The Post-growth Project: How the End of Economic Growth Could Bring a Fairer and Happier Society - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907994394 ISBN 13: 9781907994395

Verlag: London Publishing Partnership, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

This book challenges the assumption that it is bad news when the economy doesn't grow.For decades, it has been widely recognised that there are ecological limits to continuing economic growth and that different ways of living, working and organising our economies are urgently required. This urgency has increased since the financial crash of 2007-2008 - but mainstream economists and politicians are unable to think differently. The authors demonstrate why our economic system demands ecologically unsustainable growth and the pursuit of more 'stuff'. They believe that what matters is quality, not quantity - a better life based on having fewer material possessions, less production and less work. Such a way of life will emphasize well-being, community, security, and what Ivan Illich rightly called 'conviviality'. That is, more real wealth. The book will therefore appeal to everyone curious as to how a new post-growth economics can be conceived and enacted. It will be of particular interest to policy makers, politicians, business people, trade unionists, academics, students, journalists and a wide range of people working in the not for profit sector. All of the contributors are leading thinkers on Green issues and members of the new think tank Green House.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Blewitt is a Distinguished Fellow of the Schumacher Institute. He is author of Media, Ecology and Conservation (Green Books, 2010), Understanding Sustainable Development (Earthscan, 2014) and co-author of Sustainable Business (Earthscan, 2014). A sociologist by training, he currently works at Aston Business School. Ray Cunningham is a freelance writer, speaker, translator and consultant on British-German knowledge exchange, mainly in the area of sustainability. He is the former Director of the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society and joint Founder and Convenor of the British-German Environment Forum. The contributors are: Molly Scott Cato, Andrew Dobson, Jonathan Essex, Brian Heatley, Andrew Pearmain and Rupert Read.

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The Post-Growth Project

How the End of Economic Growth Could Bring a Fairer and Happier Society

By John Blewitt, Ray Cunningham

London Publishing Partnership

Copyright © 2014 Green House
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-907994-39-5

Contents

List of Contributors, 
Editors' Introduction John Blewitt and Ray Cunningham, 
Chapter 1 What is 'Growth' For, and Can We Afford It? Rupert Read, 
Chapter 2 Joined-up Economics: The Political Economy of Sustainability, Financial Crises, Wages, Equality and Welfare Brian Heatley, 
Chapter 3 The Paradox of Green Keynesianism Molly Scott Cato, 
Chapter 4 How to Make-do and Mend Our Economy: Rethinking Investment Strategies for Construction and Industry to Meet the Challenge of Sustainability Jonathan Essex, 
Chapter 5 'Can't Pay? Won't Pay!': Debt, the Myth of Austerity and the Failure of Green Investment Molly Scott Cato, 
Chapter 6 Smaller But Better? Post-Growth Public Services Andrew Pearmain and Brian Heatley, 
Chapter 7 The Politics of Post-Growth Andrew Dobson, 
Chapter 8 Post-Growth Common Sense: Political Communications for the Future Rupert Read, 
Bibliography, 

CHAPTER 1

What Is 'Growth' For, and Can We Afford It?

By Rupert Read

What Jesus meant, was this. He said to man, 'You have a wonderful personality. Develop it. Be yourself. Don't imagine that your perfection lies in accumulating or possessing external things. Your affection is inside of you. If only you could realize that, you would not want to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from a man. Real riches cannot. In the treasury-house of your soul, there are infinitely precious things, that may not be taken from you. And so, try to so shape your life that external things will not harm you.

Oscar Wilde (1891, The Soul of Man Under Socialism)

If you spend your time thinking that the most important objective of public policy is to get growth up from 1.9 per cent to 2 per cent and even better 2.1 per cent we're pursuing a sort of false god there. We're pursuing it first of all because if we accept that, we will do things to the climate that will be harmful, but also because all the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness.

Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the UK Financial Services Authority

Introduction

Everyone agrees that we are in the midst of a massive financial and economic crisis. We have suffered the biggest 'crash' since the 1930s, and it may get far bigger yet. How should this ongoing crisis be understood and resolved? In the mainstream view, we have vast government deficits, and stagnant economies. We need economic growth — and we also need austerity, bringing with it massive cuts in public services. ... But what if this diagnosis is all wrong? What if the crisis that we are currently experiencing is one which casts into doubt the entire edifice of capitalist economics, including growth as the primary objective of all policy? What if the fight between those who say that without austerity first there can be no growth and those who say that we must invest and borrow more now in order to resume growth is a false dichotomy (because both sides are assuming 'growthism' as an unquestioned dogma)? What if the vast government debt-mountains are in any case actually not as vast as we have been told they are, once (for instance) we establish which parts of them are 'odious' (as countries of the global South have found) and thus should

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: London Publishing Partnership
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1907994394
• ISBN 13: 9781907994395
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Herausgeber: Blewitt John, Cunningham Ray
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland