Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In sum, it is irrational to hope, against the evidence, that our existing economic system will deliver the development outcomes we want while at the same time reversing ecological breakdown. We need to be smarter than that.
Democratizing and decommodifying work, and remediating the environment are essential to sustain life on this planet. However, this cannot be done through limiting ourselves to well-worn social democratic thinking.
Here is a proposition: think of the economy as made of Lego. All rules to organise extraction, production, allocation, consumption, and disposal are social institutions. I
Degrowth resonated with many people in our community. That is the remarkable result of DegrowthFest, for me. I am thrilled but not surprised that so many friends and neighbors were keen on this movement and idea that is so dear to me.
Behind today’s ‘free market’ advocacy is the power of financial wealth to appropriate the political, fiscal and central planning role that Polanyi, Marx and other socialists hoped to see expanded in the hands of democratic government.
I am happy to announce the publication of a new anthology that I co-edited with Professor Anna Grear, Professor of Law and Theory at Cardiff University in the UK. The book is entitled The Great Awakening: New Modes of Life Amidst Capitalist Ruins, released by punctum books last week.
These crises offer a vivid illustration of the cruel nature of elite rule and expose economic myths that have long convinced everyday people that their deprivation is inevitable. There is an opportunity here to open up space for a new society to emerge. Activists must seize it.
So there is a direct link between economic crises and the crisis of our social security system. This should scare us all. We know there will be another crisis.
The car remains a weapon of choice against anti-racist protestors as the uprisings against systematic racism ignited by the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor stretch into their fourth month.
While the growing instability of our biosphere and global civilization are worrying to say the least, the prospect of a rise in city power is an exciting silver lining because it is in self-governing city-states that civilization has historically been born and reborn.
The question that divides left from right should no longer be “how big is the state?”, but “to whom should its powers be devolved?”.
My appeal to McAfee: let’s try to get beyond this sort of thing and engage more honestly with the empirical and theoretical work that has been done, so we can have more meaningful conversations. If we are going to realise our shared goals, we can and must do better.
