is high, austerity is required to reduce public debt-to-GDP ratios to growth-permitting levels. Their 2010 study goes further, identifying a public debt "threshold"-90 percent of GDPat which economic growth contracts.
2021
The decade 2010-20 has been one in which the 'wisdoms' of the 1990sthat globalisation was here to stay, that inequality was in retreat and that markets and politics had reached a sustainable trucewere fundamentally challenged. In the wake of the 2008 economic crisis there was initially some public and political contemplation on a rebalancing of market fundamentalism with the social purpose of politics (for example, the purported 'death' of the Washington consensus). This was soon superseded, initially by a return to 'business as usual' followed by a turbo-charged attack on social provision and its underlying principles in the guise of austerity. There is nothing new about austerity, an idea and set of policies that have come to define government approaches to public and social policies over the past decade. Austerity describes self-imposed and/or externally imposed (temporary) cuts in expenditure to balance budgets. But austerity is also, and more importantly in terms of social policies, a political project aimed at transforming the welfare state and realizing ambitions with much longer roots. In wartime, austerity captures national adjustments to scarcity. Twenty-first century austerity is an objectively bad idea that has been politically operationalised to capitalise on prevailing conditions of uncertainty (Schui, 2014). The fact that a bad idea (or dangerous idea in Blyth's (2013) parlance) can be engineered, promoted and implemented in the face of mounting compelling evidence of unremitting failure, is testament to the underlying, creeping strength of anti-collectivist ideology embedded in economic thought in the 1980s and normalised in the 1990s and 2000s (Wren-Lewis, 2018). Austerity is a slippery idea, reflecting and shaping approaches to the economy, public finance and public services so that welfare states no longer appear tenable (Farnsworth and Irving, 2015). It is about power and how it is wielded by powerful individuals, national and international institutions and governments (Streeck, 2017). Thus, while it is often portrayed as simply describing essential spending cuts, in reality it is far more complex and, when filtered through a powerful right-wing media and ideologues, pervasive. The key debates about austerity reflect disagreement about what it is, how it can be identified, measured, compared, evaluated and resisted, and the extent to which it is an Anglo-(neo) liberal problem or global in scale. The articles selected for this themed section are intended to reflect the breadth of perspectives through which the idea and reality of austerity can be examined. The first two articles draw on themes developed in our previous work. In the first, Kevin Farnsworth distinguishes between political and economic austerity and examines the extent to which austerity is present over time and across states in the OECD. The
Revival of Keynesian Economics or Greening Capitalism: “Green Keynesianism”
Sosyoekonomi, 2019
Severity of economic crises and environmental collapses have sparked off a renewed interest in revisiting mainstream arguments dominated by neoclassical economic models in a critical way. The idea behind these critisisms is that there is an essential need to develop a new approach that embraces the elements of ecologically sustainable and economically viable solutions for the globalized capitalism of the twenty-first century. After giving a brief overview of debates related to the criticism of mainstream arguments and revival of the Keynesian idea with a new interpretation, this paper explores basic characteristics of “green Keynesianism” and discusses theoretical arguments related to this concept. Also, “green new deal” and its varieties, which might be seen as an extension of the theoretical context of green Keynesianism are examined in a practical manner. Furthermore, the paper deals with the criticisms of various aspects of this new theory.
Introduction : the politics of austerity in comparative perspective
2014
The introduction explores the politics and political economy of austerity in comparative perspective, setting out the context of current austerity policies and discourse in Europe. It places the specific exploration of the dynamics and particularities of French austerity politics under Hollande within a broader context of changes since the 1980s to democratic institutions and electoral practices, the politics of European integration and the conditions of complex economic interdependence resulting from processes of deregulation, liberalisation and globalisation. It establishes the rationale behind the focus of the articles in this special issue on, firstly, the link between popular approval of elected politicians, democratic legitimacy and austerity; secondly, the politics and dynamics of state reform processes at the national and subnational levels which are integral to delivering on austerity-oriented commitments to reduce public expenditure; and thirdly, on the increasingly asymme...
2021
This chapter focuses on how the environment was mobilised in subaltern struggles against the normalisation of austerity and “neoliberal natures” during and after the 2008 economic crisis in Greece. We ground our analysis on three grassroots environmental movements that emerged as a response to austerity measures: the national “no-middlemen” solidarity food distribution network (2012-2015); the local anti-mining movement in Halkidiki, northern Greece (2011 onwards); and the national movement against new onshore and offshore hydrocarbon explorations (2015 onwards). Using a Gramscian political ecology framework, our analysis shows that by reciprocally combining anti-austerity politics and alternative ways of understanding and mobilizing “environmental” discourses, all three movements successfully challenged the reproduction of uneven society environment relations that had been exacerbated by the austerity agenda and the intensification of neoliberal practices in the country.