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Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The term ‘neoliberal earthquake’ may seem like a cliche, but in the context of the recent natural disaster in Morocco, it really does encompass some of the defining elements of contemporary capitalism.
Climate Week thus provided an opportunity to gauge how steady staters can engage strategically with different actors in the contemporary environmental movement.
Will we continue to condemn tens of millions of us to cruel and unnecessary poverty, while feeding the drive to authoritarianism or even an all-American version of fascism, or will we move swiftly and compassionately to begin lifting the load of poverty and so strengthen the very foundation of our democracy?
What exactly is the doughnut? Think of it as an economic compass, artfully crafted to address people’s needs while also respecting the Earth’s boundaries and the vitality of our planet.
Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance minister of Greece – makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism:
At a minimum, we must align the signifiers of economic success with known ecological indicators — and this is just the first step on a long, complex realignment. If we fail to undertake this journey, we will be stuck paying for our own apocalypse.
If humanity is to survive, it will have to learn how to get in sync with natural systems, culturally and economically, and actively contribute to the flourishing of earthly and human systems in tandem.
Reading this back, it seems to me like a programme which, if well articulated, could resonate with people who have had close to two decades of a low growth wage squeeze, and who have watched their public resources wrecked by austerity. (Quite apart from creating a positive story about the response to climate change).
The steady-state/degrowth movement opens the possibility of re-defining “needs” and reorienting engineers to achieving equitable prosperity on our one shared planet.
Luddites are not – and have never been – anti-technology. Rather, they are pro-human, and see production as a means to an end: broadly shared prosperity.
Yet, whether it is this collective or another that resonates with your particular diagnosis of the current multidimensional crisis, it is only through joining together with others with the will to change the future that we stand any chance of contesting those who lead us ever further into catastrophe.
A growing number of organizations around the U.S. and beyond are already reenvisioning growth and prosperity in ways that advance communal needs and planetary stewardship.
