Steady-State Economy Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

2024, OEconomia

This article delves into the nuanced influence of diverse economic theories on the concept of sustainable development, spanning economic, social, and environmental dimensions with intricate complexity. It
elucidates the varying perspectives on the sustainability of economic growth and the evolving ethical discourse within economics, offering valuable insights into their implications for sustainable development
efforts. Through an exploration of economic development, the article investigates the dynamic interplay between international dependence and liberal theory, drawing parallels among the ideas of influential
economists like Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo. It highlights the inherent link between economic and social spheres, particularly emphasizing income distribution’s pivotal role in addressing realworld
challenges and advancing sustainability objectives. Furthermore, the article delves into social development by examining Amartya Sen’s capability approach, which breathes new life into classical economic concepts by emphasizing individual agency. It contrasts prevailing economic paradigms and their consequences for sustainable development. Finally, in the environmental realm, the article discusses
resource and environmental economics alongside ecological economics, presenting nuanced interpretations of sustainability rooted in either neoclassical or classical theory. This comprehensive analysis provides
valuable insights into the complex landscape of sustainable development, aiming to inform and guide future endeavors in this critical field.

2024, Ecological Limits of Development Living with the Sustainable Development Goals

Embracing the reality of biophysical limits to growth, this volume uses the technical tools from ecological economics to recast the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Ecological Livelihood Goals – policy agendas and trajectories that... more

2024, European Journal of Social Theory

Abstract
European Journal of Social Theory
2024, Vol. 27(3) 456–481
a The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/13684310241237428 journals.sagepub.com/home/est
E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful is one of the most succinct elaborations of Catholic social teaching (CST) and ‘distributism’ – construed as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. Extending the logic of Polanyi, both market and state, and their right- and left-wing ideological expressions, are shown to be contending forms of collectivism – in that both aggregate the agency of disembedded ‘billiard ball’ individuals. Schumacher’s socio-economic vision is rooted in Livelihood and is orthogonal to both left and right, creating an opportunity for an alternative to modernity involving patterns of embedded production, consumption and reproduction (family, household and place-bound com- munity). ‘Smallness’ and ‘localness’ speak to forms of embedded social capital that are ‘sticky’, viscous and relational, more ascriptive and less fluid. But for precisely this reason, the political agenda implicit in Schumacher’s vision is not only post-liberal, but explicitly both covenantal and Christian. It requires the ontology of sovereign, self-actualizing individuals to be reconnected and constrained through a transcendent relationality with God. Small is Beautiful is shown to be diametrically opposed to the eco-modernist, gnostic and sometimes even transhumanist worldview of global environmentalism.

2024, Liberty and the Ecological Crisis Freedom on a Finite Planet, 1st Edition Edited by Christopher J. Orr, Kaitlin Kish, Bruce Jennings (London Routledge) https://www.routledge.com/Liberty-and-the-Ecological-Crisis-Freedom-on-a-Finite-Planet/Orr-Kish-Jennings/p/book/9780367346775

The purpose of the chapter is to move away from categorical binaries of progressive and conservative thought in relation to problems such as gender equality, welfare safety nets, diversity, market efficiency – or liberty. I argue that concepts such as these and their institutional operation at the level of policy emerged, and can only be understood, in a world of taken-for-granted economic growth. In this context, left and right understandings of the market and state were sym- metrical, co-evolutionary and, in a very real sense, depended on each other at the level of discourse and policy instruments, but also in an oscillating pattern of adaptation to the evolving economy – a dynamic equilibrium which continually sought to balance incentives, investment competition, and innovation on the one hand, with social cohesion and political integration on the other. Moving out of that paradigm into an uncertain and more chaotic world requires that analysis steps back. Instead of offering firm prescriptions based on axiomatic moral and ontological frameworks of ‘left’ and ‘right’, a post-growth world is best approached by a consistent orientation towards ‘wicked dilemmas’ – paradoxical problems in which the trade-offs are complex and solutions are elusive. To the extent that habitual political orientations – feminist, socialist, liberal, conserva- tive, green – remain in play and retain or regain traction, it may be because their meaning has changed fundamentally.
During the course of capitalist modernization, the domains of state and mar- ket developed in tandem (Figure 2.1a). The alignment of the left–right polit- ical spectrum has become naturalized so as to obscure these co-evolutionary dynamics: for many on the left, the extent to which the politics of social justice and emancipation depend upon an expanding market economy; and for many on the right, the extent to which the societal conditions for dynamic markets and technical innovation depend equally upon what Bourdieu called the ‘left hand of the state’ (Quilley and Loyal 2017). Capitalism and social democracy in all forms are handmaidens of modernity, both depending upon and promot- ing economic growth. All modern understandings of liberty (both negative and
positive – Berlin 2002) in practice hinge on the unprecedented degree of indi- vidual social and spatial mobility, and psychological individuation associated with complex, high-material/energy throughput, modern societies. Bearing this in mind, it is historically and ecologically significant that the growth of the state-market that made such societies possible was necessarily accompanied by the contraction of the domain of livelihood. In what follows, it is argued that ecological limits to growth are likely to see a reduction in the linked domains of state and market and the partial re-emergence of livelihood. Any such develop- ment may well be experienced negatively as a reduction in the kind of liberty taken for granted by the spatially and socially mobile citizens of modern states. At the same time, in a post-consumer society there may also be opportuni- ties for greater happiness and well-being consequent upon the re-integration of rights with social obligations, responsibilities and more re-embedded forms of economic exchange involving patterns of reciprocity (Figure 2.1b). Any such re-balancing of state and market with the domain of livelihood would transform the meaning of, and relation between, taken-for-granted ideological orienta- tions such as feminism, nationalism, and conservatism, foreclosing some pos- sibilities whilst opening others. Notably, with regard to the problem of liberty, it is argued that such a context would be conducive to: forms of associative socialism attentive to self-organizing communities (Hirst 2001) and sensitive to national-civic sentiment (Orwell 1962); feminist ideologies attuned to the domestic sphere as an undivided arena for both production and care (Kish 2018); and forms of conservatism critical of market liberalism, foregrounding the role of virtue and attentive to the web of connectivity fostered by Edmund Burke’s ‘little platoons’ in civil society (Scruton 2015; Macintyre 2016). These potential overlaps are obscured by the increasingly anachronistic left–right lens through which the ideological landscape is still viewed. By stepping back and explor- ing the wicked dilemmas associated with the prospect of a lower energy, low- throughput modernity, it may be possible to navigate a freer and relatively more benign path through the Anthropocene.

