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Mary Mellor: The Future of Money - From Financial Crisis to Public Resource

2012-02-21T10:44:00.000Z

http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329949

As the recent financial crisis has revealed, the state is central to the stability of the money system, while the chaotic privately-owned banks reap the benefits without shouldering the risks. This book argues that money is a public resource that has been hijacked by capitalism.

Mary Mellor explores the history of money and modern banking, showing how finance capital has captured bank-created money to enhance speculative ‘leveraged’ profits as well as destroying collective approaches to economic life. Meanwhile, most individuals, and the public economy, have been mired in debt. To correct this obvious injustice, Mellor proposes a public and democratic future for money. Ways are put forward for structuring the money and banking system to provision societies on an equitable, ecologically sustainable ‘sufficiency’ basis.

This fascinating study of money should be read by all economics students looking for an original analysis of the economy during the current crisis.

About The Author
Mary Mellor is Emeritus Professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle, where she was founding Chair of the University’s Sustainable Cities Research Institute. She has published extensively on alternative economics integrating socialist, feminist and green perspectives. Her books include The Politics of Money: Towards Sustainability And Economic Democracy (Pluto, 2002).

Edgardo Lander: Is the Green Economy a new Washington Consensus?

2012-02-21T08:35:00.001Z

The current environmental and climate crisis is not simply a market failure because nature is not simply a form of capital. Putting a price on nature under the label of the "Green Economy" is an attempt to expand the reach of finance capital and privatise our planet.

Today we are facing great risks -- even a civilisation crisis – manifest in many dimensions and exacerbated by unprecedented inequalities. Systems and institutions that sustain life and societies – such as food and energy production, climate and biodiversity, even economic and democratic institutions – are under attack or in a state of collapse.

In the 1980s, faced with a crisis of profitability, capitalism launched a massive offensive against workers and peoples, seeking to increase profits by expanding markets and reducing costs through trade and financial liberalisation, flexibilisation of labour and privatisation of the state sector. This massive structural adjustment became known as the Washington Consensus.

Today, faced with an even more complex and deeper crisis, capitalism is launching a new attack that combines the old austerity measures of the Washington Consensus -- as we are witnessing in Europe – with an offensive to create new sources of profit and growth through the Green Economy. Although capitalism has always been based on the exploitation of labour and nature, this new phase of capitalist expansion seeks to exploit and profit by giving a price value to the essential life-giving capacities of nature.

The Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992 institutionalised important bases for international cooperation on sustainable development, such as polluter pays, common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle. But Rio also institutionalised the concept of “sustainable development” based on “sustainable growth”. In 1992 the Rio Conventions acknowledged for the first time the rights of indigenous communities and their central contributions to the preservation of biodiversity. But, in the same documents, the industrialised countries and corporations received the guarantee that the seeds and genetic resources that they gained though centuries of colonial domination would be protected through intellectual property rights.

In 2012, the plunder continues. The Green Economy is an attempt to expand the reach of finance capital and integrate into the market all that remains of nature. The Green Economy aims to do this by giving a “value” or a “price” to biomass, biodiversity and the functions of the ecosystems – such as storing carbon, pollinating crops, or filtering water -- in order to integrate these “services” as tradeable units in the financial market.

What and who is behind the Zero Draft?

The zero draft outcome document for the Rio +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development is called “The future we want.” [1] At the heart of this short text is the section “The green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.”

The Green Economy is an ambitious global project that seeks to disassociate economic growth from environmental deterioration through a three-dimensional capitalism that includes physical capital, human capital, and natural capital (rivers, wetlands, forests, coral reefs, biological diversity and other elements). For the Green Economy, the food crisis, the climate crisis and the energy crisis share a common characteristic: the failed allocation of capital. As a result, the Green Economy treats nature as capital – “natural capital.” The Green Economy considers it essential to put a price on the free services that plants, animals and ecosystems offer to humanity in order to “sustainably manage” biodiversity, water purification, pollination of plants, the protection of coral reefs and regulation of the climate. For the Green Economy, it is necessary to identify the specific functions of ecosystems and biodiversity and assign them a monetary value, evaluate their current status, set a limit after which they will cease to provide services, and concretize in economic terms the cost of their conservation in order to develop a market for each particular environmental service. For the Green Economy, the instruments of the market are powerful tools for managing the “economic invisibility of nature.”

The zero draft – as with all the vicious attacks of capitalism – is full of generalities to hide the real intentions. Behind the zero draft is the 2011 UNEP report Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication that shows clearly the ultimate goal of achieving “green capitalism”. [2]

The main targets of the Green Economy are the developing countries, where there is the richest biodiversity. The zero draft even acknowledges that a new round of “structural adjustments” will be necessary: “developing countries are facing great challenges in eradicating poverty and sustaining growth, and a transition to a green economy will require structural adjustments which may involve additional costs to their economies…”.

But the Green Economy is not a fiction of the future: it is already here. As the zero draft states, “We support policy frameworks and market instruments that effectively slow, halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation”. This is referring to REDD (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation), an initiative of the UNFCCC which consists of isolating and measuring the capacity of forests to capture and store carbon dioxide in order to issue certificates for greenhouse gas emissions reductions that can be commercialized and acquired by companies in developed countries that cannot meet their emission reduction commitments. We have already seen that the market for carbon credits based on forests will lead to: a) noncompliance with effective emission reduction commitments by developed countries; b) the bulk of resources being appropriated by intermediaries and financial entities and rarely benefitting countries, indigenous peoples and forests themselves; c) the generation of speculative bubbles based on the sale and purchase of said certificates; and d) the establishment of new property rights over the capacity of forests to capture carbon dioxide, which will clash with the sovereign rights of States and the indigenous peoples that live in forests.

The postulates promoted under the Green Economy are wrong. The current environmental and climate crisis is not a simple market failure. The solution is not to put a price on nature. Nature is not a form of capital. It is wrong to say that we only value that which has a price, an owner, and brings profits. The market mechanisms that permit exchange among human beings and nations have proven incapable of contributing to an equitable distribution of wealth. The main challenge for the eradication of poverty is not to grow forever, but to achieve an equitable distribution of the wealth that is possible under the limits of the Earth system. In a world in which 1% of the population controls 50% of the wealth of the planet, it will not be possible to eradicate poverty or restore harmony with nature.

The Green Economy is a cynical and opportunistic manipulation of the ecological and social crises. Rather than addressing the real structural causes of inequality and injustices, capital is using “green” language to launch a new round of expansion. Corporations and the financial sector need governments to institutionalise the new rules of the Green Economy to guarantee them against risks and to create the institutional framework for the financialisation of nature. Many governments are willing partners in this project as they believe it will stimulate a new phase of growth and accumulation.

The Green Economy is not the future that WE want.

[1] http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.php?page=view&type=12&nr=324&menu=23

[2] UNEP, 2011, Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, www.unep.org/greeneconomy

Edgardo Lander

Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

Lander is one of the leading thinkers and writers on the left in Venezuela, both supportive and constructively critical of the Venezuelan revolution under Chavez. He is actively involved in social movements in the Americas that defeated the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
He is a member of the Latin American Social Science Council’s (CLACSO) research group on Hegemonies and Emancipations and on the editorial board of the academic journal Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales. He is currently
part of the steering committee of the Hemispheric Council of the Social
Forum of the Americas.
Among other publications, Lander has written and edited: Contribución a la crítica del marxismo realmente existente: Verdad, ciencia y tecnología; La ciencia y la tecnología como asuntos políticos; Límites de la democracia en la sociedad tecnológica; Neoliberalismo, sociedad civil y democracia.

Source: http://www.tni.org/article/green-economy-new-washington-consensus

Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance

2012-02-20T15:37:00.000Z

https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=271

Global Slump analyzes the global financial meltdown as the first systemic crisis of the neoliberal stage of capitalism. It argues that – far from having ended – the crisis has ushered in a whole period of worldwide economic and political turbulence. In developing an account of the crisis as rooted in fundamental features of capitalism, Global Slump challenges the view that its source lies in financial deregulation.

The book locates the recent meltdown in the intense economic restructuring that marked the recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Through this lens, it highlights the emergence of new patterns of world inequality and new centers of accumulation, particularly in East Asia, and the profound economic instabilities these produced. Global Slump offers an original account of the “financialization” of the world economy during this period, and explores the intricate connections between international financial markets and new forms of debt and dispossession, particularly in the Global South.

Analyzing the massive intervention of the world’s central banks to stave off another Great Depression, Global Slump shows that, while averting a complete meltdown, this intervention also laid the basis for recurring crises for poor and working class people: job loss, increased poverty and inequality, and deep cuts to social programs. The book takes a global view of these processes, exposing the damage inflicted on countries in the Global South, as well as the intensification of racism and attacks on migrant workers. At the same time, Global Slump also traces new patterns of social and political resistance – from housing activism and education struggles, to mass strikes and protests in Martinique, Guadeloupe, France and Puerto Rico – as indicators of the potential for building anti-capitalist opposition to the damage that neoliberal capitalism is inflicting on the lives of millions.

David McNally is professor of political science at York University, Toronto. He is the author of five previous books: Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism (1988); Against the Market: Political Economy Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique (2003); Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor and Liberation (2001); Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism (2002; second revised edition 2006); and Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism (2011). His articles have appeared in many journals, including Historical Materialism, Capital and Class, New Politics, and Review of Radical Political Economics. David McNally is also a long-time activist in socialist, anti-poverty and migrant justice movements.

World as Laboratory: Experiments with Mice, Mazes, and Men

2012-02-19T21:22:00.000Z

http://www.powells.com/biblio/95-9780374707293-0

Deeply researched, World as Laboratory tells a secret history that's not really a secret. The fruits of human engineering are all around us: advertising, polls, focus groups, the ubiquitous habit of "spin" practiced by marketers and politicians. What Rebecca Lemov cleverly traces for the first time is how the absurd, the practical, and the dangerous experiments of the human engineers of the first half of the twentieth century left their laboratories to become our day-to-day reality.

Iain McGilchrist: The Master and His Emissary - The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

2012-02-18T21:27:00.004Z

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300148787

Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been puzzled over for centuries. In a book of unprecedented scope, Iain McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things, and is inclined to self-interest, where the right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity. This division helps explain the origins of music and language, and casts new light on the history of philosophy, as well as on some mental illnesses.

In the second part of the book, McGilchrist takes the reader on a journey through the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought and belief of thinkers and artists, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences. This is truly a tour de force that should excite interest in a wide readership.

Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where he taught literature before training in medicine. He was Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital, London, and has researched in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He now works privately in London and otherwise lives on the Isle of Skye.

Darian Leader: What is Madness?

2012-02-18T19:17:00.003Z

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141955780,00.html

Madness, in our culture, is defined by visibility. From the popular press to TV soaps and films, the depiction of madness always borders on the extreme: violent outbursts, fits, hallucinations.

But what if madness is not exactly what we think it to be? What if it is the rule rather than the exception? And what if its defining features are not visible and dramatic but, on the contrary, highly discreet, shared by average citizens who will never come to psychiatric attention? What if, in other words, there is a difference between being mad and going mad?

Beginning and ending with the case of Harold Shipman - a mass-murderer so apparently 'normal' that some of his patients said they would still be treated by him even after his conviction - psychoanalyst Darian Leader explores the idea of discreet madness, and argues that it is only through revising our concept of what madness is that we will have the tools to help those who have gone mad to rebuild their lives.

Where Does Money Come From?

2012-02-18T17:53:00.000Z

http://neweconomics.org/publications/where-does-money-come-from

What is money? How is it created? How does it enter into circulation? These are simple and vital questions it might seem, but the answers remain contested and often muddled.

There is widespread misunderstanding of how new money is created. Where Does Money Come From? examines the workings of the UK monetary system and concludes that the most useful description is that new money is created by commercial banks when they extend or create credit, either through making loans or buying existing assets. In creating credit, banks simultaneously create deposits in our bank accounts, which, to all intents and purposes, is money.

Many people would be surprised to learn that even among bankers, economists, and policymakers, there is no common understanding of how new money is created. This is a problem for two main reasons. First, in the absence of this understanding, attempts at banking reform are more likely to fail. Second, the creation of new money and the allocation of purchasing power are a vital economic function and highly profitable. This is therefore a matter of significant public interest and not an obscure technocratic debate. Greater clarity and transparency about this could improve both the democratic legitimacy of the banking system and our economic prospects.

Defining money is surprisingly difficult. We cut through the tangled historical and theoretical debate to identify that anything widely accepted as payment, particularly by the government as payment of tax, is, to all intents and purpose, money. This includes bank credit because although an IOU from a friend is not acceptable at the tax office or in the local shop, an IOU from a bank most definitely is.

We identify that the UK’s national currency exists in three main forms, the second two of which exist in electronic form:

Cash – banknotes and coins.
Central bank reserves – reserves held by commercial banks at the Bank of England.
Commercial bank money – bank deposits created either when commercial banks lend money, thereby crediting credit borrowers’ deposit accounts, make payments on behalf of customers using their overdraft facilities, or when they purchase assets from the private sector and make payments on their own account (such as salary or bonus payments).

Only the Bank of England or the government can create the first two forms of money, which is referred to in this book as ‘central bank money’. Since central bank reserves do not actually circulate in the economy, we can further narrow down the money supply that is actually circulating as consisting of cash and commercial bank money.

Physical cash accounts for less than 3 per cent of the total stock of money in the economy. Commercial bank money – credit and coexistent deposits – makes up the remaining 97 per cent of the money supply.

There are several conflicting ways of describing what banks do. The simplest version is that banks take in money from savers, and lend this money out to borrowers. This is not at all how the process works. Banks do not need to wait for a customer to deposit money before they can make a new loan to someone else. In fact, it is exactly the opposite; the making of a loan creates a new deposit in the customer’s account.

More sophisticated versions bring in the concept of ‘fractional reserve banking’. This description recognises that banks can lend out many times more than the amount of cash and reserves they hold at the Bank of England. This is a more accurate picture, but is still incomplete and misleading. It implies a strong link between the amount of money that banks create and the amount that they hold at the central bank. It is also commonly assumed by this approach that the central bank has significant control over the amount of reserves banks hold with it.

We find that the most accurate description is that banks create new money whenever they extend credit, buy existing assets or make payments on their own account, which mostly involves expanding their assets, and that their ability to do this is only very weakly linked to the amount of reserves they hold at the central bank. At the time of the financial crisis, for example, banks held just £1.25 in reserves for every £100 issued as credit. Banks operate within an electronic clearing system that nets out multilateral payments at the end of each day, requiring them to hold only a tiny proportion of central bank money to meet their payment requirements.

The power of commercial banks to create new money has many important implications for economic prosperity and financial stability. We highlight four that are relevant to the reforms of the banking system under discussion at the time of writing:

Although useful in other ways, capital adequacy requirements have not and do not constrain money creation, and therefore do not necessarily serve to restrict the expansion of banks’ balance sheets in aggregate. In other words, they are mainly ineffective in preventing credit booms and their associated asset price bubbles.
Credit is rationed by banks, and the primary determinant of how much they lend is not interest rates, but confidence that the loan will be repaid and confidence in the liquidity and solvency of other banks and the system as a whole.
Banks decide where to allocate credit in the economy. The incentives that they face often lead them to favour lending against collateral, or assets, rather than lending for investment in production. As a result, new money is often more likely to be channelled into property and financial speculation than to small businesses and manufacturing, with profound economic consequences for society.
Fiscal policy does not in itself result in an expansion of the money supply. Indeed, the government has in practice no direct involvement in the money creation and allocation process. This is little known, but has an important impact on the effectiveness of fiscal policy and the role of the government in the economy.

The basic analysis of Where Does Money Come From? is neither radical nor new. In fact, central banks around the world support the same description of where new money comes from. And yet many naturally resist the notion that private banks can really create money by simply making an entry in a ledger. Economist J. K. Galbraith suggested why this might be:

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. When something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.

This book aims to firmly establish a common understanding that commercial banks create new money. There is no deeper mystery, and we must not allow our mind to be repelled. Only then can we properly address the much more significant question: Of all the possible alternative ways in which we could create new money and allocate purchasing power, is this really the best?
Download the Where Does Money Come From? Foreword and Overview for free

The nine planetary boundaries

2012-02-16T09:22:00.000Z

Stratospheric ozone layer

The stratospheric ozone layer filters out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. If this layer decreases, increasing amounts of ultraviolet (UV) radiation will reach ground level and can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer in humans as well as damage to terrestrial and marine biological systems. The appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole was proof that increased concentrations of anthropogenic ozone depleting substances, combined with polar stratospheric clouds, had moved the Antarctic stratosphere into a new regime. Fortunately, because of the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol, we appear to be on the path that will allow us to stay within this boundary.

Biodiversity

In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, it was concluded that changes in biodiversity due to human activities were more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, and the drivers of change that cause biodiversity loss and lead to changes in ecosystem services are either steady, show no evidence of declining over time, or are increasing in intensity. These large rates of extinction can be slowed by judicious projects to enhance habitat and build appropriate connectivity while maintaining high agricultural productivity. Further research is needed to determine whether a boundary based on extinction rates is sufficient, and whether there are reliable data to support it.

