Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
One of the great economists of the twentieth century had the misfortune of publishing his magnum opus, The Great Transformation, in 1944, months before the inauguration of a new era of postwar economic growth and consumer culture.
Technocornucopians see the world of the future as a great 3D printer with an unlimited supply reservoir.
Anyone with any sense for global economic trends ought to be worried. The signs are everywhere of a serious deflationary crisis.
As I learned in graduate-school, the legitimate fear of change and the unknown expressed in each case is, more significantly, working at the same time to protect some form of unacknowledged and unseen privilege.
In 2015, 13 August is Earth Overshoot Day. The day marks the estimated calendar date when humanity’s demand on the planet’s ecological services (which produce renewable resources and assimilate wastes) outstrips what the Earth can supply
Many people think that advocating a steady-state economy is like wishing for a miracle. I understand their reasoning and take their point—in the present era of growthism it does seem rather like advocating a miracle.
Is degrowth only conceivable in the context of “oversaturated” industrial societies while the global “South” remains dependent on growth?
A recent crowdfunding campaign to bail out Greece does little more than obfuscate the role that energy shortages play in Greece’s systemic collapse.
If you kick the can down the road repeatedly you eventually run out of road.
Certainly there is reason to pause and to question the idea of infinite economic growth on a finite planet.
If the "Limits to Growth" model describes the present situation, then the Greek decline is not a direct consequence of problems with the Euro or with wrong policies of the Greek government.
But, could it be that all the financial circus that we are seeing dancing in and around Greece be just the effect of much deeper causes?