2024, OEconomia

This article delves into the nuanced influence of diverse economic theories on the concept of sustainable development, spanning economic, social, and environmental dimensions with intricate complexity. It
elucidates the varying perspectives on the sustainability of economic growth and the evolving ethical discourse within economics, offering valuable insights into their implications for sustainable development
efforts. Through an exploration of economic development, the article investigates the dynamic interplay between international dependence and liberal theory, drawing parallels among the ideas of influential
economists like Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo. It highlights the inherent link between economic and social spheres, particularly emphasizing income distribution’s pivotal role in addressing realworld
challenges and advancing sustainability objectives. Furthermore, the article delves into social development by examining Amartya Sen’s capability approach, which breathes new life into classical
economic concepts by emphasizing individual agency. It contrasts prevailing economic paradigms and their consequences for sustainable development. Finally, in the environmental realm, the article discusses
resource and environmental economics alongside ecological economics, presenting nuanced interpretations of sustainability rooted in either neoclassical or classical theory. This comprehensive analysis provides
valuable insights into the complex landscape of sustainable development, aiming to inform and guide future endeavors in this critical field.

2024, TAFHIM: IKIM Journal of Islam and the Contemporary World

As environmental crises escalate, with rising global warming, ice melting, species extinction, and pollution, urgent action is required to safeguard humanity and the planet. This article reviews the literature on environmental risks in Muslim countries, particularly poorer ones. The environmental impact equation (I = f [T, P, A]) underscores the key drivers—technology, population, and affluence, with affluence identified as the primary driver of climate change resulting from excessive carbon emissions. The wealthiest one percent produce approximately 70 times more carbon than the poorest 50%, yet it is poorer communities that disproportionately suffer the consequences. This paper examines how Muslims can contribute to sustainability and mitigate environmental damage by addressing ecological “overshoots,” promoting “degrowth” and “steady-state” economies, and fostering qanāʿah (contentment) as a personal lifestyle practice. The emphasis is placed on affluence, rather than population, as the critical factor in combating climate change.

2024, Global Sustainability

Non-technical summary. Neoclassical economics (NCE) theory and neoliberal economics practice together form one of the principal driving forces of environmental destruction and social injustice. We critically examine ten key hypotheses that form the foundations of NCE, and four other claims. Each fails to satisfy one or more of the basic requirements of scientific practice. Hence, NCE is fundamentally flawed, is irrational in the common meaning of the word, and should not be used as a guide for government policies. Because NCE is socially constructed, it can be replaced with an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that is compatible with ecological sustainability and social justice. Technical summary. Neoclassical economics (NCE) is widely regarded as providing theoretical justification for neoliberal notions such as 'governments should minimize regulation and spending, and hence leave major socioeconomic and environmental decisions to the market'. A large body of literature finds that NCE is largely responsible for environmental destruction and social inequality. As NCE is claimed to be a science and has appropriated terminology (without the content) from physics, we examine critically its basic hypotheses and four other claims from a viewpoint of natural scientists and an ecological economist, each a sustainability researcher. This paper defines NCE in two ways: as a theoretical structure for economics based on (1) the hypotheses of methodological individualism, methodological instrumentalism and methodological equilibration, and (2) the three hypotheses named above together with seven other common hypotheses of NCE. We find that each hypothesis and claim fails to satisfy one or more basic requirements of scientific practice such as empirical confirmation, underlying credible or empirical assumptions, consistency with Earth system science, and internal consistency. Sensitivity analysis is rare and ability to predict is lacking. Therefore, we recommend that neoclassical microeconomics be reformed and neoclassical macroeconomics be abandoned and replaced with a transdisciplinary field such as social ecological economics. Social media summary. Conventional economics, a driver of environmental damage and social inequality, fails examination by sustainability scientists.