Chemicals dispersion

Emissions of persistent toxic compounds such as metals, various organic compounds and radionuclides, represent some of the key human-driven changes to the planetary environment. There are a number of examples of additive and synergic effects from these compounds. These effects are potentially irreversible. Of most concern are the effects of reduced fertility and especially the potential of permanent genetic damage. As an example, organism uptake and accumulation to sub-lethal levels increasingly cause a dramatic reduction of marine mammal and bird populations. At present, we are unable to quantify this boundary; however, it is nonetheless considered sufficiently well defined to be on the list.

Climate Change

We have reached a point at which the loss of summer polar ice is almost certainly irreversible. From the perspective of the Earth as a complex system, this is one example of the sharp threshold above which large feedback mechanisms could drive the Earth system into a much warmer, greenhouse gas-rich state with sea levels metres higher than present. The weakening or reversal of terrestrial carbon sinks, for example through the ongoing destruction of the world´s rainforests, is another such interdependent tipping point. Recent evidence suggests that the Earth System, now passing 387 ppmv CO2, has already transgressed this Planetary Boundary. A major question is how long we can remain over this boundary before large, irreversible changes become unavoidable.

Ocean acidification

Around a quarter of the CO2 humanity produces is dissolved in the oceans. Here it forms carbonic acid, altering ocean chemistry and decreasing the pH of the surface water. Increased acidity reduces the amount of available carbonate ions, an essential building block used for shell and skeleton formation in organisms such as corals, and some shellfish and plankton species. This will seriously change ocean ecology and potentially lead to drastic reductions in fish stocks. Compared to pre-industrial times, surface ocean acidity has increased by 30%.

The ocean acidification boundary is a clear example of a boundary which, if transgressed, will involve very large change in marine ecosystems, with ramifications for the whole planet. It is also a good example of how tightly connected the boundaries are, since atmospheric CO2 concentration is the underlying controlling variable for both the climate and the ocean acidification boundary.

Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle

The freshwater cycle is both a major prerequisite for staying within the climate boundary, and is strongly affected by climate change. Human pressure is now the dominating driving force determining the function and distribution of global freshwater systems. The effects are dramatic, including both global-scale river flow change and shifts in vapour flows from land use change. Water is becoming increasingly scarce and by 2050 about half a billion people are likely to have moved into the water-stressed category. A water boundary related to consumptive freshwater use has been proposed to maintain the overall resilience of the Earth system and avoid crossing local and regional thresholds ‘downstream´.

Land system change

Land is converted to human use all over the planet. Forests, wetlands and other vegetation types are converted primarily to agricultural land. This land-use change is one driving force behind reduced biodiversity and has impacts on water flows as well as carbon and other cycles. Land cover change occurs on local and regional scales but when aggregated appears to impact the Earth System on a global scale. A major challenge with setting a land use-related boundary is to reflect not only the needed quantity of unconverted and converted land but also its function, quality and spatial distribution.

Nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans

Human modification of the nitrogen cycle has been even greater than our modification of the carbon cycle. Human activities now convert more N2 from the atmosphere into reactive forms than all of the Earth´s terrestrial processes combined. Much of this new reactive nitrogen pollutes waterways and coastal zones, is emitted to the atmosphere in various forms, or accumulates in the terrestrial biosphere. A relatively small proportion of the fertilizers applied to food production systems is taken up by plants. A significant fraction of the applied nitrogen and phosphorus makes its way to the sea, and can push marine and aquatic systems across thresholds of their own. A concrete example of this effect is the decline in the shrimp catch in the Gulf of Mexico due to hypoxia caused by fertilizer transported in rivers from the US Midwest.

Atmospheric aerosol loading

This is considered a planetary boundary for two main reasons: (i) the influence of aerosols on the climate system and (ii) their adverse effects on human health at a regional and global scale. Without aerosol particles in the atmosphere, we would not have clouds. Most clouds and aerosol particles act to cool the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight back to space. Some particles (such as soot) or thin high clouds act like greenhouse gases to warm the planet. In addition, aerosols have been shown to affect monsoon circulations and global-scale circulation systems. Particles also have adverse effects on human health, causing roughly 800,000 premature deaths worldwide each year. While all of these relationships have been well established, all the causal links (especially regarding health effects) are yet to be determined. It has not yet been possible specific threshold value at which global-scale effects will occur; but aerosol loading is so central to climate and human health that it is included among the boundaries.

Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre

Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization

2012-02-12T09:38:00.004Z

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520256996

Dignity and Defiance is a powerful, eyewitness account of Bolivia's decade-long rebellion against globalization imposed from abroad. Based on extensive interviews, this story comes alive with first-person accounts of a massive Enron/Shell oil spill from an elderly woman whose livelihood it threatens, of the young people who stood down a former dictator to take back control of their water, and of Bolivia's dramatic and successful challenge to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Featuring a substantial introduction, a conclusion, and introductions to each of the chapters, this well-crafted mix of storytelling and analysis is a rich portrait of people calling for global integration to be different than it has been: more fair and more just.

Escaping the Matrix: How we the people can change the world

2012-02-05T10:34:00.000Z

http://escapingthematrix.org/

Richard Moore has distilled decades of participatory thought and dialog into a delightfully readable volume by exploring a compelling metaphor: The Matrix is our present manufactured reality, carefully managed for the benefit of elite interests and rarely questioned by those who live within its structures. Escaping the Matrix catalogs the persistent historical patterns of 'civilized' hierarchy that keep wealthy elites in control of governments and economies. But Moore does not simply tally historical injustices or enumerate the many discrepancies between Matrix and real-world realities. Instead, he challenges us all to action by courageously linking the apparently bleak situation of a dominated world directly to a hopeful vision for achieving new sustainable societies. He urges us to bridge artificially divisive ideological boundaries through a process of community-centered dialog known as harmonization. Escaping the Matrix contains worldview-altering insights and profoundly optimistic conclusions that will leave readers of every political persuasion with real hope that there are practical ways for ordinary individuals to escape The Matrix by taking personal responsibility for changing the world through local action.

2012-02-05T10:16:00.004Z

"We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy - from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses - that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high."
- Frances Moore Lappé, Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Source: http://p2pfoundation.net/Citations_on_Social_Change

2012-02-03T09:09:00.003Z

"Com o tempo, uma imprensa cínica, mercenária, demagógica e corrupta formará um público tão vil como ela mesma."
- Joseph Pulitzer - 1847/1911

1% Graffiti

2012-01-29T10:00:00.000Z


http://odetocapitalism.com/2012/01/23/1-graffiti/

SICK and SICKER: Essays on Class, Health and Health Care

2012-01-29T09:28:00.002Z

http://susanrosenthal.com/sick-and-sicker

Excerpt from the book (p.2):

Reducing income inequality in the United States would save as many lives as would be saved by eradicating heart disease or by preventing all deaths from lung cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle crashes, HIV infection, suicide and homicide combined.

Even greater benefits would flow from eliminating class inequality entirely.

CONTENTS

Susan Rosenthal : Mental Illness or Social Sickness?

2012-01-29T08:34:00.001Z

http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/mental-illness-or-social-sickness

A society based on exploitation and oppression must portray its victims and rebels as sick or deviant. Instead of correcting the social sources of sickness, psychiatry extracts the individual from society, splits the brain from the body, severs the mind from the brain and drugs the brain. Continue reading...

Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege

2012-01-28T19:44:00.000Z

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100839230

By Will Potter

At a time when everyone is going green, most people are unaware that the FBI is using anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal rights activists. The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes "terrorism" and to hit nonviolent activists with disproportionate sentences. Some have faced terrorism charges for simply chalking slogans on the sidewalk.

Like the Red Scare, this "Green Scare" is about fear and intimidation, using a word—"eco-terrorist"—to push a political agenda, instill fear and silence dissent. The animal rights and environmental movements directly threaten corporate profits every time activists encourage people to go vegan, to stop driving, to consume fewer resources and live simply. Their boycotts are damaging, and corporations and the politicians who represent them know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values.

Will Potter outlines the political, legal, extra-legal, and public relations strategies that are being used to threaten even acts of nonviolent civil disobedience with the label of "terrorism." Here is a guided tour into the world of radical activism that introduces the real people behind the headlines and tells the story of how everyday people are being prevented from speaking up for what they believe in.

"Will Potter unveils this complex movement with its virtues and its flaws, the courage of a few and the false bravado of others. I see this book as the definitive overview of the genesis of what is emerging as the most important social movement in human history – the war to save ourselves from ourselves." --Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

"If we are to survive capitalism's death grip on our discourse and on our lives, it will be in great measure due to the work of people like Will Potter. His courage and integrity, which set him apart from most journalists, are evident throughout this important book, and throughout all of his other crucial work. Thank you, Will Potter." --Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame and many other books

"Part history, part action thriller and courtroom drama, part memoir, Green is the New Red plunges us into the wild, unruly, and entirely inspirational world of extreme environmental activism. Will Potter, participant-observer and partisan-reporter, is the perfect guide, unpacking with wit and skill the most elusive concepts—his discussion of 'terrorism' as myth and symbol is the finest I've ever read. He takes us inside the first moments of a movement in the making—idealistic, hopeful, deeply human in its aspirations and its oh-so-human failings—and he reports brilliantly on a ruling power willing to hollow out any sense of authentic democracy in its futile attempt to maintain dominance, privilege, and their arid version of reality. Green is the New Red is an indispensable book that will change the way we think about commitment, the limits of protest, and the possibility of radical change." --Bill Ayers

Raymond Tallis: Aping Mankind

2012-01-27T08:32:00.001Z

Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity

In a devastating critique Raymond Tallis exposes the exaggerated claims made for the ability of neuroscience and evolutionary theory to explain human consciousness, behaviour, culture and society.

While readily acknowledging the astounding progress neuroscience has made in helping us understand how the brain works, Tallis directs his guns at neuroscience’s dark companion – “Neuromania” as he describes it – the belief that brain activity is not merely a necessary but a sufficient condition for human consciousness and that consequently our everyday behaviour can be entirely understood in neural terms.

With the formidable acuity and precision of both clinician and philosopher, Tallis dismantles the idea that “we are our brains”, which has given rise to a plethora of neuro-prefixed pseudo-disciplines laying claim to explain everything from art and literature to criminality and religious belief, and shows it to be confused and fallacious, and an abuse of the prestige of science, one that sidesteps a whole range of mind–body problems.

The belief that human beings can be understood essentially in biological terms is a serious obstacle, argues Tallis, to clear thinking about what human beings are and what they might become. To explain everyday behaviour in Darwinian terms and to identify human consciousness with the activity of the evolved brain denies human uniqueness, and by minimising the differences between us and our nearest animal kin, misrepresents what we are, offering a grotesquely simplified and degrading account of humanity. We are, shows Tallis, infinitely more interesting and complex than we appear in the mirror of biologism.

Combative, fearless and always thought-provoking, Aping Mankind is an important book, one that scientists, cultural commentators and policy-makers cannot ignore.

Julian Baggini: The Ego Trick - What Does it Mean to Be You?

2012-01-26T18:57:00.002Z

http://grantabooks.com/page/3012/The-Ego-Trick/1540

Are you still the person who lived fifteen, ten or five years ago? Fifteen, ten or five minutes ago? Can you plan for your retirement if the you of thirty years hence is in some sense a different person? What and who is the real you? Does it remain constant over time and place, or is it something much more fragmented and fluid? Is it known to you, or are you as much a mystery to yourself as others are to you? With his usual wit, infectious curiosity and bracing scepticism, Julian Baggini sets out to answer these fundamental and unsettling questions. His fascinating quest draws on not only the history of philosophy, but also anthropology, sociology, psychology and neurology; he talks to theologians, priests, allegedly reincarnated Lamas, and delves into real-life cases of lost memory, personality disorders and personal transformation; and, candidly and engagingly, he describes his own experiences. After reading The Ego Trick, you will never see yourself in the same way again.

Chaos and order, 2008 Galvanised wire, 60x60x60cm

2012-01-25T17:41:00.001Z

Ultimo Project Studios: Barbara Licha - Finalist of Willoughby Sculpture Prize 2009

In my sculpture I (http://lichabarbara.wordpress.com/) try to create the conditions of human experience where we are surrounded by constant expansion of information and a multitude of tasks. I use the wire line, almost suspended in space, to suggest human fragility, feeling of isolation and contemplation.

Bruce E. Levine: Get Up, Stand Up

2012-01-21T19:43:00.002Z

Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose recent US wars and Wall Street bailouts, yet most remain passive and appear resigned to powerlessness. Many Americans have lost confidence that genuine democracy is possible, and Get Up Stand Up explains how major US institutions have created fatalism. When such fatalism and defeatism sets in, truths about economic injustices and lost liberties are not enough to set people free—something else is required. For democratic movements to get off the ground, individuals must recover self-respect, and a people must regain collective confidence that they can succeed at eliminating top-down controls. Get Up, Stand Up describes how anti-elitists can unite and recover dignity, confidence, and the energy to wrest power away from the ruling corporate-government partnership (the “corporatocracy”). Get Up, Stand Up details those strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have successfully employed to gain power.

Read the following excerpt: Toward a Liberation Psychology

Bruce E. Levine: Commonsense Rebellion

2012-01-21T09:30:00.002Z

Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy

In recent years the mental health industry has been attacked for the invalidity of its illnesses, the unreliability of its diagnoses, the ineffectiveness and dangers of its treatments, and its corruption by drug companies. Commonsense Rebellion integrates those critiques and goes further, arguing that “institutional mental health” has diverted us from examining an important rebellion. This rebellion—mainly passive and too often self-destructive—is against an increasingly impersonal and coercive “institutional society.” What has previously been pathologized is rehumanized and suggestions are made for regaining autonomy and community, and replacing self-destructive rebellion with commonsense rebellion.

New Report from ETC Group: The Greed Revolution. Mega Foundations, Agribusiness Muscle In On Public Goods

2012-01-19T20:53:00.005Z


Cartoon by Stig www.shtig.net

A new 30-page report that documents the growing influence of agribusiness on the multilateral food system and the lack of transparency in research funding has been released today by the international civil society organization ETC Group. The Greed Revolution: Mega Foundations, Agribusiness Muscle In On Public Goods presents three case studies – one involving the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and two involving CGIAR Centers (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) – which point to a dangerous trend that will worsen rather than solve the problem of global hunger. The report details the involvement of, among others, Nestlé, Heineken, Monsanto, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Syngenta Foundation.

“It is unacceptable that the UN is giving multinational agribusiness privileged access to alter their agricultural policies,” said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group, who has been involved in the field for 40 years. “It is ridiculous that the key organizations responsible for agricultural research have no credible data on the extent of corporate involvement in their work and that CGIAR’s biggest funder – at $89 million – is somebody called, ‘Miscellaneous!’ Governments and UN secretariats have forgotten that their first task is to serve the public – not the profiteers.”

The report shows that multinational corporations are now seeing their future profitability in “emerging economies,” and they are finally taking notice of the international institutions that have been quietly working throughout the global South for half a century. However this new interest in UN agencies is causing “mandate-muddle” as companies demand that policy be rewritten to better reflect their interests, including allowing privileged access to publicly held germplasm. Public institutions are tending to look the other way when Big Ag harms peasant agriculture.

“Public institutions related to food and agriculture are mandated to support the poor and hungry.

Governments need to address the big- and small-scale conflicts of interest, beginning with a long overdue investigation of the links between the international public and private sectors in food and agriculture. Based on our initial conversations with UN officials about this research, we are hopeful that this will happen,”donate concludes Mooney.

Source: http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5303

From 'Common Goods' to the 'Common Good of Humanity'

2012-01-18T09:08:00.002Z

François Houtart, November 2011, with a foreword by the author and Birgit Daiber (English, Spanish, French, Italian)

Download PDF-English | Downlaod PDF-Spanish | Download PDF-French l Download PDF-Italian

«... There has to be a change of paradigms, to permit a symbiosis between human beings and nature, access of all to goods and services, and the participation of every individual and every collective group in the social and political organizing processes, each having their own cultural and ethical expression: in other words to realize the Common Good of Humanity. This will be a generally long-term process, dialectic and not linear, and the result of many social struggles. ...»

Source: http://rosalux-europa.info/publications/articles/common_good_of_humanity/

John C. Médaille: Toward a Truly Free Market

2012-01-17T09:59:00.004Z

A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More

For three decades free-market leaders have tried to reverse longstanding Keynesian economic policies, but have only produced larger government, greater debt, and more centralized economic power. So how can we achieve a truly free-market system, especially at this historical moment when capitalism seems to be in crisis?
The answer, says John C. Médaille, is to stop pretending that economics is something on the order of the physical sciences; it must be a humane science, taking into account crucial social contexts. Toward a Truly Free Market argues that any attempt to divorce economic equilibrium from economic equity will lead to an unbalanced economy—one that falls either to ruin or to ruinous government attempts to redress the balance.
In Toward a Truly Free Market, Médaille not only points out the problems, but also offers viable solutions, showing how we can:

Slash the federal budget by half
Reduce the tax code from nine million words to a couple of pages
Drastically curb the government’s sprawling bureaucracy
Manage natural resources safely, while cutting the budget in half
End the bailouts
Really reform the health care system
And much more

In Toward a Truly Free Market, Médaille makes a refreshingly clear case for the economic theory—and practice—known as distributism. Unlike many of his fellow distributists, who argue primarily from moral terms, Médaille enters the economic debate on purely economic terms.

