Suffered restless legs and a restless spirit last night, so stayed up late and burned the midnight oil and my off peak usage.
Figured I'd try track down an economic model not based on growth.
Here's an Australian Samuel Alexander who has collated a 24 page pdf well worth reading. Oddly, this morning my facebook feed has a link to something else of his that led me back to the same place.
Here I am, in 2012, having grown up in a technological age and I'm still superstitious...
However, well worth the read Simplicity Institute - Planned
economic contraction: the emerging case for degrowth
Also a link to the Simplicity Collective - Let's be Pioneers Once More.
5 comments:
I'm playing with a concept at the moment, that the idea that we must have a no-growth economy to be sustainable is built on the incorrect premise that all economic growth has environmental costs. And that isn't necessarily so. Our economy (and jobs, and real wealth) could theoretically grow infinitely in art and knowledge and welfare services without straining the biosphere. It is what we choose to spend money on that is the problem, things, stuff, badly made stuff pushed by advertising...a culture that has its values wildly wrong. So, I'm interested to read ideas around this area. Thanks for the link.
Hi Linda,
Yes, I agree, lots of people do, and they posit a different world, I just have a hard time seeing how we can transition to this new model without completely de-constructing our current model... which doesn't bear thinking of either. We've got ourselves in a bind.
Hi Lindas, I haven't read the articles yet, though I will during ballet class later... it occurs to me that every long term successful society has worked out a sustainable no growth economy. Just none in modern times. We are at that tipping point now where scarcity will have to make us examine new models. I was really struck by Tim Flannery's take on human nature. We are the future eaters, but when after we've eaten it up, we find a better way..
Just reading an article this morning - the next step in Greek economics... surprise surprise...
it's back to the land, bartering and living frugally. Like you say Jo, we do eventually find a better way, but do we have to wait till it's not just broken but annihilated?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/9243971/Greek-crisis-economic-misery-forces-workers-from-cities-and-a-return-to-a-barter-economy.html
Hi Linda,
I read somewhere recently that Bhutan doesn't measure its wealth using GDP as we do, but GNH - Gross National Happiness - and bases all its decisions on development on that. How wonderful!
And Dick Smith's book arrived at the library for me on Tuesday. Unfortunately along with 5 others I had on hold. I'll be hard pressed to read them all before they are due back!
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