2024, Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Despite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60% higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses-covering issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling, energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries-draws out multifaceted reasons for our collective failure to bend the global emissions curve. However, a common thread that emerges across the reviewed literature is the central role of power, manifest in many forms, from a dogmatic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic mindsets and ideologies of control. Synthesizing the various impediments to mitigation reveals how delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement now requires an urgent and unprecedented transformation away from today's carbon-and energy-intensive development paradigm. ,. • • �-Review in Advance first posted on June 29 , 2021. (Changes may still occur before final publication.

2024, Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change

Aliénor Bertrand, A Rupture Between Human Beings and Earth: A Philosophical Critical Approach to Coviability.in, Barrière, O., et al. Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global... more

2024, Annals Economy Series

Georgescu-Roegen's name is tied to Bioeconomics. He is the founder of the discipline and he is the one who engendered the Bioeconomic program. This eight step minimal program has started many controversies over time. Our aim is to argue that Roegen's recommendations are utopian only if treated separately from the whole. Studying them in context might give us the answer we need to solve the deep human crisis, which translated into a financial and economic drama, and define a new normality.

2024

As a research field, social movement and political project, degrowth is a multifaceted phenomenon. It brings together a range of practices including alternative forms of living and transformative initiatives in civil society, business and the state. Yet no comprehensive theory of degrowth transformations has so far been developed. Deep Transformations fills this gap. It develops a theory of degrowth transformations drawing on insights from multiple fields of knowledge, such as political economy, sociology and philosophy. The book offers a holistic perspective that brings into focus transformation processes on various scales and points to various mechanisms that can facilitate degrowth. These include, for instance, eco-social policies, transformative initiatives in business and civil society and alternative modes of being in and relating with the world.

2024, Studia Mundi – Economica

Rural population is vulnerable partly for its lack of self-sufficiency. This recognition considerably varies from the way rural territories functioned more than 200 years ago. The peasant societies were well known about sustaining themselves. A major trigger for the disappearance of this pattern was industrialization. This paper explicitly reviews a social perspective of industrialism and provides a novel point of view regarding its overall recognition. The present study states that there was an incremental effect of relying on machines. People have lost their sense of practical skills. Another hidden pattern of development was to utilize finite resources. The reason behind it might come from the fact that this way allows companies to distribute energy according to their own terms. As a conclusion, the paper argues that centralized (energy and industrial) production systems have increased the dependence of society – especially in case of rural population. Furthermore, it claims that...

2024, Ecological Economics

It is argued that the time horizon of consideration in our present efforts at sustainability is not the correct time horizon. Implementation of the correct time horizon is revealed to require a bi-level control mode that has been termed semantic closure in theoretical biology. Daly's institutions for a steady-state economy are disclosed to afford the necessary semantic closure. However, it is required that those institutions be switched from a steadystate mode of operation to a peculiar pulsing mode of operation according to seminal calculations by Dyson if true sustainability is to be attained.

2024, Ecological Economics

The Mexican neoliberal political regime created a hegemonic governance model (top-down) which has tried to impose a single definition for the rules of the distribution of the costs and benefits (environmental and economic) related to the appropriation of "natural resources" (fossil fuels, forests, mineral, water, genetic). Social metabolism is a framework that highlights the contribution of indigenous communities in their struggles to build a movement of environmental justice and austerity (a regionally sensitive alternative to degrowth). By forging an indigenous communitarian identity, known as comunalidad in the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca, they are forging a new form of "bottom-up" governance. We designed key components and indicators to understand the social metabolism related to three policy objectives: a) local governance; b) reducing water vulnerability; and c) social justice. Heterodox perspectives by Marx and Illich enrich the analysis. The analysis emphasizes the importance of the social control of the "tools" needed to protect their communities and their heritage, transforming the institutions that were imposed on them. The approach is critical for constructing a research program in "ecological economics from below."

2023, Sustainable Development

2023

Since the early 1750's economists have elaborate two approaches in order to deal with economic history: a stage theory and a theory of continuing, quantitative growth. J. Schumpeter argued forcibly in favour of the development approach while N. Georgescu-Roegen endorsed the Schumpeterian distinction and considered the stage theory as sketched in Smith or Marx. He proposed a more radical version of his own, embedded in East European history, distinguishing agrarian economies from industrial ones. The paper provides an analysis of the views of both authors on evolution by analysing others aspects such as the relationship between the qualitative change and the stationary state, the linkages between the evolution and the question of time, and the implications of the dialectical nature of the economic process from a methodological viewpoint (measurability of change, pattern of economic evolution, lessons from the flow-fund model of production) as well as the two stage theory of Nicho...