2012-01-14T10:50:00.002Z

"It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. "

"When one loses the deep intimate relationship with nature, then temples, mosques and churches become important."

"Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself."

"Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay."

"To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Who Will Control the Green Economy? New report on Corporate Concentration in the Life Industries

2012-01-10T17:20:00.000Z

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5296

[download entire report - PDF]

[download news release - PDF]

[download info "What you will find in WWCTGE" - PDF]

Jump below: “What you will find in the 'Who Will Control the Green Economy?' Report – Dec 2011

From the UN Rio+20 preparatory meetings in New York, ETC Group today launches Who Will Control the Green Economy? The 60-page report connects the dots between the climate and oil crises, new technologies and corporate power. The report warns that the world’s largest companies are riding the coattails of the “Green Economy” while gearing up for their boldest coup to-date – not just by making strategic acquisitions and tapping new markets, but also by penetrating new industrial sectors.

DuPont, for example, already the world’s second largest seed company and sixth largest company in both pesticides and chemicals, is now a powerhouse in plant-based materials, energy and food ingredients. DuPont’s business plan is not unique. Other major players in seeds, pesticides, chemicals and food – including Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, BASF and Unilever – are also making strategic investments in risky technologies and forming R&D collaborations in hopes of turning plant biomass into all kinds of high value products – and profit.

Since the turn of the millennium, the vision of a bio-based economy has been taking shape; with its promise to solve the problems of Peak Oil and climate change and to usher in an era of sustainable development, it quickly acquired a patina of ‘green.’ New technologies, primarily synthetic biology or extreme genetic engineering, enabled by advanced bioinformatics and genomics, are the bioeconomy’s engine while agricultural feedstock is its fuel.

While seductive, the new green techno-fixes are dangerous because they will spur even greater convergence and concentration of corporate power and unleash privately owned technologies into communities that have not been consulted about – or prepared for – their impacts. If the “Green Economy” is imposed without full intergovernmental debate and extensive involvement from peoples’ organizations and civil society, the Earth Summit to take place in Rio de Janeiro 20-22 June 2012 risks becoming the biggest Earth Grab in more than 500 years.

ETC Group’s Kathy Jo Wetter explains: “The goal is not to reject the green economy or technologies, but these are tools that must be guided by strong social policies. Agenda 21 called for technology assessment back in 1992 and the need for such a precautionary tool, that includes strict oversight of corporate concentration, is now more urgent than ever before.”

Alberto Gomez, of La Via Campesina, adds: “Corporate control over our food system threatens peasant farmers around the world. We already produce 70% of the world’s food, but our ability to do so in an agro-ecological way is being undermined by the kind of corporate control this report documents.”

Who Will Control the Green Economy? will be launched at the Rio+20 Intersessional meeting taking place in New York on December 15-16. Kathy Jo Wetter, one of the report’s researchers, will present the findings on Thursday, 15 December 2012, at 7 pm at a side-event on Agriculture at Rio+20, in Conference Room 6, North Lawn Building at the UN Headquarters. Alberto Gomez will also speak at this event.

Who will control the Green Economy? is available in English (http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5296), Spanish (http://www.etcgroup.org/es/node/5298) and will soon be available in French.

For more information or for interviews:

In New York:

Diana Bronson: cell 514 629 9236 or Diana@etcgroup.org

In Montreal:

Jim Thomas: cell 514 516 5759 or jim@etcgroup.org

What you will find in the

'Who Will Control the Green Economy?' Report – Dec 2011

- Naming The Green Economy's “One Percent”

'Who Will Control the Green Economy?' provides hard data on the largest and most powerful corporate players controlling 25 sectors of the 'real economy'. This is the only freely available report to assemble top 10 listings of companies (by market share) from 18 major economic sectors relevant to the Green Economy. These lists include the top 10 players in Water, Energy, Seeds, Fishing and Aquaculture, Food Retail and Processing, Chemicals, Fertilizer, Pesticides, Mining, Pharmaceuticals, Biotech, the Grain Trade and more. The report also identifies the leading players in a handful of new and emerging industrial sectors including Synthetic Biology, Big Data, Seaweed and Algae production and Livestock Genetics (pp.1-2).

- Corporate Concentration Unchecked

ETC Group has been monitoring corporate ownership trends for 30 years and the trendline is remaining steady: more monopoly everywhere. For example the top 10 multinational seed companies now control 73% of the world's commercial seed market, up from 37% in 1995 (p. 22). The worlds 10 biggest pesticide firms now control a whopping 90% of the global 44 billion dollar pesticide market (p.25). 10 companies control 76% of animal pharmaceutical sales (p.34). 10 animal feed companies control 52% of the global animal feed market (p.33), 10 chemical firms account for 40% of the chemical market (p.11), 10 forestry companies control 40% of the forestry market (p. 31), 10 mining companies control a third of the mining market (p. 29) and the top ten energy companies control a quarter of the energy market (p.10).

- Forget Windmills, Think Grain Mills

The 'Green Economy' may evoke iconic images of solar panels and wind turbines but this is not actually where corporate activity is focusing. While non-hydro and non-nuclear 'renewable' energy is only a thin sliver (1.8%) of global energy consumption - almost all of this consists of harvesting and burning biomass for energy and fuels and now chemicals. This report shows how the major corporate realignments in the new 'Green Economy' are happening around plant biomass (p.8-12, 18-21).

- New ‘Green’ Oligopolies

This report uncovers new corporate convergences across diverse industry sectors as large players position themselves to dominate the Green Economy. A case in point is the DuPont company - the world's 2nd largest seed company, 6th largest chemical company and 6th largest pesticide company which is now emerging as a major player in biotech, biofuels and bioplastics, synthetic biology, seaweeds, ingredients and enzymes while partnering with the worlds third largest energy company BP (pp. ii-iii).

- Food Dollars Trump Energy Dollars

Conventional wisdom says the size of the global energy market weighs in at $7 trillion and dwarfs every other economic sector. According to our research, however, the global grocery market ekes out ahead of energy – even when government subsidies paid to producers for energy and agriculture are taken into account (p.37).

- Synthetic Biology's Meteoric Rise

In the early 1990's the early commercialization of genetic engineering technologies drove massive reorganization of the seed, agrochemicals and pharmaceutical sectors and the emergence of 'life science' giants such as Monsanto and Novartis. Today the new technologies of Synthetic Biology are spurring another frenzy of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures around the biomass economy drawing large energy and chemical players such as Dow, DuPont, BP, Shell, Exxon, Chevron and Total into new alliances with grain, forestry and seed giants such as Monsanto, Cargill, Bunge, Weyerhaeuser and ADM. At the heart of these new alliances are surprisingly new Synthetic Biology companies such as Life Technologies Inc, Amyris, Solazyme and Evolva – all rapidly being promoted to significant roles in the global food, energy, pharma and chemicals sectors (pp.8-12).

- Controlling the Blue Economy too.

Biomass found in oceans and aquatic ecosystems accounts for 71% of the planet’s surface area. That’s why energy and chemical corporations such as Du Pont, Statoil , DSM, Exxon, Mitsubishi, Monsanto , Chevron and shipping giant Stolt Nielsen are looking to the wild, wet frontier for new sugars and oils to fuel the bio-based economy, proposing the large-scale exploitation of algae, seaweed, fish and all the aquatic biomass found in lakes, rivers and coastal estuaries. (Pp. 18-21)

[download entire report - PDF]

[download news release - PDF]

[download info "What you will find in WWCTGE" - PDF]

David F. Noble: The Corporate Climate Coup

2012-01-09T20:50:00.003Z

DGR: In my article entitled Global Warming: Truth or Dare? I provided a critical assessment of global warming science and its use and argued that the myth of a global warming dominant threat serves power and neutralizes activists who could otherwise effectively address the real problems, at the root. My article inspired renowned historian of science and technology David Noble to research the corporate and finance drivers of the Global Warming agenda and to write the following article. [See other related articles at ACTIVIST CLIMATE GUY.]

Don't breathe. There's a total war on against CO2 emissions, and you are releasing CO2 with every breath. The multi-media campaign against global warming now saturating our senses, which insists that an increasing CO2 component of greenhouse gases is the enemy, takes no prisoners: you are either with us or you are with the "deniers." No one can question the new orthodoxy or dare risk the sin of emission. If Bill Clinton were running for president today he would swear he didn't exhale.

How did we get here? How did such an arcane subject only yesterday of interest merely to a handful of scientific specialists so suddenly come to dominate our discourse? How did scientific speculation so swiftly erupt into ubiquitous intimations of apocalypse? These are not hypothetical questions but historical questions, and they have answers. Such events as these do not just happen; they are made to happen. On the whole our ideas tend not to be our own ideas; rarely do we come up with them ourselves but rather imbibe them from the world around us. This is especially obvious when our ideas turn out to be the same as nearly everyone else's, even people we've never met or communicated with. Where did this idea about the urgent crisis of global warming and CO2 emissions come from and get into our heads, given that so few of us have ever read, or even tried to read, a single scientific paper about greenhouse gases? Answering such a question is not as difficult as it might seem, for the simple reason that it takes a great amount of reach and resources to place so alien an idea in so many minds simultaneously so quickly, and the only possessors of such capacity and means are the government and the corporations, together with their multi-media machinery. To effect such a significant shift in attention, perception, and belief requires a substantial, and hence visible and demonstrable, effort.

Until quite recently most people were either unaware of or confused and relatively unconcerned about this issue, despite a growing consensus among scientists and environmentalists about the possible dangers of climate change. Global warming activists, such as AI Gore, were quick to place the blame for that popular ignorance, confusion, and lack of concern on a well-financed corporate propaganda campaign by oil and gas companies and their front organizations, political cronies, advertising and public relations agencies, and media minions, which lulled people into complacency by sowing doubt and skepticism about worrisome scientific claims. And, of course, they were right; there was such a corporate campaign, which has by now been amply documented. What global warming activists conveniently failed to point out, however, is that their own, alarmist, message has been drummed into our minds by the very same means, albeit by different corporate hands. This campaign, which might well prove the far more significant, has heretofore received scant notice.

Over the last decade and a half we have been subjected to two competing corporate campaigns, echoing different time-honored corporate strategies and reflecting a split within elite circles. The issue of climate change has been framed from both sides of this elite divide, giving the appearance that there are only these two sides. The first campaign, which took shape in the late 1980's as part of the triumphalist “globalization" offensive, sought to confront speculation about climate change head-on by denying, doubting, deriding, and dismissing distressing scientific claims which might put a damper on enthusiasm for expansive capitalist enterprise. It was modelled after and to some extent built upon the earlier campaign by the tobacco industry to sow skepticism about mounting evidence of the deleterious health-effects of smoking. In the wake of this "negative" propaganda effort, any and all critics of climate change and global warming have been immediately identified with this side of the debate.

The second -“positive”- campaign, which emerged a decade later, in the wake of Kyoto and at the height of the anti-globalization movement, sought to get out ahead of the environmental issue by affirming it only to hijack it and turn it to corporate advantage. Modelled on a century of corporate liberal cooptation of popular reform movements and regulatory regimes, it aimed to appropriate the issue in order to moderate its political implications, thereby rendering it compatible with corporate economic, geopolitical, and ideological interests. The corporate climate campaign thus emphasized the primacy of "market-based” solutions while insisting upon uniformity and predictability in mandated rules and regulations. At the same time it hyped the global climate issue into an obsession, a totalistic preoccupation with which to divert attention from the radical challenges of the global-justice movement. In the wake of this campaign, any and all opponents of the “deniers” have been identified – and, most importantly, have wittingly or unwittingly identified themselves – with the corporate climate crusaders.

The first campaign, dominant throughout the 1990's, suffered somewhat from exposure and became relatively moribund early in the Bush II era, albeit without losing influence within the White House (and the Prime Minister's Office). The second, having contributed to the diffusion of a radical movement, has succeeded in generating the current hysteria about global warming, now safely channeled into corporate-friendly agendas at the expense of any serious confrontations with corporate power. Its media success has aroused the electorate and compelled even die-hard deniers to disingenuously cultivate a greener image. Meanwhile, and most important, the two opposing campaigns have together effectively obliterated any space for rejecting them both.

In the late 1980's the world's most powerful corporations launched their "globalization" revolution, incessantly invoking the inevitable beneficence of free trade and, in the process, relegating environmental issues to the margins and reducing the environmentalist movement to rearguard actions. Interest in climate change nevertheless continued to grow. In 1988, climate scientists and policy-makers established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) to keep abreast of the matter and issue periodic reports. At a meeting in Toronto three hundred scientists and policy-makers from forty-eight countries issued a “call for action” on the reduction of CO2 emissions. The following year fifty oil, gas, coal, and automobile and chemical manufacturing companies and their trade associations formed the Global Change Coalition (GCC), with the help of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller. Its stated purpose was to sow doubt about scientific claims and forestall political efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The GCC gave millions of dollars in political contributions and in support of a public relations campaign warning that misguided efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through restrictions on the burning of fossil fuels would undermine the promise of globalization and cause economic ruin. GCC efforts effectively put the climate change issue on hold.

Meanwhile, following an indigenous uprising in Chiapas in January, 1994, set for the first day of the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the anti-globalization movement erupted in world-wide protest against market capitalism and corporate depredation, including the despoiling of the environment. Within five years the movement had grown in cohesion, numbers, momentum and militancy and coalesced in designated “global days of action" around the world, particularly in direct actions at G8 summits and meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the new World Trade Organization, reaching its peak in the shutting down the WTO meetings in Seattle in November, 1999. The movement, which consisted of a wide range of diverse grass-roots organizations united in opposition to the global "corporate agenda,” shook the elite globalization campaign to its roots. It was in this charged context that the signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which had been formulated by representatives from 155 nations at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, met at the end of 1997 in Kyoto and established the so-called Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through carbon targets and trading. The Kyoto treaty, belatedly ratified only in late 2004, was the sole international agreement on climate change and immediately became the bellwether of political debate about global warming.

Corporate opposition anticipated Kyoto. In the summer of 1997 the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous resolution demanding that any such treaty must include the participation and compliance of developing countries, particularly emerging economic powers like China, India, and Brazil, which were nevertheless excluded in the first round of the Kyoto Protocol. Corporate opponents of Kyoto in the GCC, with the swelling global justice movement as a back-drop, condemned the treaty as a “socialist" or "third-world” plot against the developed countries of the West.

The convergence of the global justice movement and Kyoto, however, prompted some of the elite to rethink and regroup, which created a split in corporate ranks regarding the issue of climate change. Defections from the GCC began in 1997 and within three years had come to include such major players as Dupont, BP, Shell, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, and Texaco. Among the last GCC hold-outs were Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, and General Motors. (In 2000, the GCC finally went out of business but other like-minded corporate front organizations were created to carry on the "negative” campaign, which continues.)

Those who split off from the GCC quickly coalesced in new organizations. Among the first of these was the Pew Center for Global Climate Change. funded by the philanthropic offering of the Sun Oil/Sunoco fortune. The board of the new Center was chaired by Theodore Roosevelt IV, great grandson of the Progressive Era president (and conservation icon) and managing director of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm. Joining him on the board were the managing director of the Castle-Harlan investment firm and the former CEO of Northeast Utilities, as well as veteran corporate lawyer Frank E. Loy, who had been the Clinton administration's chief negotiator on trade and climate change.

At its inception the Pew Center established the Business Environmental Leadership Council, chaired by Loy. Early council members included Sunoco, Dupont, Duke Energy, BP, Royal Dutch/Shell, Duke Energy, Ontario Power Generation, DTE (Detroit Edison), and Alcan. Marking their distance from the GCC, the Council declared “we accept the views of most scientists that enough is known about the science and environmental impacts of climate change for us to take actions to address the consequences;” “Businesses can and should take concrete steps now in the U.S. and abroad to assess opportunities for emission reductions. . . and invest in new, more efficient products, practices, and technologies." The Council emphasized that climate change should be dealt with through "market-based mechanisms” and by adopting “reasonable policies,” and expressed the belief “that companies taking early action on climate strategies and policy will gain sustained competitive advantage over their peers."

Early in 2000, “world business leaders" convening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland declared that “climate change is the greatest threat facing the world.” That fall, many of the same players, including Dupont, BP, Shell, Suncor, Alcan, and Ontario Power Generation, as well as the French aluminum manufacturer Pechiney, joined forces with the U.S. advocacy group Environmental Defense to form the Partnership for Climate Action. Like-minded Environmental Defense directors included the Pew Center's Frank Loy and principals from the Carlyle Group, Berkshire Partners, and Morgan Stanley and the CEO of Carbon Investments. Echoing the Pew Center mission, and barely a year after the “battle of Seattle" had shut down the World Trade Organization in opposition to the corporate globalization regime, the new organization reaffirmed its belief in the beneficence of market capitalism. “The primary purpose of the Partnership is to champion market-based mechanisms as a means of achieving early and credible action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that is efficient and cost-effective." Throughout its initial announcement this message was repeated like a mantra: “the benefits of market mechanisms," “market-oriented rules," “market-based programs can provide the means to simultaneously achieve both environmental protection and economic development goals,” "the power of market mechanisms to contribute to climate change solutions.” In the spring of 2002, the Partnership's first report proudly stated that “the companies of the PCA are in the vanguard of the new field of greenhouse gas management.” “The PCA is not only achieving real reductions in global warming emissions,” the report noted, "but also providing a body of practical experience, demonstrating how to reduce pollution while continuing to profit.”

This potential for profit-making from climate change gained the avid attention of investment bankers, some of whom were central participants in the PCA through their connections with the boards of the Pew Center and Environmental Defense. Goldman Sachs became the leader of the pack; with its ownership of power plants through Cogentrix and clients like BP and Shell, the Wall Street firm was most attuned to the opportunities. In 2004 the company began to explore the “market-making” possibilities and the following year established its Center for Environmental Markets, with the announcement that “Goldman Sachs will aggressively seek market-making and investment opportunities in environmental markets;" The firm indicated that the Center would engage in research to develop public policy options for establishing markets around climate change, including the design and promotion of regulatory solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The firm also indicated that Goldman Sachs would “take the lead in identifying investment opportunities in renewable energy;” that year the investment banking firm acquired Horizon Wind Energy, invested in photovoltaics with Sun Edison, arranged financing for Northeast Biofuels, and purchased a stake in logen Corporation, which pioneered the conversion of straw, corn stalks, and switchgrass into ethanol. The company also dedicated itself “to act as a market maker in emissions trading” of CO2 (and SO2) as well as in such areas as “weather derivatives,” "renewable energy credits," and other “climate-related commodities.” “We believe," Goldman Sachs proclaimed, “that the management of risks and opportunities arising from climate change and its regulation will be particularly significant and will garner increasing attention from capital market participants.”

Among those capital market participants was former U.S. Vice President AI Gore. Gore had a long-standing interest in environmental issues and had represented the U.S. in Kyoto. He also had equally long-standing family ties with the energy industry through his father's friendship with Armand Hammer and his financial interest in Hammer’s company Occidental Petroleum, which the son inherited. In 2004, as Goldman Sachs was gearing up its climate-change market-making initiatives in quest of green profits, Gore teamed up with Goldman Sachs executives David Blood, Peter Harris, and Mark Ferguson to establish the London-based environment investment firm Generation Investment Management (GIM), with Gore and Blood at its helm. In May, 2005 Gore, representing GIM, addressed the Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk and emphasized the need for investors to think in the long term and to integrate environmental issues into their equity analyses. "I believe that integrating the issues relating to climate change into your analysis of what stocks are worth investing in, how much, and for how long, is simply good business,” Gore explained to the assembled investors. Applauding a decision to move in this direction announced the day before by General Electric's CEO Jeff Immelt, Gore declared that “we are here at an extraordinarily hopeful moment. . .when the leaders in the business sector begin to make their moves.” By that time Gore was already at work on his book about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, and that same spring he began preparations to make a film about it.

The book and the film of the same name both appeared in 2006, with enormous promotion and immediate success in the corporate entertainment industry (the film eventually garnering an Academy Award). Both vehicles vastly extended the reach of the climate change market-makers, whose efforts they explicitly extolled. “More and more U.S. business executives are beginning to lead us in the right direction," Gore exulted, adding “there is also a big change underway in the investment community.” The book and film faithfully reflected and magnified the central messages of the corporate campaign. Like his colleagues at the Pew Center and the Partnership for Climate Action, Gore stressed the importance of using market mechanisms to meet the challenge of global warming. "One of the keys to solving the climate crisis," he wrote, “involves finding ways to use the powerful force of market capitalism as an ally.” Gore repeated his admonition to investors about the need for long-term investment strategies and for integrating environmental factors into business calculations, proudly pointing out how business leaders had begun “taking a broader view of how business can sustain their profitability over time.” The one corporate executive actually quoted in the book, in a two-page spread, was General Electric's CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who succinctly explained the timing and overriding purpose of the exercise: “This is a time period where environmental improvement is going to lead to profitability.”

By the beginning of 2007 the corporate campaign had significantly scaled up its activity, with the creation of several new organizations. The Pew Center and Partnership for Climate Action now created a political lobbying entity, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). USCAP membership included the key players in the initial effort, such as BP, Dupont, the Pew Center, and Environmental Defense, and added others, including GE, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, Florida Power and Light, and PNM, the New Mexico and Texas utilities holding company. PNM had recently joined with Microsoft's Bill Gates' Cascade Investments to form a new unregulated energy company focused on growth opportunities in Texas and the western U.S. PNM's CEO Jeff Sterba also chaired the Climate Change Task Force of the Edison Electric Institute. Also joining USCAP was the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Resources Institute, and the investment banking firm Lehman Brothers whose managing director Theodore Roosevelt IV chaired the board of the Pew Center and was soon also to chair Lehman's new Global Center on Climate Change. As Newsweek now noted (March 12, 2007). “Wall Street is experiencing a climate change," with the recognition that “the way to get the green is to go green.”

In January, 2007, USCAP issued “A Call for Action," a “non-partisan effort driven by the top executives from member organizations.” The "Call” declared the "urgent need for a policy framework on climate change;" stressing that "a mandatory system is needed that sets clear, predictable, market-based requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” USCAP laved out a “blueprint for a mandatory economy-wide market-driven approach to climate protection,” which recommended a "cap and trade" program as its "cornerstone,” combining the setting of targets with a global carbon market for trading emission allowances and credits. Long condemned by developing countries as “carbon colonialism,” carbon trading had become the new orthodoxy. The blueprint also called for a "national program to accelerate technology, research, development, and deployment” and measures to encourage the participation of developing countries Iike China, India, and Brazil, insisting that “ultimately the solution must be global.” According to USCAP spokesperson General Electric's CEO Jeff Immelt, “these recommendations should catalyze legislative action that encourages innovation and fosters economic growth while enhancing energy security and balance of trade."

The following month yet another corporate climate organization made its appearance, this one specifically dedicated to spreading the new global warming gospel. Chaired by AI Gore of Generation Investment Management, the Alliance for Climate Protection included among its members the now familiar Theodore Roosevelt IV from Lehman Brothers and the Pew Center, former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, Owen Kramer from Boston Provident, representatives from Environmental Defense, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the National Wildlife Federation, and three former Environmental Protection Agency Administrators. Using “innovative and far-reaching communication techniques,” Gore explained, “the Alliance for Climate Protection is undertaking an unprecedented mass persuasion exercise” – the multi-media campaign against global warming now saturating our senses. Don’t breathe.

If the corporate climate change campaign has fuelled a fevered popular preoccupation with global warming, it has also accomplished much more. Having arisen in the midst of the world-wide global justice movement, it has restored confidence in those very faiths and forces which that movement had worked so hard to expose and challenge: globe-straddling profit-maximizing corporations end their myriad agencies and agendas; the unquestioned authority of science and the corollary belief in deliverance through technology, and the beneficence of the self-regulating market with its panacea of prosperity through free trade, and its magical powers which transforms into commodities all that it touches, even life. All the glaring truths revealed by that movement about the injustices, injuries, and inequalities sowed and sustained by these powers and beliefs have now been buried, brushed aside in the apocalyptic rush to fight global warming. Explicitly likened to a war, this epic challenge requires single-minded attention and total commitment, without any such distractions. Now is not the time, nor is there any need, to question a deformed society or re-examine its underlying myths. The blame and the burden has been shifted back again to the individual, awash in primordial guilt, the familiar sinner facing punishment for his sins, his excesses, predisposed by his pious culture and primed now for discipline and sacrifice. On opening day of the 2007 baseball season, the owner of the Toronto Blue Jays stood in front of the giant jumbotron, an electronic extravaganza, encircled by a ring of dancing corporate logos and advertising, and exhorted every person in the crowd, preposterously, to go out and buy an energy-efficient light bulb. They applauded.

In his bestselling 2005 book the Weather Makers, Tim Flannery called his readers to battle in “our war on climate change." With a forward for the Canadian edition written by Mike Russill, former CEO of the energy giant Suncor and now head of World Wildlife Fund/Canada, the book well reflected the corporate campaign. Each of us "must believe that the fight is winnable in social and economic terms,” Russill insists, “and that we do not have to dramatically change the way we live," "The most important thing to realize," Flannery echoes, “is that we can all make a difference and help combat climate change at almost no cost to our lifestyle." “The transition to a carbon-free economy is eminently achievable,” he exults, "because we have all the technology we need to do so.” "One great potential pitfall on the road to climate stability," he warns, however, "is the propensity for groups to hitch their ideological wagon to the push for sustainability.” "When facing a grave emergency,” he advises, “it's best to be single-minded." The book is inspiring, rallying the reader to battle against this global threat with ingenuity, enthusiasm, and hopefulness, except for one small aside, buried in the text, that gnaws at the attentive reader: “because concern about climate change is so new, and the issue is so multi-disciplinary," Flannery notes, “there are few true experts in the field and even fewer who can articulate what the problem might mean to the general public and what we should do about it.”

The corporate campaign has done more than merely create market opportunities for mainstream popular science writers like Flannery. By constructing an exclusively Manichean contest between mean and mindless deniers, on the one hand, and enlightened global warming advocates, on the other, it has also disposed otherwise politically-astute journalists on the left to uncharacteristic credulity. Heat, George Monbiot's impassioned 2006 manifesto on the matter, is embarrassing in its funneled focus and its naive deference to the authority of science, "Curtailing climate change,” he declaims, “must become the project we put before all others. If we fail in this task, we fail in everything else." “We need a cut of the magnitude science demands,” he declares; we must adopt "the position determined by science rather than the position determined by politics," as if there was such a thing as science that was not also politics.

Monbiot pulls no punches against the “denial industry," excoriating the negative corporate campaigners for their "idiocy” and bitingly suggesting that some day soon “climate-change denial will look as stupid as Holocaust denial, or the insistence that AIDS can be cured with beetroot.” Yet he has not a word of acknowledgement much less criticism for the campaigners on the other side whose message he perhaps unwittingly peddles with such passion. And here too, oddly, a brief paragraph buried in the text, seemingly unconnected to the rest, disturbs the otherwise inspired reader. “None of this is to suggest," Monbiot notes in passing, "that the science should not be subject to constant skepticism and review, or that environmentalists should not be held to account. . . .Climate-change campaigners have no greater right to be wrong than anyone else." “If we mislead the public,” he allows, “we should expect to be exposed,” adding that “we also need to know that we are not wasting our time: there is no point in devoting your life to fighting a problem that does not exist." Here perhaps some remnants of truth seep between the managed lines, hinting yet at the opening of another space and another moment.

Historian David Noble teaches at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is the author, most recently, of Beyond the Promised Land (2005). More of his articles are posted at ACTIVIST CLIMATE GUY.

Source: http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2007/05/dgr-in-my-article-entitled-global.html

David Korten: Capitalism and the Common Good

2012-01-02T09:35:00.002Z

Audio as produced and broadcast by Alternative Radio

Inaugural Lecture, The Wayne Morse Center For Law And Politics 2011-2013 Inquiry on the theme “From Wall Street to Main Street: Capitalism and the Common Good,” University Of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, October 5, 2011

PDF Format

It is an honor and a privilege to be the inaugural speaker for this important and timely University of Oregon inquiry sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. The theme—“From Wall Street to Main Street: Capitalism and the Common Good” frames exactly the inquiry we must engage as a nation—and as a species at this defining historical moment.

As we meet, citizens are mobilizing all around American in support of the Occupy Wall Street protest that provides a focal point for coalescing public anger at Wall Street’s unrelenting and unrepentant greed and corruption into an agenda for sweeping economic transformation. The protest is still small, but growing fast with an energy that might be beyond the power of imperial institutions to contain.

My assignment tonight is to outline my thinking on the nature and substance of the needed transformation based on my work of the past thirty years. We have only 50 minutes to cover a great deal of ground, so I’ll be painting with broad strokes.

I’ll not take your time this evening assaulting you with the usual endless statistics documenting how grim our situation is. I assume you have come this evening because you are already quite aware that we are in deep trouble and your interest is in solutions.

A quick overview of the symptoms of system failure will suffice to frame the problem.

Continue reading ...

Neuromania: On the limits of brain science

2012-01-01T17:38:00.002Z

Paolo Legrenzi, Carlo Umilta and Frances Anderson

Neuroeconomics, neuromarketing, neuroaesthetics, and neurotheology are just a few of the novel disciplines that have been inspired by a combination of ancient knowledge together with recent discoveries about how the human brain works. The mass media are full of news items featuring colour photos of the brain, that show us the precise location in which a certain thought or emotion, or even love occurs, hence leading us to believe that we can directly observe, with no mediation, the brain at work. But is this really so? Even throughout the developed world, the general public has been seduced into believing that any study, research article, or news report, accompanied by a brain image or two is more reliable and more scientific, than one featuring more mundane illustrations.

This fascinating, accessible, and thought provoking new book questions our obsession with brain imaging. Written by two highly experienced psychologists, it discusses some of the familiar ideas usually associated wtih mind-body, brain-psyche, and nature-culture relationships, showing how the biased and unquestioning use of brain imaging technology could have significant cultural effects for all of us.

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

2012-01-01T16:09:00.001Z

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=17227

V. S. Ramachandran (Author, University of California, San Diego)

Drawing on strange and thought-provoking case studies, an eminent neurologist offers unprecedented insight into the evolution of the uniquely human brain.

V. S. Ramachandran is at the forefront of his field-so much so that Richard Dawkins dubbed him the "Marco Polo of neuroscience." Now, in a major new work, Ramachandran sets his sights on the mystery of human uniqueness. Taking us to the frontiers of neurology, he reveals what baffling and extreme case studies can teach us about normal brain function and how it evolved. Synesthesia becomes a window into the brain mechanisms that make some of us more creative than others. And autism—for which Ramachandran opens a new direction for treatment—gives us a glimpse of the aspect of being human that we understand least: self-awareness. Ramachandran tackles the most exciting and controversial topics in neurology with a storyteller's eye for compelling case studies and a researcher's flair for new approaches to age-old questions. Tracing the strange links between neurology and behavior, this book unveils a wealth of clues into the deepest mysteries of the human brain.

Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death

2011-12-28T17:10:00.006Z

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

The prophetic landmark work exploring the corrosive effects of electronic media on a democratic society

Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.

Lester Brown: Plan B 4.0 - Mobilizing to Save Civilization

2011-12-28T09:31:00.000Z

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Plan-B-40/

"[Brown's] ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable."-Katherine Salant, Washington Post

As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

Helga Dittmar: Consumer Culture, Identity and Well-Being

2011-12-27T08:39:00.005Z

The Search for the 'Good Life' and the 'Body Perfect'

Series Edited by Professor Rupert Brown.

Series: European Monographs in Social Psychology series.

Advertising, materialism and consumption are central aspects of contemporary Western culture. We are bombarded with idealised images of the perfect body, desirable consumer goods, and affluent lifestyles, yet psychology is only just beginning to take account of the profound influence these consumer culture ideals have on individuals’ sense of identity and worth.

Consumer Culture, Identity, and Well-Being documents the negative psychological impact consumer culture can have on how individuals view themselves and on their emotional welfare. It looks at the social psychological dimensions of having, buying and wanting material goods, as well as the pursuit of media-hyped appearance ideals. In particular, it focuses on:

The purchasing of material goods as a means of expressing and seeking identity, and the negative consequences of this
Psychological buying motivations in conventional buying environments and on the Internet
The unrealistic socio-cultural beauty ideals embodied by idealized models.

Throughout, different approaches from social psychology are integrated, such as self-completion, self-discrepancy and value theory, to create a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the impact of internalising core consumer culture ideals on how individuals see themselves and the implications this has for their psychological and physical health.

Consumer Culture, Identity, and Well-Being is of interest to anybody who wants to find out more about the psychological effects of living in modern consumer societies on children, adolescents, and adults. More specifically, it will be of interest to students and researchers in social psychology, sociology, media studies, communication and other social sciences, as well as to psychologists, health workers, and practitioners interested in the topics of identity, consumption pathologies, body image, and body-related behaviours.

What's the Economy For, Anyway? By John de Graaf and David K. Batker

2011-12-10T10:30:00.003Z

Why It's Time to Stop Chasing Growth and Start Pursuing Happiness

Named Best Business Book for Fall 2011 by Publishers Weekly

The question no one ever bothered to ask about the economy: How can we make it work for us, instead of the other way around?

In this funny, readable, and thought-provoking book based on the popular film of the same name, activists John de Graaf (coauthor of the bestselling Affluenza) and David Batker tackle thirteen economic issues, challenging the reader to consider the point of our economy. Emphasizing powerful American ideals, including teamwork, pragmatism, and equality, de Graaf and Batker set forth a simple goal for any economic system: The greatest good for the greatest number over the longest run. Drawing from history and current enterprises, we see how the good life is achieved when people and markets work together with an active government to create a more perfect economy-one that works for everyone.

Beginning by shattering our fetish for GDP, What's the Economy For, Anyway? offers a fresh perspective on quality of life, health, security, work-life balance, leisure, social justice, and perhaps most important, sustainability. This sparkling, message-driven book is exactly what those lost in the doldrums of partisan sniping and a sluggish economy need: a guide to what really matters, and a map to using America's resources to make the world a better place.

Where is future growth in GDP going to come from? THE GROWTH CONUNDRUM

2011-11-22T19:42:00.005Z

Most forecasts for the world economy, world energy supply and demand, climate change and the economy and so on assume that economic growth will march on. The Stern report on climate change and the economy said it would “not be unreasonable” to assume the world economy will grow by 2% to 3% annually this century, based on historical growth. So, what does this growth look like?