2023, Annual Review of Environment and Resources

This article presents a critical assessment of 40 years of research that may be brought under the umbrella of energy efficiency, spanning different aggregations and domains—from individual producing and consuming agents to economy-wide effects to the role of innovation to the influence of policy. After 40 years of research, energy efficiency initiatives are generally perceived as highly effective. Innovation has contributed to lowering energy technology costs and increasing energy productivity. Energy efficiency programs in many cases have reduced energy use per unit of economic output and have been associated with net improvements in welfare, emission reductions, or both. Rebound effects at the macro level still warrant careful policy attention, as they may be nontrivial. Complexity of energy efficiency dynamics calls for further methodological and empirical advances, multidisciplinary approaches, and granular data at the service level for research in this field to be of greatest s...

2023, Journal of Cleaner Production

Any reflections on an eventual transition towards a degrowth society have to take into account the current crisis in the dominant system and question whether the latter will be able to grow again or not. In order for the latter to happen, the role played by technological innovation is crucial. This paper starts by reconsidering Georgescu-Roegen's definition of Promethean Techniques and Tainter's principle of Declining Marginal Returns, with the aim of providing e within the common framework of the theory of complex systems-a sound theoretical basis for the analysis of the rise and fall of complex societies. The main purpose is to verify whether, after the last Promethean revolution, a "Great Wave" emerged or not. The second part of the paper presents an initial investigation into this hypothesis, using Total Factor Productivity growth as an indicator of (marginal) returns on innovation (1750e2015). Despite the limitations implicit in the use of this indicator, data show three cycles of innovation, corresponding to the first, second and third industrial revolutions, but of different magnitude and duration. In particular, the whole cycle that began with the first industrial revolution in England around 1750, reached a peak in the U.S. in the nineteen-thirties and later declined, following a trend that basically confirms the Great Wave hypothesis. Even recent innovations resulting from the ICT revolution, however considerable, do not seem capable of counteracting this long-term trend. Data on returns on innovation seem, therefore, to be coherent with evidence provided by research in other fields (energy, mineral resources, agriculture, health, education and scientific research), showing that advanced capitalist societies have entered a phase of declining marginal returns-or involuntary degrowth-with possible major effects on the system's capacity to maintain its present institutional framework.

2023, Energies

After the Great Recession of 2008, there was a strong commitment from several international institutions and forums to improve wellbeing economics, with a switch towards satisfaction and sustainability in people–planet–profit relations. The initiative of the European Union is the Green Deal, which is similar to the UN SGD agenda for Horizon 2030. It is the common political economy plan for the Multiannual Financial Framework, 2021–2027. This project intends, at the same time, to stop climate change and to promote the people’s wellness within healthy organizations and smart cities with access to cheap and clean energy. However, there is a risk for the success of this aim: the Jevons paradox. In this paper, we make a thorough revision of the literature on the Jevons Paradox, which implies that energy efficiency leads to higher levels of consumption of energy and to a bigger hazard of climate change and environmental degradation.

2023, Sozialwissenschaften und Berufspraxis

Viele soziale und ökologische Innovationen scheitern oft an Renditezwängen. Etliche Ökonomen sprechen dem Geld einen neutralen Charakter zu. Dies entspringt der Vorstellung, Geld sei ein Ding, auf das der Mensch nur begrenzt Einfluss habe. Ein Blick in die historische Entwicklung des Geldwesens lässt an dieser Theorie starke Zweifel aufkommen: Geld entsteht bereits in der Antike, jedoch spätestens in der Neuzeit durch Kollektive, die ausgehend von bestimmten Zielen und Normen einen abstrakten Wert-und Rechenmaßstab festlegen und mittels eines Zahlungssystems verwirklichen. Mit dieser Perspektive eröffnet sich das Geld selbst als eine formbare Institution. Die Handlungsspielräume werden einerseits durch die Zusätzlichkeit einer Währung stark erweitert, andererseits aber auch durch Regeln und Normen begrenzt. An Beispielen von Regionalwährungen in Wörgl, im Chiemgau und auf Sardinien werden unterschiedliche Umweltbedingungen betrachtet und die Zielrichtung und Lösungsansätze der jeweiligen Währungsinitiativen vorgestellt. Das neu geschaffene "Geld" wirkt dabei wie ein Bindemittel, das die Beteiligten dynamisch und dauerhaft zu Kooperationen anregt. Welchen Beitrag leisten solche alternativen Währungen im Hinblick auf globale Herausforderungen wie demographischer Wandel, Klimaerwärmung und soziale Ungleichheit? Sind sie vielleicht sogar Wegbereiter eines grundlegenden Transformationsprozesses im Geldwesen?