The first graph at the top of the page shows the projection of Gross World Product to 2100 at 2% or 3% annual growth, with 2009 indicated. The second graph shows world ecological footprint: we started using up the biocapacity of the planet faster than it can regenerate by the 1980s. But footprint and GDP (or GWP) correlate very closely: the bigger GDP is, the more energy and material we put through the economy - for food, transportation, the amenities of home and workplace, basically everything we consume. We’re getting more efficient, but not fast enough.

The top graph to the right shows growth in GDP up to 2009 - a sharply rising exponential growth curve. In the past 50 years, growth in GWP has averaged about 4% per year. The last graph shows what this growth has done to the biosphere and how clearly economic growth correlates with exponential increase in human use of natural resources - paper consumption, fish consumption, use of freshwater and soil resources, extinction of species, fertilizer use, and so on (thank you Gus Speth!!).

So, if the economy is going to go from $61 trillion in GWP in 2009 to somewhere between $450 and $1100 trillion in GWP in 2100, what kind of energy and material throughput are we talking about? What kind of ecological footprint, if we are already overconsuming the Earth by 20%? For anyone who thinks runaway banks and credit derivative swaps are the major problem facing the world (and that kind of financial shenaniganism is a HUGE problem, yes), take a close look at these graphs. They tell the story of the real long-term crisis we are facing.

For a PDF with these graphs, click here: Growth presentation PDF.pdf

The Future of Money: New Lenses of Wealth

2011-11-20T12:42:00.006Z

http://www.emergence.cc/wp-content/files/FOM_infographic_1280x1811.png

Click the above image to open a 1280px x 1811px PNG file in a new window.
2010 BY-NC-SA Emergence Collective
Research and concept by Gabriel Shalom, Venessa Miemis and Jay Cousins.
Design by Patrizia Kommerell.

After several months of research and graphic design we’re happy to present you with our infographic The Future of Money: New Lenses of Wealth. It represents the aggregation of our research on emerging marketplaces, platforms, tools, initiatives and opportunities for the new economy.

The network that runs the world

2011-11-09T11:05:00.001Z

http://makewealthhistory.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/network.jpg

This image shows the connections between the 1,318 biggest companies in the world, mapped according to share ownership out of an original 43,000 companies. At the core are 147 super-connected companies, the ones in red. That group, less than one percent of the whole, effectively controls 40% of global revenue. No prizes for guessing which sector dominates that core group. At the top of the tree is Barclays, with JP Morgan Chase, UBS and Merrill Lynch all in the top ten.

This, says the New Scientist, gives credence to the Occupy movement’s claim that the world is run for the benefit of the richest one percent. According to this particular exercise in systems theory, that’s entirely correct.

If you want to check out the methodology, the study is online here (pdf).

Robert Biel: The Entropy of Capitalism

2011-11-02T20:10:00.000Z

http://www.brill.nl/entropy-capitalism

The project of applying general systems theory to social sciences is crucial in today’s crisis when social and ecological systems clash. This book concretely demonstrates the necessity of a Marxist approach to this challenge, notably in asserting agency (struggle) as against determinism. It similarly shows how Marxism can be reinvigorated from a systems perspective. Drawing on his experience in both international systems and low-input agriculture, Biel explores the interaction of social and physical systems, using the conceptual tools of thermodynamics and information. He reveals the early twenty-first century as a period when capitalism starts parasitising on the chaos it itself creates, notably in the link between the two sides of imperialism: militarism (the ‘war on terror’) and speculative finance capital.

Life Rules: Why so much is going wrong everywhere at once & how Life teaches us to fix it.

2011-11-01T20:59:00.001Z

http://www.ellenlaconte.com/life-rules-the-book/

Economic and polar meltdowns, inept, corrupt and bankrupt governments, long-term double-digit unemployment, climate instability, failing social services, collapsing ecosystems, a widening wealth-poverty gap, unprecedented species extinctions, mass migrations, peak fossil fuels, religious, ethnic and resource wars, spreading hunger, poverty, chaos and disease. . .

Why is so much going wrong everywhere at once? The global economy has gone viral. It is ravaging Earth’s immune system, triggering a Critical Mass of mutually reinforcing environmental, economic, social, cultural and political crises that are compromising the ability of Earth’s human and natural communities to provide for, protect and heal themselves.

The prognosis? If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, Life will last but Life as we know it—and a lot of us—won’t.

What should we do instead? We should remember that Life rules, we don’t. The global economy operates as if it were larger than Life. It isn’t. As if it had multiple Earth’s to supply its appetites. It doesn’t. Life learned how to deal with global economies two billion years ago: It put them out of business. It encoded in other-than-human species an adaptable protocol of economic rules that help them to avoid causing Critical Mass and survive Critical Mass when it occurs naturally.

What are those rules? Among the rules written into Life’s Economic Survival Protocol are local self-reliance, intercommunity and regional functional cooperation, non-carbon energy sourcing, resource conservation, sharing and recycling, and organically democratic methods of self-organization and governance. These rules have worked for Life for two billion years. We can make them work for us, too.

How? We can learn Life’s rules and adopt lifeways that mimic Life’s ways.

Take back your future! A tool for community transition and cultural and personal transformation, Life Rules offers a clear and compelling context for understanding our global crisis and a treatment plan for Critical Mass that is at once authentically conserve-ative, deeply green and profoundly liberating.

With Forewords by John Robbins, Diet for A New America and The New Good Life & John Rensenbrink, publisher of Green Horizon Magazine AND an Afterword by August Jaccaci, General Periodicity: Nature’s Creative Dynamics

Invitation to the International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas, Montreal 2012

2011-11-01T07:54:00.000Z

http://montreal.degrowth.org/

Dear friends,

We are pleased to invite proposals for workshops, panels, papers, posters, artistic presentations, symposia and special sessions for the Montreal International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas from May 13-19, 2012.

A voice is rising among those who are deeply concerned with global environmental degradation and escalating poverty and inequality. A root of the problem lies in an unrelenting priority given to economic growth. Degrowth is a new social and economic paradigm that challenges the growth–driven economic model on which existing policies are based. To build on the emergent international discussion on degrowth, the Montreal International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas will articulate the needs and aspirations of the Americas for a post-growth, more equitable and better world.

Nineteen years after the Earth Summit in Rio the growth-driven “sustainable development discourse” has failed. It has not offered a convincing solution to one of the most dramatic crises in history: how to avert ecological collapse while enhancing social justice. A degrowth perspective will help us visualize and build towards a post-growth world.

Drawing from previous degrowth conferences in Paris and Barcelona, the Montreal conference, a co-operative effort of four Montreal Universities, will focus on the particular situations and dynamics of the Americas. What does degrowth mean for our Hemisphere with its rich geographical, cultural, social and economic diversity? How can degrowth models apply to different contexts from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego? What does degrowth mean for the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their aspirations for their lands and peoples?

In the spirit of seeking alternative societies, the conference will bring together a diversity of social actors to share a deeper understanding of the degrowth paradigm, and build networks and relationships over six days. It will also include a convivial degrowth fair, with exhibits, art/video/cultural events, opportunities for international participants to exchange beyond that possible in most formal academic conferences. Tours and interaction with Montreal, Quebec and regional social movements and local, alternative food, housing and cooperative experiences are planned. Every effort is being made to reduce the ecological footprint of the event and to maximize its benefits in relation to the ecological and carbon impacts of traditional travel and research activities. Trilingual translation will be available for larger sessions and a cadre of volunteer personal translators for French, Spanish and English speakers is being recruited.

For more information, please visit our website at: http://montreal.degrowth.org/

Our proposal guidelines can be viewed at: http://montreal.degrowth.org/downloads/call_for_proposals.pdf
Our proposal submission form can be viewed at: http://montreal.degrowth.org/call_form.html

We look forward to your participation.

Yves-Marie Abraham, HEC, Université de Montréal
Julie Anne Ames, McGill University
Peter G Brown, McGill University
Chantal Forgues, David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Concordia University
Nicolas Kosoy, McGill University
Olga Navarro-Flores, UQAM
Hervé Phillipe, Université de Montréal
François Schneider, Research & Degrowth, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Shannon Scott, McGill School of Environment, McGill University
Paul Shrivastava, David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Concordia University
Bob Thomson, Ottawa

Source: http://peakoil.com/generalideas/invitation-to-the-international-conference-on-degrowth-in-the-americas-montreal-2012/

Glenn Greenwald: With Liberty and Justice for Some

2011-10-31T11:43:00.002Z

http://us.macmillan.com/withlibertyandjusticeforsome/GlennGreenwald

From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of justice that has emerged in America

From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution, licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country in the world.

Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties, and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes, domestic spying, and financial fraud.

Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and mercilessness for everyone else.

El gobierno de las palabras. Política para tiempos de confusión

2011-10-29T09:33:00.000+01:00

http://www.juancarlosmonedero.com/2011/06/gobiernodelaspalabras/

Segunda edición aumentada y corregida. Madrid. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009 y 2011.

Descargar prefacio del libro (PDF)

Este libro destaca que nunca tan pocos engañaron a tantos. En nombre de la democracia y la soberanía el Estado moderno cede a la dictadura de los mercados. El pensamiento moderno, exhausto, cede las soluciones racionales a supercherías y sectarismos, remedos de espiritualismo de consumo rápido y libros de autoayuda. Época de transición y confusión. ¿Y si la reinvención de la política fuera un antídoto?

Frente a soluciones individuales, ésta es una propuesta de “autoayuda colectiva”. La que convierte la resignación y el cansancio en combustible para la democracia. Para la vida buena. Para recuperar la alegría de la política.

En las revoluciones en el mundo árabe, la diferencia entre un contratista o un mercenario la marcaba el bando en el que se peleaba. En la Roma clásica, a los esclavos se les llamaba instrumenti vocali; en la Alemania nazi, no se gaseaban personas sino unmenschen. En las barriadas pobres de América Latina, los niños de la calle ya han sido condenados a muerte cuando se les dice desechables.

El lenguaje que creemos hablar, en realidad nos habla. Si el tiempo es oro ¿cómo encontrar cuándo escucharnos? Biendecir es dialogar; maldecir, monologar. Sólo el diálogo construye la felicidad. En su soliloquio, Hamlet enloquecía. Don Quijote, cuerdo, hablaba con Sancho Panza. Tiempo de despensar las palabras que la política convirtió en callejones sin salida.

Enlaces relacionados: Entrevista en ATTAC TV

Earth Grab: Geopiracy, the New Biomassters and Capturing Climate Genes

2011-10-27T21:15:00.001+01:00

http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100969040

Authors: Diana Bronson, Hope Shand, Jim Thomas, Kathy Jo Wetter

This three-part book 'pulls back the curtain on disturbing technological and corporate trends that are already reshaping our world and that will become crucial battlegrounds for civil society in the years ahead.'
Vandana Shiva, Founder, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology

'Geopiracy' analyses how Northern governments and corporations are cynically using growing concerns about the ecological and climate crisis to propose geoengineering 'quick fixes'. These threaten to wreak havoc on ecosystems, with disastrous impacts on the people of the global South. As calls for a 'greener' economy mount and oil prices escalate, corporations are seeking to switch from oil-based to plant-based energy.

'The New Biomassters' exposes how a biomass economy based on using gene technologies to reprogramme living organisms to behave as microbial factories will facilitate the liquidation of ecosystems. This constitutes a devastating assault of the peoples and cultures of the South, accelerating the wave of land grabs that are becoming common in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

'Capturing Climate Genes' shows how the worlds largest agribusiness companies including Monsanto, BASF, Dupont and Syngenta are pouring billions of dollars into, and claiming patents on, what are claimed to be 'climate-ready crops'. Far from helping farmers adjust to a warming world – something peasant farmers already know how to manage – these crops will allow industrial agriculture to expand plantation monocultures into lands currently cultivated by poor peasant farmers. These crops are not a solution to growing hunger, they will feed only the gluttony of corporate shareholders for profits.

The model of the common welfare economy – 15 cornerstones

2011-10-26T17:12:00.004+01:00

http://www.gemeinwohl-oekonomie.org/en/

It’s All Connected: An Overview of the Euro Crisis

2011-10-26T16:24:00.002+01:00

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/sunday-review/an-overview-of-the-euro-crisis.html

European leaders are meeting this week to deal with growing debt problems rattling investors worldwide. Here is a visual guide to the crisis.

Circuses Without Bread

2011-10-21T13:11:00.000+01:00

The barefaced lie about Gadaffi being killed in the crossfire bodes ill for the openness, transparency and good government we can expect to see now in Libya. But today I am worrying about the effect on our society of human death as entertainment. I have never been an apologist for Gadaffi, but if his regime tortured and murdered, the remedy is not to torture and murder him – even the Nazis were given due process.

This murder is becoming the norm. It was a NATO air strike which took out Gadaffi’s escaping convoy and first wounded him. Two days ago two teenage sons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical US/Yemeni cleric executed without trial last week, were executed by a US drone attack as they had dinner. They were aged 16 and 19. They had committed no crime I can find alleged against them. There has been no publicity.

All this killing brings triumphalist politicians smirking on our screens. We seem to have become as dehumanised as ancient Rome. Little human pity is expressed for the way Gadaffi was killed – indeed there is notably less media reflection of pity or revulsion than there was at the (at least judicial) hanging of Saddam Hussein. Is that a measure of the descent into bloodlust barbarism in our society? The complete lack of empathy towards the traveller families being torn from their homes at Dale Farm is part of the same brutalism towards “the other”. Why don’t we go the whole way and have them eaten by lions in the ring?

History shows that bloody appetite once aroused feeds upon itself. We have already had Defence Secretary Hammond on Sky News today positing NATO action now against Syria, while the current US proto-pretext for attacking Iran – the fantasy plot against the Saudi Ambassador – is as believable as Gadaffi’s death in the crossfire.

More death is on the way, to keep the circus going. Then the crowds may not notice there is no bread – no jobs, and their earnings and income eaten up by huge state enforced transfers to the bankers, whether by bailouts or “quantitive easing”.

Quantitive Easing is the best con of all for the ruling classes. In the UK, the £225 billion of printed money to date under quantitive easing has been – every single penny – given to the bankers. Good money for bad, used to buy up the junk bonds which the bankers bought in their terrible investment decision making, and for which fake assets they had awarded themselves many, many billions in personal bonuses. They are rescued from the consequences of their disastrous judgements by the Bank of England printing (in old parlance) new, good money to buy the rubbish they invested in. The result – more rounds of huge personal bonuses for celebrating bankers!! Hooray!!! For you and I, stagflation.

30 months ago, when I explained that Q.E. was another huge transfer to the bankers and predicted it would lead to stagflation, I was widely ridiculed across the web. Now we have the stagflation and everything I predicted has come to pass.

All of which you would normally expect to make people pretty unhappy at the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history.

Quick! More War! More Militarism! More Blood! More Executions! More Victory for Democracy! Keep the Peasants Happy!
Get a Move On There! Come On!! Come On!! More Blood!! More Blood, Quick, Damn You!!

Source: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/10/circuses-without-bread/

Addicted to tax havens: The secret life of the FTSE 100

2011-10-11T09:27:00.003+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/11/ftse100-subsidiaries-tax-data

ActionAid have produced another fine report, this time about the use of tax havens by multinational corporations listed on the FTSE 100. The statistics are staggering: for example more than half of the financial sector's overseas subsidiaries are in tax havens. More precisely:

The FTSE 100 largest groups registered on the London Stock Exchange comprise 34,216 subsidiary companies, joint ventures and associates.
38% (8,492) of their overseas companies are located in tax havens.
98 groups declared tax haven companies, with only two groups, Fresnillo and Hargreaves Landsdown, who did not.
The banking sector makes heaviest use of tax havens, with a total of 1,649 tax haven companies between the ‘big four’ banks. They are by far the biggest users of the Cayman Islands, where Barclays alone has 174 companies.
The biggest tax haven user overall is the advertising company WPP, which has 611 tax haven companies.
The FTSE 100 companies make much more use of tax havens than their American equivalents.
There are over 600 FTSE 100 subsidiary companies in Jersey (more than in the whole of China), 400 in the Cayman Islands and 300 in Luxembourg – all tiny tax havens.

Alongside the financial sector, oil and mining companies are also huge users: TJN recently noted that they are often headquartered in Canada, and ActionAid noted that

"BP and Shell have almost 1,000 tax haven companies between them, including more than 100 in the Caribbean (hardly a major source of oil)."

(Recently we noted the huge role that the Netherlands plays in hosting offshore subsidiaries of oil companies, and another report by Publish What You Pay Norway noted the huge role played by Delaware too.)

ActionAid points to the artificiality of it all:

"In locations such as Mauritius, Jersey and Delaware we have identified hundreds of subsidiaries owned by dozens of different multinationals that are registered at a handful of individual addresses, belonging to offshore law firms."

And to the crucial development angle:

Corporate tax avoidance, one of the main reasons companies use tax havens, has a massive impact on developing and developed countries alike. The lack of transparency makes it difficult for developing country tax authorities to identify and collect taxes owed by global companies operating in their countries.