2023, Sustainability Science

Ecological degradation stemming from the paradigmatic pursuit of economic growth is well known. Transforming the current dominant economic discourse will be a great challenge of our time and one that can foster a transformation to a more sustainable state. Little research exists concerning perceptions of growth by individuals in rural areas. In this empirical study, we analysed 33 interviews from two rural communities in Northwest Germany through qualitative content analysis. Our results highlight four archetypical perceptions of economic growth: (1) growth as inherently positive, (2) growth as being self-evident and without alternatives, (3) growth as a systemic constraint, and (4) growth as critical and with negative consequences. Differing perceptions about five key themes within broader societal discourses shape the four archetypical perceptions. All four archetypes are characterized by a common perception of systemic constraints, a lack of concrete alternatives to the current economic system and a lack of individual and societal agency, showing a system that is locked into its current trajectory. The understanding of the consequences of growth, stemming from the knowledge of rural inhabitants, can lay the groundwork for future research on discourses of growth. We envision a strengthening of tangible alternatives to the dominant economic growth paradigm within and with the local communities as necessary for a sustainability transformation.

2023, Stuttgart: Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Abteilung für Organisations- und Innovationssoziologie

Ein grüner Geist des Kapitalismus? Konturen einer neuen Wirtschaftsgesinnung.

2023, Ethik und Gesellschaft

Glaubt man Peter Sloterdijk (2002, 252), befindet sich die Gegenwartszivilisation in einer psychologischen und ethischen Konfusion, von der noch niemand sagen kann, ob sie vorkatastrophisch oder vorreformatorisch ist. In seiner "Notiz zu René Girards anthropologischer Sendung" argumentiert er, dass die unsichtbare Hand der "Dogmatiker der Marktwirtschaft" aus nichts anderem bestehe als aus einer in der Weltwirtschaft nachhaltig etablierten Kopplung zweier Entgrenzungen, der entfesselten Masseneifersucht und der entfesselten Konsumgüterproduktion. Die Einfriedung der Masseneifersucht durch Konsumgütervermehrung stoße jedoch an die Grenzen des Paradoxons der Wunschnachahmung. Selbst wenn es möglich wäre "noch mehr bequeme Plätze für Sehr Wichtige Personen zu schaffen" und die Schaffung neuer billiger Genussobjekte noch dynamischer gestaltet werden könnte: Die Knappheit wachse im Neid-und Eifersuchtsfeld schneller als das Angebot. Als Konsequenz komme es zu einer ständigen Vermehrung derer, die mit dem Gefühl, Verlierer zu sein, vom Platz gingen. Damit diese Situation sich nicht als vorkatastrophisch erweise, müsse-Girard folgend-an die Stelle der kurzen Weisheit des Pragmatismus der Moderne eine neue Verständigung treten über das, was moralisch nottue. Die Anthropologie müsse sich in dieser Situation als normative Wissenschaft konstituieren. Sie müsse an das 21. Jahrhundert die Frage formulieren, wie die Moderne das Experiment der Globalisierung der Eifersucht wieder unter Kontrolle bringen wolle. Der Egalitarismus ist für Sloterdijk nur eine "Blende über dem unlösbaren Problem der Wunschnachahmung" (Sloterdijk 2002, 253). Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es, eine Politikmaßnahme vorzustellen, die Ulrich Klüh, geb. 1974 in Frankfurt am Main, Prof. Dr. oec. pub., Studium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften in

2023, Geography Bulletin

Insights from ecological economics, the environmental consequences of economic growth, and an exposition of the steady-state economy, support geography teachers to teach for ecological sustainability, and students to become active and informed citizens. A case study from Byron Bay that draws on these concepts further supports teachers and students toward these ends.

2023, The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation: Technological, socioeconomic and political change

We humans have unwittingly fallen into an existential crisis of our own making. We have allowed large corporations, the military and other vested interests to capture our governments and influence public opinion excessively. We have... more

2023, PROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft

Mit einem Green New Deal über den Kapitalismus hinaus? Zusammenfassung: »Radikale« Vorschläge für einen Green New Deal (GND) versuchen, das große Mobilisierungspotenzial der Idee für eine tiefergehende sozialökologische Transformation zu nutzen. Sie bleiben jedoch vage in Bezug auf die Frage, wie und wo sich der Entwicklungspfad eines solchen transformativen GND von einem re-sozialdemokratisierten »grünen« Kapitalismus lösen soll. Dieser Beitrag schlägt vor, einen radikalisierten GND als möglichen Transformationsbaustein innerhalb einer an E.O. Wright angelehnten dreiteiligen Transformationsstrategie zu verstehen, die »symbiotische« Reformmaßnahmen im Zusammenspiel mit der Erweiterung von nichtkapitalistischen Freiräumen anvisiert.

2023, Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Over the past few years, studies in political ecology and environmental justice have been increasingly connecting the commons and social movements empirically, giving shape to a new, distinctive body of research on commons movements. In our review, we first organize and synthesize empirical lessons from this body of literature. We then highlight recent theoretical efforts made by scholars to both bridge and transcend the gap between the theory of the commons and social movement theory. As we illustrate, movements can help create and strengthen commons institutions and discourses, as well as rescale them horizontally and vertically. This is particularly evident in the context of rural community-rights movements in the global South, as well as in new water and food commons movements and community energy movements in both the global South and North. Commons institutions, in turn, can serve as the basis of social mobilization and become a key frame for social movements, as shown in the ...