All credit to ActionAid for this:

This research is based on information that had never been disclosed, let alone analysed, until this year.11 UK law compels companies to report all of their subsidiary companies, together with their country of registration. When we looked for this information in early 2011, we discovered that more than half of the FTSE 100 were not complying with this legal obligation. When enquiries to individual companies failed to persuade them to disclose the information, we submitted complaints to Companies House, forcing the disclosures as part of companies’ annual returns and sparking Business minister Vince Cable to announce an investigation.

The Guardian, reporting this, (and providing a listing of the FTSE 100 and their subsidiaries) notes that:

"There is no standard definition of what constitutes a tax haven."

Indeed. We use the terms 'tax haven' and 'secrecy jurisdiction' interchangeably, and recently produced a two-pager (as part of our Financial Secrecy Index) entitled What is a Secrecy jurisdicsion? which says exactly that, and explores ways to think about the phenomenon.

Also see The Independent reporting on this, along with the Press Association, and Metro.

Older reports, involving the use of companies in tax havens by Swiss, US, France, and the Netherlands, are here. Further information on Spain, is here.

Source: http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/

2011-10-04T17:31:00.000+01:00

"Propaganda has become the primary means by which the wealthy communicate with the rest of society. Whether selling a product, a political candidate, a law, or a war, seldom do the powerful delivery messages to the public before consulting their colleagues in the public relations industry."

"Psywar" Film by Scott Noble

Putting Brussels' lobbyists on the map

2011-10-01T09:41:00.000+01:00

Our unique new guide to the hidden world of corporate lobbying in Brussels is now available, highlighting the players, the locations, and the tactics used by big business to influence decision making in the European Union.

http://www.corporateeurope.org/publications/putting-brussels-lobbyists-map

The new edition of the Lobby Planet to Brussels’ EU quarter features a guide to some of the biggest lobby players operating in Brussels, as well as three thematic tours, highlighting the carbon lobby, the finance lobby and the agribusiness lobby. The guide also features a specially-commissioned cartoon of Brussels’ lobbyists at work, and full colour maps to guide you through the streets and squares of the EU quarter.

There are an estimated 15-30,000 lobbyists targeting EU decision makers in Brussels, mainly representing business interests, making the EU quarter home to one of the highest concentrations of lobbyists in the world. The Lobby Planet guides you through the maze of the EU institutions, the lobby groups, the agencies and the company offices which make up their lobbying world.

The first edition of Corporate Europe Observatory’s Lobby Planet guide was produced in 2004, and proved an eye-opener to many who were unaware of the scale of industry lobbying in Brussels. The number of lobbyists in the EU capital has grown significantly since then and there are growing calls for greater transparency and stricter rules on lobbying. Download a copy of the Lobby Planet to Brussels' EU quarter here: Lobbycracy

CEOlobbylow.pdf

Black Tuesday, A Novel by Nomi Prins

2011-09-29T13:14:00.003+01:00

http://www.nomiprins.com/black-tuesday

In this vivid tableau of New York on the cusp of the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929, Black Tuesday captures the romance and desperation of one of our most fascinating historical epochs. From the beleaguered immigrant community of the Lower East Side to the feral pit of Wall Street and the alluring glitter of Park Avenue, Nomi Prins reveals a world of fraud, obsession and economic devastation in a turbulent era that shines a revealing light on our current times. Black Tuesday is an epic saga that probes the complex intersections of class, family loyalty, passion, and the terrible consequences of deception, greed and power.
Click here for excerpt.

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

2011-09-26T22:11:00.000+01:00

Sheldon S. Wolin, born in 1922, is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He taught political theory for 40 years at Oberlin College, the Universities of California, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Oxford University.

Democracy is struggling in America—by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive—and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.
Source: http://universitypressaudiobooks.com/detail.php/24

Economics Unmasked: From power and greed to compassion and the common good

2011-09-12T09:03:00.003+01:00

By Manfred Max-Neef and Philip B. Smith

The economic system under which we live not only forces the great majority of humankind to live their lives in indignity and poverty; it also threatens all forms of life - indeed life itself. Economics Unmasked presents a cogent critique of the dominant economic system in order to help transform our society into one in which all forms of life will be protected.

The first part of this book is devoted to showing that the theoretical constructions that have been selected work mainly to bring about injustice. The second part is concerned with what should be the foundations of a new economics where justice, human dignity, compassion and reverence for life must be the guiding values.

Économie solidaire & monnaie locale

2011-09-08T11:45:00.000+01:00

Économie solidaire & monnaie locale - 2/5

http://youtu.be/iL24B9ToWTU

Économie solidaire & monnaie locale - 3/5

http://youtu.be/MtMMkX8p-yU

Économie solidaire & monnaie locale - 4/5

http://youtu.be/tzBXNlJEdHY

Économie solidaire & monnaie locale - 5/5

http://youtu.be/yp5h_PBOQAk

Juillet 2011 Jean-Paul PLA, conseiller municipal délégué à la ville de Toulouse, présente l'économie solidaire et la monnaie complémentaire locale crées pour la cité.

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization

2011-09-07T22:58:00.000+01:00

Dr. David Montgomery, professor of geomorphology, University of Washington discusses the problem of global soil degradation and soil erosion and why it is one of the most significant environmental crises that face our species and planet for the next 400 years to come.

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery

2011-09-07T22:50:00.001+01:00

Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.

PAIS - Fase 1 - Escolha do Terreno

2011-09-07T09:53:00.000+01:00

PAIS - Fase 2 - Preparação do Quintal

http://youtu.be/vTDBdNfvTGI

PAIS - Fase 3 - Construção de Galinheiro

http://youtu.be/2YuIkRdJiI0

PAIS - Fase 4 - Implantação de Horta

http://youtu.be/DcNp6wBNWlg

PAIS - Fase 5 - Instalação de Irrigação

http://youtu.be/H3jglE_X7gY

PAIS - Produção Agroecológica Integrada Sustentável.

Uma parceria SEBRAE e Fundação Banco do Brasil.

Fossas Sépticas Biodigestoras

2011-09-07T09:33:00.000+01:00

Fossas Sépticas Biodigestoras 2

abravideo

Tecnologia social de preservação ambiental por intermédio de fossas sépticas biodigestoras.
Fundação Banco do Brasil.

Life After Growth - Economics for Everyone

2011-09-06T22:19:00.005+01:00

Directed, Written, Shot, and Edited by Leah Temper and Claudia Medina

IT'S TIME TO RECLAIM THE ECONOMY

The economic crash of 2008 revealed not only the frailty and vulnerability of the economic system, it also showed the false basis that the growth economy is built on – the financial bubble grows bigger and crashes bigger, but we don't seem to be getting any happier. To the contrary, we suffer from greater job insecurity and environmental chaos threatens.

The prescription from the mainstream economists is more growth – but is this just taking more of what ails us?

Has growth become uneconomic?

Is there another way?

This film is part of an ongoing project to document the rise of a new movement – calling not for more economic growth, but LESS. The degrowth movement, or "mouvement por le decroissance", argues that through a voluntary reduction of the economy we can work less, consume less and live better, fuller lives.

Many have been pointing out that our current economic system is leading us to an environmental
and social catastrophe. "Life After Growth" begins to point to the people and communities who are looking for ways out. These are the pioneers who are rethinking the role of economics in our lives, and are engaging in different types of economic activity, right now.

The D word is still taboo in many circles – politicians are loath to go against the growth orthodoxy that our society is based on. But everywhere people are engaging in degrowth type activity - the beginning of a wave that is laying the groundwork for a post-capitalist future...

Because it's not the size of the economy that counts, it's how you use it!

contact: lifeaftergrowth@gmail.com

This film was made with the support of the Fundació Autònoma Solidària,
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Thomas Linzey: Turning Defense into Offense: Challenging Corporations & Creating Self-Governance

2011-09-05T23:05:00.001+01:00

TEDxBloomington - Keith Johnson "Food Security and Resilence"

2011-09-05T22:32:00.005+01:00

http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com

Keith Johnson was raised in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (where he learned at an early age he was related to Johnny Appleseed), and has been a commercial landscaper, stonemason, and organic gardener since 1976 in places as varied as subtropical Bay Area of California, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Michigan, & the mountains of W. North Carolina. After devouring Permaculture One in 1978 he continued to learn all he could on the subject. He's been teaching Permaculture since '95, has instructed more than 700 students, many of those through Indiana University's annual Design Course which began in 2003. He's taught or trained with Bill Mollison, Larry Santoyo, Tom Ward, Penny Livingston, Peter Bane, Chuck Marsh, Starhawk, and Jerome Osentowski.

Now resident in Bloomington, Indiana, Keith participates in a number of local activism projects including the editorial guild of the Permaculture Activist, the founding of Transition Bloomington (Indiana's first Transition Town Initiative), boardmember of the Local Growers Guild, contributor to Bloomington's Peak Oil Task Force, member of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild & member of the Bloomington Food Policy Council. A frequent public speaker and radio interviewee, he works constantly to share a vision of cultural and ecological regeneration and continues to provide ecological design and consultation services via Patterns for Abundance.

Keith's presentation at TEDxBloomington included a remarkable visual presentation of the transformation of the suburban forest garden he co-manages on the 2/3 acre site where he homesteads with Peter Bane and a regular flow of interns.

La doble cara de la moneda

2011-09-05T19:06:00.001+01:00

Versión original con subtítulos en español.

La double face de la monnaie

Le pourquoi des monnaies complémentaires dans un monde où l’argent est roi.

L’argent est devenu la valeur centrale de nos sociétés. Comme une drogue, les individus, toujours à sa recherche, craignent d’en manquer. Beaucoup sont prêts à faire n’importe quoi pour s’en procurer. Depuis la fin des années 90, des systèmes d’échanges complémentaires sont mis en place par des citoyens un peu partout dans le monde. La monnaie redevient un outil social, au service de l’homme. Le Chiemgauer allemand, la Banque du temps anglaise et les Systèmes d’Echange Locaux (SEL) français, sont des preuves concrètes que la monnaie peut redevenir un sujet de débat dans la société occidentale.

The Economics of Enough

2011-09-04T12:18:00.000+01:00

http://www.thersa.org/events/video

Economist Diane Coyle proposes first steps towards creating a sustainable economy - but can we have enough to be happy without cheating the future?

Why Are We Waiting? Clive Hamilton talks Climate Action

2011-09-04T08:29:00.000+01:00

Clive Hamilton, public intellectual and author of 'Requiem for a Species', speaks about how dire the future looks and how little time we have to act on climate. He reflects on our strange obsessions, our hubris, and our penchant for avoiding the facts about climate change.

02:12 - Introduction by David Suzuki
06:31 - Clive Hamilton
53:42 - Q&A session

Recorded at the 2011 Sustainable Living Festival
Produced by Plug-In TV - plugintv.net

GROWTH FETISH by CLIVE HAMILTON

2011-09-04T08:03:00.001+01:00

At last a coherent new set of ideas for critics of economic rationalism and globalization. Hamilton argues that an obsession with economic growth lies at the heart of our current political, social and environmental ills - and offers a thought-provoking alternative.
'Right on target, and badly needed' Noam Chomsky

'Every now and then a book that is perfect in timing and tone hits my desk. Growth Fetish is that book. It is powerful and potentially transformative.' Rev. Tim Costello

'This book reveals the undelivered reality of economic growth and the hollow mantras of the Third Way. Growth Fetish provides a much needed road map to a new politics in a post-growth world.' Senator Natasha Stott Despoja

For decades our political leaders and opinion makers have touted higher incomes as the way to a better future. Economic growth means better lives for us all.

But after many years of sustained economic growth and increased personal incomes we must confront an awful fact: we aren't any happier. This is the great contradiction of modern politics.

In this provocative new book, Clive Hamilton argues that, far from being the answer to our problems, growth fetishism and the marketing society lie at the heart of our social ills. They have corrupted our social priorities and political structures, and have created a profound sense of alienation among young and old.

Growth Fetish is the first serious attempt at a politics of change for rich countries dominated by the sicknesses of affluence, where the real yearning is not for more money but for authentic identity, and where the future lies in a new relationship with the natural environment.

Conferencia Carlos Taibo

2011-09-03T20:38:00.000+01:00

Conferencia día 13 de abril en Barcelona

Carlos Taibo - Decrecimiento

2011-09-03T20:24:00.000+01:00

http://www.attac.tv/

En esta entrevista Carlos Taibo nos explica qué es el decrecimiento, nacido como crítica al crecimiento ilimitado en un mundo con recursos limitados, y como propuesta de debate social.
El decrecimiento es una corriente de pensamiento político, económico y social favorable a la disminución controlada de la producción económica con el objetivo de establecer una nueva relación de equilibrio entre el ser humano y la naturaleza, pero también entre los propios seres humanos.

Homenaje a Cataluña II

2011-09-03T18:06:00.005+01:00

"Homenaje a Catalunya II es un documental, una investigación, una historia de historias sobre la construcción de una economía sostenible, solidaria y descentralizada. Tejiendo redes que superan la individualización y la división jerárquica del trabajo. Miles de personas cada día en todo el mundo. Aquí y ahora."

Sitio web: homenatgeacatalunyaii.org/es
Licencia: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.es

Are we slaves to debt? The history of spending more than we have

2011-09-02T17:52:00.001+01:00

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/

The debate over what to do about debt is nothing new, according to anthropologist David Graeber. Alison Stewart talks with Graeber about our misconceptions about debt and why it plays such a large role in history. Need to Know airs Fridays on PBS.

2011 Edelman Lecture: Derrick Jensen

2011-09-02T17:30:00.002+01:00

http://www.pnca.edu/

Environmental Activist Derrick Jensen gives the 2011 Edelman Lecture, "Civilization and Resistance." March 9, 2011, Pacific Northwest College of Art. A podcast of the complete lecture is available at: http://untitled.pnca.edu/multimedia/show/1869/

Derrick Jensen is the acclaimed author of fifteen books, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. Author, teacher, activist, small farmer and leading voice of uncompromising dissent, he has been hailed as the philosopher poet of the environmental movement.

His premise is as profound as it is persistent: industrial civilization is inherently unsustainable. It will always require violence to biotic and human communities. And it will create a culture where trauma is normalized, where living beings become objects, and where the only relationship left is one of domination. He has packed university auditoriums, conferences, and bookstores across the nation, stirring them with revolutionary spirit.

Derrick Jensen asks, "Do you believe this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living? If you don't, and you care about life on this planet, what does that mean for your strategy and tactics? The answer is that we don't know because we don't talk about it." Derrick talks about it. Weaving together history, philosophy, environmentalism, economics, literature and psychology to produce a powerful argument and a passionate call for action, he points toward concrete solutions by focusing on our most primal human desire: to live on a healthy earth overflowing with uncut forests, clean rivers and thriving oceans that are not under the constant threat of being destroyed.

About the Edelman Lecture
When the late Portland architect and photographer, Alfred Edelman, taught three-dimensional design at PNCA he challenged his students to consider the principles of engineering, kinetics, physics and other subjects seemingly dissimilar to art. In doing so he brought the outside world into his classroom. Founded by Carol Edelman, the Alfred Edelman Lecture was created to enhance the student's understanding of the visual world by presenting timeless and/or unique ways to examine and manipulate three-dimensional space; and to be a catalyst for lively discussions in the classroom at PNCA.

DEBT: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

2011-08-28T10:26:00.001+01:00

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter system--to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There's not a shred of evidence to support it.

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginning of the agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems. It is in this era, Graeber shows, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

With the passage of time, however, virtual credit money was replaced by gold and silver coins--and the system as a whole began to decline. Interest rates spiked and the indebted became slaves. And the system perpetuated itself with tremendously violent consequences, with only the rare intervention of kings and churches keeping the system from spiraling out of control. Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history--as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.

Subconscious War

2011-08-27T10:10:00.000+01:00

dehypnotizeminds

New half hour documentary on media, reality & a culture of violence.

Capitalism Is The Crisis (Full Movie)

2011-08-27T09:37:00.002+01:00

http://capitalismisthecrisis.net/

The 2008 “financial crisis” in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history.

Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their “crisis” through punitive “austerity” programs that gutted public services and repealed workers’ rights.

Austerity was named “Word of the Year” for 2010.

This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future.

Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin.

It may be their crisis, but it's our problem.

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy

2011-08-25T21:47:00.000+01:00

This fun animation provides a vision of what a post-consumer society could look like, with people working fewer hours and pursuing re-skilling, homesteading, and small-scale enterprises that can help reduce the overall size and impact of the consumer economy. Narrated by economist and best-selling author Juliet Schor (julietschor.org).

Peak Oil Blues - We're All Bozos on this Bus

2011-08-25T11:54:00.001+01:00

http://www.peakmoment.tv

Peak Moment 199: "My own reaction seemed so crazy to me," says psychologist Kathy McMahon of her response to Peak Oil. Wondering if she was the only "wacko", she started the Peak Oil Blues blog to explore her own and readersapos; responses. As the "Peak Shrink," Kathy formulated a delightfully tongue-in-cheek "Panglossian Disorder" -- an unrealistic optimism about the future. She is about to publish "I Can't Believe You Actually Think That! A Couple's Guide to Finding Common Ground about Peak Oil, Climate Catastrophe, and Economic Hard Times." (http://www.feistylife.com/).

Marinaleda, otro mundo es posible. Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo

2011-08-24T10:14:00.001+01:00

http://www.attac.tv/altermedia/

Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, alcalde de Marinaleda nos muestra la experiencia que estan realizando en la población andaluza y comparte su visión sobre como hacer para caminar hacia ese otro mundo posible.

Catherine Austin Fitts The Looting Of America

2011-08-23T19:24:00.001+01:00

http://solari.com | Financial terrorism and the war on the middle class.

Former Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush Catherine Austin Fitts blows the whistle on how the financial terrorists have deliberately imploded the US economy and transferred gargantuan amounts of wealth offshore as a means of sacrificing the American middle class. Fitts documents how trillions of dollars went missing from government coffers in the 90′s and how she was personally targeted for exposing the fraud.

Broken Republic: Arundhati Roy

2011-08-20T23:16:00.001+01:00

Arundhati Roy who shot to fame in 1997 with her Booker Prize winning novel 'The God of Small Things' talks about her new collection of essays. It is, of course, like everything she has written since 1997 - a vulgar anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-globalization polemic. This time her leftist critique is directed against the Indian state and its policies. She also writes about her support for the Maoist 'resistance'.

Douglas R. Hofstadter - Singularity Summit at Stanford

2011-08-20T19:53:00.002+01:00

Douglas R. Hofstadter: Trying to Muse Rationally about the Singularity Scenario

see http://www.singinst.org/media/ for more

THE KINGDOM OF SURVIVAL - OFFICIAL TRAILER

2011-08-19T21:57:00.002+01:00

http://www.slowboatfilms.com/

THE KINGDOM OF SURVIVAL seeks out radical and alternative visions that challenge the status quo and features Prof. Noam Chomsky, Joe Bageant, Dr. Mark Mirabello.

The Kingdom of Survival is an interdisciplinary documentary combining speculative travelogue and investigative journalism in order to trace possible links between survivalism, spirituality, art, radical politics, outlaw culture, alternative media and fringe philosophy.
Circling through themes of utopianism, globalized capitalism, anarchism, intellectual and spiritual self-defense, religion and art, the film investigates physical and psychological survival strategies practiced by groups and individuals in a conflict-ridden and confused post-post- modern world.
Maverick writer and filmmaker M.A. Littler hits the outlaw highway in search of visions that challenge the status quo.
On his journey Littler crosses paths with renowned linguist and dissident Prof. Noam Chomsky, outlaw historian Dr. Mark Mirabello, gonzo journalist Joe Bageant, legendary reclusive cabin builder Mike Oehler, anarchist book publisher Ramsey Kanaan, egalitarian radio host Sasha Lilley and folk musician Will "The Bull" Taylor.
Together they explore radical and alternative visions for the 21st century.
Bob Meisenbach, Mike Oehler, Sasha Lilley, Ramsey Kanaan of AK/PM Press and Will "The Bull" Taylor.

The Kingdom of Survival est un documentaire interdisciplinaire qui combine enquête-itinérante-spéculative et journalisme d'investigation afin de tracer des liens possibles entre le survivalisme, la spiritualité, l'art, la radicalité politique, la culture hors-la-loi, les contre-médias et la philosophie de marge.
Naviguant autour des thèmes de l'utopie, du capitalisme mondialisé, de l'anarchie, de l'auto-défense intellectuelle et spirituelle, de la religion et de l'art, le film étudie des stratégies de survie physique et psychologique telles qu'elles peuvent être pratiquées par des groupes ou des individus qui ne se reconnaissent plus dans une société post-moderne régie par la confusion et les conflits permanents.
M.A Littler, écrivain et cinéaste dissident, taille la route à travers l'Amérique à la recherche de visions qui défient le statut quo.
Au cours de son voyage il croise le chemin d'un objecteur de consciences et linguiste renommé, Noam Chomsky, d'un universitaire spécialisé dans l'histoire des Hors-la-lois, Mark Mirabello, d'un écrivain et journaliste gonzo, Joe Bageant, d'un légendaire ermite et constructeur de cabanes à 50 dollars, Mike Oheler, d'un éditeur de littérature anarchiste, Ramsey Kanaan, d'une productrice de radio égalitaire, Sasha Lilley, et d'un musicien de Folk, Will « the Bull » Taylor.
Ensemble ils explorent et proposent des visions radicales et alternatives pour le XXI ème siècle.

Conférence sur la Décroissance, Barcelone 2010

2011-08-19T21:34:00.002+01:00

"Celui qui  croit que la croissance peut être infinie dans un monde fini est soit un fou, soit un économiste."

Kenneth Boulding (1910-1993), président de l’American Economic Association.

L’association "Recherche & Décroissance" (degrowth.net) met en œuvre et diffuse des études et des recherches théoriques et pratiques s’inscrivant dans le champ de la décroissance économique. R & D soutient une décroissance économique en tant que réduction collective des capacités d’appropriation et d’exploitation des ressources naturelles ayant pour objectif une société plus écologique, plus équitable, plus démocratique et répondant aux besoins humains.

En marge de la deuxième Conférence sur la Décroissance, organisée par R & D , au mois de mars 2010 à Barcelone, nous avons pu recueillir les impressions de quelques intervenant-e-s et participant-e-s. Ils nous livrent leurs analyses à chaud de la situation du mouvement de la décroissance et leurs réflexions sur les changements nécessaires pour sauver notre monde de la catastrophe.

Cette seconde conférence, s’appuyant sur le succès de la première et l’élan de chercheurs travaillant sur la décroissance, entendait se concentrer sur les nouvelles conditions amenées par la crise économique et souhaitait développer des propositions politiques claires et des stratégies d’action dans le cadre de la décroissance.

Musique : "Puerquerama" de Toluca (Etat de Mexico), "I wanna be a white trash man" "Pare de sufrir" "Cinismo al servico de la masas" - myspace.com/pqrm

Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations

2011-08-17T12:30:00.003+01:00

http://www.ted.com

Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.

Chris Hedges on the Myth of Human Progress

2011-08-15T19:51:00.004+01:00

Green is the New Red

2011-08-14T19:16:00.002+01:00

http://uprisingradio.org/

The term "eco-terrorist" was pioneered by a conservative anti-environmentalist named Ron Arnold, who helped convince government officials that members of groups like Earth First!, Earth Liberation Front, and Animal Liberation Front, were on par with Al Qaeda. Explaining the rise of the so-called "Green Scare," journalist Will Potter writes in his book Green is the New Red, that it was the result of "slowly merging the rhetoric of industry groups with that of politicians and law enforcement." Potter, himself a environmental activist, was once arrested for leaf letting and approached by the FBI to be an informant.

Dave Montgomery at Edmonds Community College

2011-08-14T18:46:00.000+01:00

Prof. Dave Montgomery gives his talk 'Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations' at Edmonds Community College in April 2010. Prof. David Montgomery is a geomorphologist who has discovered that the roughly 3 foot-deep skin of our planet is being slowly eroded away, and we are in danger of suffering the same fate as the fallen empires of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, and Rome. To learn more, visit: http://www.samaralectures.com/speakers/david-montgomery/

Dave Montgomery - Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

2011-08-14T18:25:00.002+01:00

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Author David Montgomery has discovered that the three-foot-deep skin of our planet is slowly being eroded away, with potentially devastating results. In this engaging lecture, Montgomery draws from his book 'Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations' to trace the role of soil use and abuse in the history of societies, and discuss how the rise of organic and no-till farming bring hope for a new agricultural revolution.

Deep Green Resistance - Strategy to Save the Planet

2011-08-13T11:55:00.000+01:00

http://deepgreenresistance.org/

Deep Green Resistance - Strategy to Save the Planet Part 2 of 7
http://youtu.be/Xru_O51Ccg4

Deep Green Resistance - Strategy to Save the Planet Part 3 of 7
http://youtu.be/rqWoICL-2GQ

Deep Green Resistance - Strategy to Save the Planet Part 4 of 7
http://youtu.be/9ZxBg1CbmG8

Deep Green Resistance - Strategy to Save the Planet Part 5 of 7
http://youtu.be/LXvDj-FNPiU

La Via Campesina em Movimento... Soberania Alimentar Já!

2011-08-13T09:26:00.007+01:00

Vean este documental de 20 minutos de duración y difúndanlo entre sus vecinos, amigos, comunidades, organizaciones locales, en centros culturales, festivales de cine, manifestaciones... Pueden incluso organizar una proyección seguida de un debate al que puedan invitar a campesinos y autoridades locales o a quien esté interesado.

12 lines of flight for just degrowth

2011-06-11T12:20:00.002+01:00

Now, our stirring paper for the debate of Attac Germany about degrowth is available in English – here.

1.) Our goal: Social rights – global and concrete

What is our goal in criticising growth, and why do we think it necessary in principle to sketch lines of flight for a degrowth economy at this juncture? Our goal is to establish social rights globally, such that a good life is possible for everybody. Our alternative of a just degrowth economy is not simply focused on an abstract „survival of humanity“ or „saving nature,“ as are many varieties of growth criticism. This kind of perspective is in danger of obscuring the concrete social rights of individuals and groups. Instead, it aims at meeting the demand for social justice and equality in the here and now, and in the future. Just as in the past when the English farmers were driven from the commons by the landed aristocracy, the social question cannot be considered separately from the ecological – despite the fact that this has been done frequently in the past. After a period in which transnational corporations have seized more and more natural resources, and in view of the worldwide escalation of the biocrisis (that is: the climate crisis, peak oil, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, etc.), which dramatically threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of people, (global) justice can only mean socio-ecological justice. A central coordinate pointing in that direction is the just degrowth economy.

2.) Nature is limited and resistant

Unlimited growth on a finite planet is impossible. Neoclassical economists block out the existence of nature and its resistance. Matter, space and time, as dimensions of what we call reality, do not appear in their textbooks. Nature appears only in the form of resources, which when scarce can be substituted for by the increased investment of capital. Yet production and reproduction are fundamentally based on nature: the planet provides services (clean air, farmland, etc.), and raw materials are extracted from it and transformed. Nature has limits, and they can only be insufficiently compensated for by capital. Of course, it would be possible to calculate the costs of using artificial pollination machines for an orchard in California, but when there are no more bees, then we are in serious trouble.
The global biocrisis, above all the climate crisis, and the fact that the production peak of petroleum (Peak Oil) will soon be reached, place external limits on growth. The connection between the exploitation of highly concentrated fossil energy sources and the capitalist system of growth makes Peak Oil (prognoses range from 2005 to 2020) an especially critical phenomenon – the question is simply how to respond: chaotically and violently, or with democratic planning and cooperation. Deadly weather extremes and resource wars cast longs shadows ahead. This will not improve conditions for social struggles worldwide.

3.) Decoupling is not possible

The past few years have seen a renaissance in concepts of „sustainable“ or „green“ growth, a Green New Deal and other variations of „green“ capitalism. Think tanks develop new concepts, with which politicians try to create new majorities. Common to all of these programmatic approaches is the notion that a comprehensive decoupling of economic growth from resource use and environmental destruction is possible. Technological innovations, renewable energies, increases in resource-use efficiency and the “green” service sector society – the proclaimed goals of dematerialized growth – would make it possible for the gross domestic product to continue to grow, while at the same time less and less fossil energy and other limited resources are used. This kind of decoupling – to the absolute degree that would be necessary – is an illusion. The necessity for reducing CO₂emissions in the advanced industrial countries of the North, while simultaneously maintaining their economic growth, necessitates increases in resource efficiency and technological developments that are beyond what is technically and politically possible. This is true also in view of the manner in which our economy functions, the historical evidence of the falling rate of innovation and the failure of decoupling strategies up until now.[1] Hence, growing out of the biocrisis is not a viable option. Moreover, shrinking the economy to a healthy level in the North is also necessary because the poorer regions in the South must be given options for development and growth in the mid-term future.

4.) „Leur récession n’est pas notre décroissance!“

…was a slogan during the protests against the crisis in 2009 in France („Their recession is not our degrowth!“). Because one thing is clear: Our idea of a degrowth economy is not to shrink the economies within the existing economic and social structures and distributory relations – this would lead to massive social cutbacks, poverty and other symptoms of capitalist crisis, such as we are currently experiencing. Within the existing growth-dependent structures, shrinking the economy means that increases in productivity cannot be compensated for by growth, and consequently unemployment increases rapidly. Demand decreases, the crisis intensifies, the recession is accompanied by deflation. At the same time publicly administered tax revenues decrease, social security systems come under pressure, and debt explodes. Both lead to a dangerous spiral of recession and pauperisation. In growth-dependent capitalism the following holds: shrinkage = recession = social crisis.

5.) …and your austerity is not our degrowth!

The transformation to a just degrowth economy demands struggling for a new economic grammar, one that would make social justice and a good life for people all over the world possible in the first place. It would lead consequently to a reduction of the GDP. However, focusing solely on the imperative to shrink is reductionist and dangerous. This is made evident by neo-liberal and conservative or neo-feudalistic varieties of growth criticism, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, which, with their ecologically motivated arguments join the reactionary chorus of: „We have lived beyond our means,“ or: „We have to tighten our belts,“ and turn criticism of growth into a lever for justifying austerity and cuts in social services.[2] In opposition to this, the concept of a solidarity-based degrowth economy of décroissance aims at a democratically negotiated reduction of production and consumption in order to enable social rights for everyone, globally, now and in the future.

6.) There is no good growth, only a good life!

Degrowth is not aimed at abstract and utopian speculation about a society that emerges after capitalism, rather it aims at recognizing often unseen socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and the corresponding reorientation of emancipatory strategies. Governments and transnational corporations are opposed to this. Yet the same is true of those who agitate against the current crisis with the slogan „No cuts, more growth“, like the bureaucrats of the European Federation of Trade Unions. Despite the necessity for pushing back against social cuts, they fall into the illusion that social problems can be solved by more growth. For decades the growth rates of the industrial countries have been declining, a process which has its causes not only in the limits to growth (increasing cost of resources, destruction of the climate, etc.), but also in the internal barriers of capitalistic development (relative saturation of demand). Growth alone has not been enough to alleviate structural unemployment effectively (jobless growth) for a long time; nor does growth increase public welfare; and the rising tide does not lift all boats.[3] Peak Oil is also a serious challenge to the growth strategies of the traditional left. Wars fought to secure raw materials, catastrophic deep-sea drilling and millions of refugees are an integral part of the fossilistic growth model. Growth is opposed to the goal of global social rights. Because what grows are abstract exchange values and accumulation opportunities for the few, which make a good life for everyone impossible.

7.) Goodbye, Keynes – good morning Keynes and beyond…

Keynesian policy-making failed in the 1970/80s when it was no longer able to satisfy the requirements for returns on capital. In short: the Keynesian growth model reached its limits. The answer was the neo-liberal counter-revolution, as Milton Friedman, its mastermind, called it. In the meantime, the neo-liberal growth model of finance capitalism is also in a crisis. In view of the failure of Keynesianism – above all in the global context – and the apparent ecological limits, hopes for a new Keynesian phase, an eco-Keynesian growth program beyond neo-liberal finance-market capitalism, miss the mark. Many concepts discussed by the emancipatory Left – even Keynesian – are still important, especially those aimed at reducing social injustice and exploitation: radical redistribution, shortening of working hours, economic democracy and control of capital and investment. It is necessary to re-conceptualize these in connection with ideas that go further, such as (re)appropriating common goods, deglobalisation, new forms of work, food sovereignty[4] and energy democracy, under the guiding principles of an economy that does not grow, but shrinks to a point of stabilisation. So it is necessary to discover the hidden Keynes, the theoretician of stagnation, who sketched a society freed from the compulsion to work and the profit motive. In the end we have to pass through and go beyond Keynes, in order to arrive at our just degrowth economy.

8.) Reduce production, shorten working hours, redistribute wealth, regulate investment

Degrowth means a break with the superficial, positive-sum game logic of distributory policy making and the illusion of an economy based on scarcity, one in which there is only redistribution when the economy grows. Not only has „trickle-down“ failed radically; growth actually contributes to the production of underdevelopment and the increasing inequality of distribution. Yet there is enough for all. Wealth must be distributed equitably, and not grow further. For this to happen, we not only need a minimum income, but also a maximum income, as the French décroissance movement demands.
Degrowth also says goodbye to the illusion of a growth-based full-employment society. For a long time, the real rates of growth have not been sufficient to integrate the work force, set free by increases in productivity and commoditisation, back into the labour market. The alternative to making large sections of society poorer and „obsolete“ is to shorten the working hours for everyone. In addition, reducing the absolute number of hours performed in wage-labour is actually necessary for a long-term reduction of the GNP. 20 hours are enough – for a start![5] And don’t forget: there is a life beyond working for wages, in which – as feminist economists always stress – much of the necessary work (re)producing society is performed. And this also has to be distributed – to everyone.
The reduction of working hours is sand in the gears of the growth economy and it creates necessary strategic latitude, but that alone is not enough. In the end, additional massive „rationalisation“ would be the answer of corporations, and their imperative to make profits, to grow, would not be dislodged. New forms of demonetised transaction, a just solidarity-economy and the cultivation/management of commons are crucial. At the same time it is necessary to intervene in the actually existing finance capitalism, to control investment democratically and turn it around – away from fossil high-growth sectors to the „care economy“, use-value oriented grass-roots services and social-ecological reorganisation. And instead of servicing (public) debt, we struggle for debt cancellation. Drop the debt! [6]

9.) Beyond capitalism

All those who seriously attempt to go beyond a criticism of growth and strive for degrowing the economy face enormous challenges, because it is a matter of fundamental social transformation, one which takes hold at the roots. Plausible technocratic concepts for a degrowth economy, as well as exemplary islands of projects of a solidarity-based economy are essential – but they are not enough if the accumulation process of capitalism continues. Growth is driven by the blind self-realisation of capital: Money is invested in production in order to earn more money, which requires an increase in the production of value. So degrowth means that the self-valorisation opportunities of capital decrease and the fictitious asset claims, inflated by the financial markets, cannot be realised. In addition, in order to arrive at a just and ecological economy, many production facilities – above all in the fossil sectors – must be shut down in the course of a transformation to a degrowth economy (disinvestment). Both mean the destruction of capital. There is no way around this central core of political economy if global social rights are to be realised, and thus no way around the question of power. The problem: the neo-liberal project of globalisation, with its liberalisation of markets (WTO, IMF), privatisation, de-regulation and attacks on collective social agents, has increased the power of transnationally active capital enormously. FAQ: what constellation of social agents, with what interests, means and strategies has the will and ability to establish a just degrowth economy and the necessary de-commodification and de-monetisation of the (re)production sectors?