2023, Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy com-patible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability scie...

2023

На основе природно-ресурсных циклов И.В.Комара показано, что экологический кризис делают глобальным, а проблемы — растущими в геометрической прогрессии всеобщая экономия на регенерационных затратах, присущая капитализму, и «невидимость» для экономики «экосистемных услуг», почему до сих пор охрана или восстановление природных территорий — благотворительность, досуг, но не область общественного производства (каковой оно должно стать для прекращения кризиса). Обоснованы три необходимых условия для перехода с кризисной траектории развития человечества на экологически устойчивую — ускоренное увеличение регенерационных затрат сравнительно с затратами на добычу ресурсов; последовательное предпочтение «экосистемных услуг» (т. е. охраны или восстановления природных сообществ) решению тех же проблем техническими средствами; превращение охраны и восстановления природных сообществ в область общественного производства благодаря использованию в экономике стоимостей производимых ею «услуг» наравне с прочими стоимостями.

2023

Zusammenfassung: Das gegenwärtige Wirtschaftssystem ist paradox: Wachstum soll Erwerbsarbeitsplätze schaffen. Dazu beitragen soll die Steigerung der Arbeitsproduktivität, doch damit gehen gleichzeitig Arbeitsplätze verloren. Entsprechend muss Wachstum zusätzlich die wegrationalisierten Arbeitsplätze kompensieren. Verstärkt wird diese Paradoxie durch das Sozialund Abgabensystem mit seiner zentralen Finanzierungsgrundlage Erwerbsarbeit: es treibt die Steigerung der Arbeitsproduktivität voran. Doch Wirtschaftsund Produktivitätswachstum können nicht unbegrenzt fortgesetzt werden. Es ist deshalb wichtig, die große Bedeutung der Erwerbsarbeit – für die Sozialversicherung, als Basis für öffentliche Abgaben sowie für die gesellschaftliche Anerkennung und Integration – zu relativieren. Zugleich ist ein Verständnis von Tätigsein zu entwickeln und seine Umsetzung institutionell zu fördern, das neben der Erwerbsarbeit auch Eigen-, Freiwilligen-, Care-, Gemeinschaftsarbeit und andere Arbeitsform...

2023, Ecological Economics

This paper proposes a framework in which the entropy of a system undergoing a transformation could be used to characterize the economics of the transformation itself. Specifically. two elemental economic processes-consumption and production-are each shown to have unique thermodynamic properties. Consumption is always accompanied by an increase in the entropy of the entire system, production by a decrease of the entropy of some parts of the system. Hence, an entropy measure could be designed to quantify in a unique physical sense the degree of economic production, consumption, and various sorts of efficiency. The study also suggests how this approach can provide insights into problems of economic growth and technological progress.

2023, Technovation

In this paper, we argue that the notion of Creative Destruction underpinning classical innovation management
theory as well as having crystallised into technological determinism and productivism has come to a dead-end.
Framing innovation’s ultimate goal as the endless pursuit of economic growth is unrealistic if we wish to address
pressing environmental challenges. We show that Creative Destruction historically emerged as an ideology from
a specific set of values and worldviews at the cradle of Western capitalism and its need for valorisations. Capital
valorisation imposes its logic on innovation, definition of needs, consumption, and organisation of work. The
mantra of ‘innovate or die’ and its underpinning values represent a hegemonic view on technology aligned with
the capitalist mode of production. We argue that a counter-hegemonic view emphasising conviviality and usevalue
is possible instead and needed to address the environmental and social challenges of our time. We posit
that the (re-)emerging mode of production, commons-based peer production (CBPP) has such potential. Indicative
cases show that innovation underlined by counter-hegemonic values already exists, albeit in the cracks of
the dominant system and in constant danger of co-optation. Governmental institutions need to support these
alternative practices of innovation.

2023, Wildlife Society Bulletin

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2023

University of Manchester's Faculty of Humanities. We are grateful for their support and the steering of a JRF/ UoM leadership group, initially chaired by Professor Mike Campbell, whose sudden death in late 2017 was a huge loss 1. Throughout its four-year life since 2016, the Unit has been guided by a multi-stakeholder advisory group comprising representatives from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, GM local authorities, the GM VCSE sector, trades unions and business representatives, and representatives from other organisations working on these issues such as the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), IPPR North, and the RSA, as well as the JRF. The regular meetings of this group have provided an opportunity to shape the work of the Unit and also to help debate, contest and challenge emerging GM strategies and inform future directions. We are immensely grateful for the sage advice of this knowledgeable group, both within and outside meetings and in the collaborative activities which we have developed. They have commented on this report but any errors and omissions are entirely our own. We have also appreciated the consistent support and advice of the JRF, particularly Josh Stott and Mike Hawking. Rebecca Bromley has organised and coordinated the Unit patiently, cheerfully and with a deep commitment to its goals. In the production of the report itself, we have very much appreciated the advice of Mike Hawking, Ben Lucas, Andrea Westall and Marianne Sensier, and the contributions of participants at our 'evidence sessions' and beyond. Thanks are also due to Nick Asher for design, Alex Macdougall for photography, and the work of our colleagues in UoM's Global Inequalities Research Beacon and Policy@Manchester for their guidance on production and dissemination.

2023, The Ecological Citizen

Respect for nature demands sharing landscapes and resources fairly with other species, which cannot be achieved without limiting human populations. So ecological citizens, the authors argue, should support measures to decrease fertility rates and limit immigration, both of which are necessary to reduce currently excessive populations. Global population growth will only end when enough individual nations embrace their own populations’ peak and decline; hence, setting immigration levels that allow for national population contraction is needed. While migration at low levels may be sustainable, high immigration undermines both national and global population stabilization and does not solve the problems which drive emigration. Combined with reduced per capita consumption, smaller populations will help developed nations to quit hogging a disproportionate share of the global ecological commons, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and open up new opportunities for ecological restoration and rewilding.

2023, Ökologisches Wirtschaften - Fachzeitschrift

Wachstumspolitik wird allzu oft mit dem Erhalten und Schaffen von Arbeitsplätzen begründet. Tatsächlich beeinflussen verschiedene Faktoren, ob, wie viele und welche Arbeitsplätze es gibt. Notwendig für eine Postwachstumsgesellschaft ist... more

2023, GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society

Social Welfare Politics Cannot Ignore Growthmania n the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Jakob and Edenhofer (2014) published an article on Green growth, Degrowth and the Commons. The main points made are that economic growth and gross domestic product (GDP) should be ignored in public policies and that public policies should be based on a new social welfare concept, called welfare diagnostics. Growth may or may not result from this concept; but growth would only be a means and not an end. Hence, the authors express sympathy with the idea of "a-growth" (Van den Bergh 2011). The welfare diagnostics proposed consists of important indicators (the authors also call them capital stocks) that capture the multiple dimensions of social welfare with a minimum threshold of accessibility and availability. Examples are public infrastructure, material requirements, health, education, environmental quality, employment, equality, global market stability. Compared to the many welfare indicators developed and discussed in recent decades-often out of a desire to improve social welfare as well as to contribute to a reduction of evironmental resource consumption-, Jakob and Edenhofer (2014) highlight the idea of commons, which are to be understood in a broad sense and which should be included in welfare objectives and hence in public policy. Such a policy may also focus on public infrastructure and institutional structures. The authors suggest financing the resulting welfare policy by correcting the nonoptimal use of existing capital stocks and by appropriating rents. This may include taxation, in particular of immovable property, auctioning of environmental use or emission permits, and state ownership. The aim is to assure a minimum level of social welfare for all. When reading the paper, some doubts arise whether the propositions made have the potential to be a "guide for real-world policy formulation", as Jakob and Edenhofer (2014, p. 447) claim. 1 We will raise three critical questions here:

2023, Australasian Journal of Environmental Management

The rapid growth of renewable electricity generation in Australia, raises the prospect of substituting for all fossil fuel use, including their use in transport and heating, by 2050 or even 2040. This paper uses simple scenarios to identify the combinations of trends in total final energy consumption and renewable energy generation that together could result in the complete substitution of renewable energy for fossil fuels for energy generation by 2040 and 2050. It finds that, at current or increasing levels of energy consumption, in the absence of substantial CO2 removal, it is very unlikely that renewable energy could substitute for all fossil energy consumption by 2040 and 2050, even if renewable energy grows exponentially. Because time is of the essence in addressing the climate crisis, energy consumption must be reduced substantially while transitioning to renewables.

2023, Energies

If global energy consumption returns to its pre-pandemic growth rate, it will be almost impossible to transition to a zero-emission or net-zero-emission energy system by 2050 in the absence of large-scale CO2 removal. Since relying on unproven technologies for CO2 removal is speculative and risky, this paper considers an energy descent scenario for reaching zero greenhouse gas emissions from energy by 2050. To drive the rapid transition from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources and ensure demand reduction, funding is needed urgently in order to implement four strategies: (i) technology change, i.e., implementing the growth of zero-carbon energy production, end-use en- ergy efficiency and ‘green’ energy carriers, together with ongoing R&D on CO2 removal; (ii) reducing climate impacts; (iii) reducing energy consumption by social and behavioural changes; and (iv) im- proving human wellbeing while increasing social justice. Modern monetary theory explains how monetary sovereign governments, with their own fiat currencies, can create the necessary funding without financial constraints, although constraints do result from the productive capacities of their economies. The energy transition could be part-funded by a significant transfer of resources from monetary sovereign countries of the global North to the global South, financed by currency issuance.

2023, Climate Policy

This paper investigates the effectiveness of different energy scenarios for achieving early reductions in global energy-related CO2 emissions on trajectories to zero or near-zero emissions by 2050. To keep global heating below 1.5°C without overshoot by 2050, global CO2 emissions must decline by about half by 2030. To achieve rapid, early emission reductions entails substantially changing recent pre-COVID (2000-2019) observed trends,

2023, Annual Review of Environment and Resources

2023, Journal of Accounting and Finance in Emerging Economies

Soon after the surge of Covid-19, the world got into a state of lockdown and everything was halted. There was great reduction in movement of the people both local and international. Less traffic, both air and road, was a rare sight and industrial production was reduced to a great number, as work from home was encouraged. All these factors contributed to steep decline of the carbon and nitrogen emissions. But now as the activities partially resume and governments all around the globe are introducing relief packages for the economy, it is feared that during all this the climate change may be neglected and such decisions may be taken that may impact climate change in severest way. In this paper we discuss how COVID-19 has decrease the climate change temporarily but it may bounce back once the economic activities resume as usual and how governments can take decisions to stabilize the economy while keeping in mind the climate change mitigation.

2023, Journal of Productivity Analysis

Gross domestic product (GDP) has come under criticism as the only objective countries' should pursue for societal well-being. In this paper we apply an innovative Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach for including two other pillars including an environmental dimension, reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and a social dimension such as: increasing employment, and expanding healthcare and education expenditures. By linking together three DEA sub-technologies, we model a global technology which combines the objectives of the three pillars. Finally, by weighting each of them by different schemes, we demonstrate the practicality of our approach for policy tradeoffs governments can make among economic, environmental and social objectives.

2023

Gross domestic product (GDP) has come under criticism as the only objective countries’ should pursue for societal well-being. In this paper we apply an innovative Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach for including two other pillars including an environmental dimension, reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and a social dimension such as: increasing employment, and expanding healthcare and education expenditures. By linking together three DEA sub-technologies, we model a global technology which combines the objectives of the three pillars. Finally, by weighting each of them by different schemes, we demonstrate the practicality of our approach for policy tradeoffs governments can make among economic, environmental and social objectives.

2023

There has never been a more urgent sense across the UK of how desperately we need to rebalance the regional economic differences that see wealth and decision-making so concentrated in the capital, and leave so many communities feeling left out of both entirely. The devolution agenda of recent years has been heavily promoted by its proponents as the key to tackling both economic imbalance and democratic deficits. Yet it has not, to date, represented the kind of fundamental paradigm shift in how we design economic strategy nationally as well as regionally, which would really transform the centralisation of our economy in a way that shifts wealth and prosperity substantially to the communities that feel so left behind.

2023, South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics

The present paper briefly reviews the idea of steady state economy from ancient times to the present. It discusses some of the suggestions made by H. Daly in his model of a steady state economy and, in particular, the idea of stable population. The paper suggests that the population must be stable at a level that is compatible with ecological equilibrium, which is about three billion people and can be achieved if every family is allowed to have fewer than two children. To ensure population is controlled this paper proposes the creation of an international market for human reproduction rights.

2023, New Economics Foundation

2023, Ecological Economics

The debate about the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability involves many dimensions as well as much diversity in terminology. While it is often summarized in terms of dichotomous pro-and anti-growth positions, several studies indicate that additional views exist, and that these may differ between experts and the general public. The objective of this paper is to identify and analyze segments of the scientific and general population with distinct views in this respect. To this end, we bring together two data sets: one from a nationally representative survey of the general public of Spain (N = 1,004) and another from an international survey of researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds (N = 814). Using latent class analysis, we identify three similar segments in the two samples, labelled as Green growth, Agrowth and Degrowth. Clusters in scientific opinion systematically differ on all main questions, while clusters in public opinion differ only on some issues. Overall, clusters are more consistent, better distinguishable on all constituent dimensions and more polarized in the scientific than public opinion survey. In addition, we find that diverging views on social issues are more strongly associated with distinct clusters in the public opinion sample, and on environmental issues in the scientific opinion sample.

2023

Among Herman Daly’s many contributions to ecological economics none is likely to have a greater and more lasting significance than his analysis of and advocacy for a steady-state economy. As is typical of so much of his work, Professor Daly has been inspired by and has built on the work of predecessors including most notably John Stuart Mill, Frederic Soddy and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. But he has also brought his own imagination and insights as well as his remarkable capacity for expressing complex ideas in simple terms. It is fair to say that he has virtually single-handedly ensured that the steady-state economy remains an alternative to be considered in discussions of the future of the economy and society.

2023, Ökologisches Wirtschaften - Fachzeitschrift

Nach Aussagen des Weltklimarats IPCC, können die Klimaschutzziele des Paris Agreement mit Reduktionsmaßnahmen alleine nicht mehr erreicht werden. Alle Szenarien des IPCC gehen allerdings von anhaltendem Wirtschaftswachstum aus. Nicht... more