10.) Buen vivir beyond tradition and modernity

The idea of eternal growth, tied to the idea of homo economicus, is an integral component of the concept of modernity. It is time to abandon this notion here and now. But the good news is: „We never were modern!“, as Bruno Latour discovered and Donna Haraway confirmed.[7] Nor are we the „dromomaniacs“ (speed fanatics) as we have been called by the French urbanist Paul Virilio.[8] But even if we abandon growth – farewell, farewell! – we will continue to claim the modern concepts of human rights and democracy, which have been the fruits of struggles for emancipation. Degrowth does not mean abandoning the idea of the possibility for progress – instead it means liberating the idea of progress from the belief in piling up goods and economic growth. Thus, degrowth does not mean returning to tradition, to the stone age, or giving in to an anything-goes post-modernism. Degrowth takes seriously the post-colonial situation and the multi-polar constellation caused by the ascendancy of newly industrialising countries – and thus the question of global justice and equality. The concrete utopia of the good life (buen vivir) in an egalitarian society without growth constitutes a new point of orientation beyond tradition and modernity. The idea of a just degrowth economy reopens the horizon of opportunity beyond the dominance of ruling economic conceptions and imperatives. It is a matter of de-colonizing the imagination, of the de-mystification of fetishised conceptions such as economic growth, progress, wage labour, efficiency and GNP. Preguntando caminamos…

11.) Trans-communalism instead of post-democracy

Democracy has been suffering severe attacks through the neo-liberal rollbacks since the 1970/80s. At the latest with the emergency conditions of the world economic crisis and the massive bailout packages put together overnight for the banks we have arrived at a post-democracy. The social impact of the crisis and the social consequences of the biocrisis increase the pressure on democratic structures. Therefore, a just degrowth economy requires new democratic institutions, a reconstitution of local and national democracy. European democracy and a global democracy are still a long way off. Therefore the restructuring of production aims for deglobalisation, a new articulation of the local level with the national and global on the basis of new democratic procedures.[9] Among these are the control of financial markets, and especially investments. We will not fall into the trap of shortsighted localism. Nor that of racist chauvinism in view of the streams of migrants and the projected nine billion people living on this planet. Instead, it is necessary to invent democratic trans-communal strategies.

12.) The horizon of degrowth

Defensive battles against the politics of austerity will impact the second phase of the crisis, which began in the Euro zone. These struggles against social cuts are and will continue to be defensive. An offensive project that actually points beyond (neo-liberal, finance-market driven) capitalism is not yet evident. But we need a new horizon in order to focus our energies. One of the guiding points (directions) which mark this new horizon is the (solidarity-based) degrowth economy.
The altermondialiste or „global justice“ movements (comprising trade unions, political groups, networks and organisations) with their anti-neo-liberal position played an important part in reconstituting the social question after the long years of the neo-liberal „pensé unique“ of the 90s. Around 2007/08 – symbolized by the founding of Climate Justice Now! at the climate summit in Bali, the first degrowth conference in Paris, and most of all by the indigenous movements at the World Social Forum in Belem[10], etc. – the reconstitution of the field of critical political ecology, environmental and climate justice began.
It appears imperative to us that ecological justice becomes an integral component of a potential second cycle of the „global justice“ movement. The degrowth horizon links the social and ecological questions (of distribution), it connects micro-practices with macro-economic concepts and joins trans-communally the local with the national and the global level. The just degrowth economy is a perspective for an offensive movement that connects the old and the completely new in a coming horizon.
(Translated from German by Larry Swingle, Coorditrad, with additions from Michelle Wenderlich)

[1] Cf. Sustainable Development Commission (2009), Prosperity without growth?, http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining-prosperity.html; NEF (2010), Growth Isn’t Possible, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/growth-isnt-possible.

[2] Cf. www.denkwerkzukunft.de/index.php/englishdocuments Cf. also the ideas of Zac Goldsmith, a conservative representative in the House of Commons, „The Constant Economy.“

[3] This saying can be traced back originally to J.F. Kennedy, and it claims that growth raises the income of the poorest. Cf. for example, the speech by the managing director of the IMF, Rodrigo de Rato, A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: How Europe, by Promoting Growth, Can Help Itself and Help the World, http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2006/052206.htm; and the report by NEF (2006), Growth Isn’t Working, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/growth-isn%E2%80%99t-working.

[4] Cf. http://viacampesina.org.

[5] Cf. www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours.

[6] Cf. www.cadtm.org

[7] Bruno Latour (2008), We Have Never Been Modern. Attempt at a Symmetrical Anthropology, Harvard University Press; Donna Haraway (1991), Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New York.

[8] Paul Virilio (1986), Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology, Autonomedia.

[9] Walden Bello (2002), Deglobalisation: Ideas for a new world economy, Zed Books.

[10] Cf. www.movimientos.org/fsm2009.

Postwachstum – Degrowth – Décroissance

2011-06-11T12:15:00.001+01:00

Postwachstum – 12 Fluchtlinien einer solidarischen Ökonomie jenseits des Wachstums – im Internet oder als PDF

12 lines of flight for just degrowth – online or as PDF

Décroissance – 12 lignes de fuite pour une économie solidaire au-delà de la croissance – online ou comme PDF

Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us

2011-04-17T14:57:00.000+01:00

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9270.html

In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land.

The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism--the theory that market-based solutions are always best, regardless of the problem. For decades, their advocates dominated mainstream economics, and their influence created a system where an unthinking faith in markets led many to view speculative investments as fundamentally safe. The crisis seemed to have killed off these ideas, but they still live on in the minds of many--members of the public, commentators, politicians, economists, and even those charged with cleaning up the mess. In Zombie Economics, John Quiggin explains how these dead ideas still walk among us--and why we must find a way to kill them once and for all if we are to avoid an even bigger financial crisis in the future.

Zombie Economics takes the reader through the origins, consequences, and implosion of a system of ideas whose time has come and gone. These beliefs--that deregulation had conquered the financial cycle, that markets were always the best judge of value, that policies designed to benefit the rich made everyone better off--brought us to the brink of disaster once before, and their persistent hold on many threatens to do so again. Because these ideas will never die unless there is an alternative, Zombie Economics also looks ahead at what could replace market liberalism, arguing that a simple return to traditional Keynesian economics and the politics of the welfare state will not be enough--either to kill dead ideas, or prevent future crises.

John Quiggin is professor of economics at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens

2011-04-03T10:15:00.002+01:00

http://us.macmillan.com/treasureislands

A thrilling ride inside the world of tax havens and corporate masterminds

By Nicholas Shaxson

While the United States experiences recession and economic stagnation and European countries face bankruptcy, experts struggle to make sense of the crisis. Nicholas Shaxson, a former correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist, argues that tax havens are a central cause of all these disasters.

In this hard hitting investigation he uncovers how offshore tax evasion, which has cost the U.S. 100 billion dollars in lost revenue each year, is just one item on a long rap sheet outlining the damage that offshoring wreaks on our societies. In a riveting journey from Moscow to London to Switzerland to Delaware, Shaxson dives deep into a vast and secret playground where bankers and multinational corporations operate side by side with nefarious tax evaders, organized criminals and the world’s wealthiest citizens. Tax havens are where all these players get to maximize their own rewards and leave the middle class to pick up the bill.

With eye opening revelations, Treasure Islands exposes the culprits and its victims, and shows how:

*Over half of world trade is routed through tax havens

*The rampant practices that precipitated the latest financial crisis can be traced back to Wall Street’s offshoring practices

*For every dollar of aid we send to developing countries, ten dollars leave again by the backdoor

The offshore system sits much closer to home than the pristine tropical islands of the popular imagination. In fact, it all starts on a tiny island called Manhattan. In this fast paced narrative, Treasure Islands at last explains how the system works and how it’s contributing to our ever deepening economic divide.

2011-03-21T21:19:00.000Z

...at this point it is impossible to bridge the divide between “a literate, marginalized minority and those who have been consumed by an illiterate mass culture.”
- Chris Hedges "Empire of Illusion"

2011-03-05T22:30:00.002Z

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
- Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)

2011-03-05T10:47:00.001Z

"Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions."
- Gore Vidal "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire"

2011-03-05T10:29:00.000Z

"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no possibility for social change."
- David Barsamian, journalist and publisher

2011-03-05T10:24:00.002Z

Public Opinion by Walter Lippman

2011-03-05T09:22:00.003Z

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/lippman/cover.html

Table of Contents

Dedication

Part I. INTRODUCTION

Chapter I. The World Outside And The Pictures In Our Heads

Part II. APPROACHES TO THE WORLD OUTSIDE

Chapter II. Censorship And Privacy

Chapter III. Contact And Opportunity

Chapter IV. Time And Attention

Chapter V. Speed, Words, And Clearness

Part III. STEREOTYPES

Chapter VI. Stereotypes

Chapter VII. Stereotypes As Defense

Chapter VIII. Blind Spots And Their Value

Chapter IX. Codes And Their Enemies

Chapter X. The Detection Of Stereotypes

Part IV. INTERESTS

Chapter XI. The Enlisting Of Interest

Chapter XII. Self-Interest Reconsidered

Part V. THE MAKING OF A COMMON WILL

Chapter XIII. The Transfer Of Interest

Chapter XIV. Yes Or No

Chapter XV. Leaders And The Rank And File

Part VI. THE IMAGE OF DEMOCRACY

Chapter XVI. The Self-Centered Man

Chapter XVII. The Self-Contained Community

Chapter XVIII. The Role Of Force, Patronage, and Privilege

Chapter XIX. The Old Image In A New Form: Guild Socialism

Chapter XX. A New Image

Part VII. NEWSPAPERS

Chapter XXI. The Buying Public

Chapter XXII. The Constant Reader

Chapter XXIII. The Nature Of News

Chapter XXIV. News, Truth, And A Conclusion

Part VIII. ORGANIZED INTELLIGENCE

Chapter XXV. The Entering Wedge

Chapter XXVI. Intelligence Work

Chapter XXVII. The Appeal To The Public

Chapter XXVIII. The Appeal To Reason

Postwachstum in Bewegung: 12 lines of flight for just degrowth

2011-02-22T20:13:00.002Z

By Alexis Passadakis

Now, our stirring paper for the debate of Attac Germany about degrowth is available in English here.

1.) Our goal: Social rights – global and concrete

What is our goal in criticising growth, and why do we think it necessary in principle to sketch lines of flight for a degrowth economy at this juncture? Our goal is to establish social rights globally, such that a good life is possible for everybody. Our alternative of a just degrowth economy is not simply focused on an abstract „survival of humanity“ or „saving nature,“ as are many varieties of growth criticism. This kind of perspective is in danger of obscuring the concrete social rights of individuals and groups. Instead, it aims at meeting the demand for social justice and equality in the here and now, and in the future. Just as in the past when the English farmers were driven from the commons by the landed aristocracy, the social question cannot be considered separately from the ecological – despite the fact that this has been done frequently in the past. After a period in which transnational corporations have seized more and more natural resources, and in view of the worldwide escalation of the biocrisis (that is: the climate crisis, peak oil, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, etc.), which dramatically threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of people, (global) justice can only mean socio-ecological justice. A central coordinate pointing in that direction is the just degrowth economy.

2.) Nature is limited and resistant

Unlimited growth on a finite planet is impossible. Neoclassical economists block out the existence of nature and its resistance. Matter, space and time, as dimensions of what we call reality, do not appear in their textbooks. Nature appears only in the form of resources, which when scarce can be substituted for by the increased investment of capital. Yet production and reproduction are fundamentally based on nature: the planet provides services (clean air, farmland, etc.), and raw materials are extracted from it and transformed. Nature has limits, and they can only be insufficiently compensated for by capital. Of course, it would be possible to calculate the costs of using artificial pollination machines for an orchard in California, but when there are no more bees, then we are in serious trouble.

The global biocrisis, above all the climate crisis, and the fact that the production peak of petroleum (Peak Oil) will soon be reached, place external limits on growth. The connection between the exploitation of highly concentrated fossil energy sources and the capitalist system of growth makes Peak Oil (prognoses range from 2005 to 2020) an especially critical phenomenon – the question is simply how to respond: chaotically and violently, or with democratic planning and cooperation. Deadly weather extremes and resource wars cast longs shadows ahead. This will not improve conditions for social struggles worldwide.

3.) Decoupling is not possible

The past few years have seen a renaissance in concepts of „sustainable“ or „green“ growth, a Green New Deal and other variations of „green“ capitalism. Think tanks develop new concepts, with which politicians try to create new majorities. Common to all of these programmatic approaches is the notion that a comprehensive decoupling of economic growth from resource use and environmental destruction is possible. Technological innovations, renewable energies, increases in resource-use efficiency and the “green” service sector society – the proclaimed goals of dematerialized growth – would make it possible for the gross domestic product to continue to grow, while at the same time less and less fossil energy and other limited resources are used. This kind of decoupling – to the absolute degree that would be necessary – is an illusion. The necessity for reducing CO2 emissions in the advanced industrial countries of the North, while simultaneously maintaining their economic growth, necessitates increases in resource efficiency and technological developments that are beyond what is technically and politically possible. This is true also in view of the manner in which our economy functions, the historical evidence of the falling rate of innovation and the failure of decoupling strategies up until now.[1] Hence, growing out of the biocrisis is not a viable option. Moreover, shrinking the economy to a healthy level in the North is also necessary because the poorer regions in the South must be given options for development and growth in the mid-term future.

4.) „Leur récession n’est pas notre décroissance!“

…was a slogan during the protests against the crisis in 2009 in France („Their recession is not our degrowth!“). Because one thing is clear: Our idea of a degrowth economy is not to shrink the economies within the existing economic and social structures and distributory relations – this would lead to massive social cutbacks, poverty and other symptoms of capitalist crisis, such as we are currently experiencing. Within the existing growth-dependent structures, shrinking the economy means that increases in productivity cannot be compensated for by growth, and consequently unemployment increases rapidly. Demand decreases, the crisis intensifies, the recession is accompanied by deflation. At the same time publicly administered tax revenues decrease, social security systems come under pressure, and debt explodes. Both lead to a dangerous spiral of recession and pauperisation. In growth-dependent capitalism the following holds: shrinkage = recession = social crisis.

5.) …and your austerity is not our degrowth!

The transformation to a just degrowth economy demands struggling for a new economic grammar, one that would make social justice and a good life for people all over the world possible in the first place. It would lead consequently to a reduction of the GDP. However, focusing solely on the imperative to shrink is reductionist and dangerous. This is made evident by neo-liberal and conservative or neo-feudalistic varieties of growth criticism, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, which, with their ecologically motivated arguments join the reactionary chorus of: „We have lived beyond our means,“ or: „We have to tighten our belts,“ and turn criticism of growth into a lever for justifying austerity and cuts in social services.[2] In opposition to this, the concept of a solidarity-based degrowth economy of décroissance aims at a democratically negotiated reduction of production and consumption in order to enable social rights for everyone, globally, now and in the future.

6.) There is no good growth, only a good life!

Degrowth is not aimed at abstract and utopian speculation about a society that emerges after capitalism, rather it aims at recognizing often unseen socio-economic and ecological dynamics, and the corresponding reorientation of emancipatory strategies. Governments and transnational corporations are opposed to this. Yet the same is true of those who agitate against the current crisis with the slogan „No cuts, more growth“, like the bureaucrats of the European Federation of Trade Unions. Despite the necessity for pushing back against social cuts, they fall into the illusion that social problems can be solved by more growth. For decades the growth rates of the industrial countries have been declining, a process which has its causes not only in the limits to growth (increasing cost of resources, destruction of the climate, etc.), but also in the internal barriers of capitalistic development (relative saturation of demand). Growth alone has not been enough to alleviate structural unemployment effectively (jobless growth) for a long time; nor does growth increase public welfare; and the rising tide does not lift all boats.[3] Peak Oil is also a serious challenge to the growth strategies of the traditional left. Wars fought to secure raw materials, catastrophic deep-sea drilling and millions of refugees are an integral part of the fossilistic growth model. Growth is opposed to the goal of global social rights. Because what grows are abstract exchange values and accumulation opportunities for the few, which make a good life for everyone impossible.

7.) Goodbye, Keynes – good morning Keynes and beyond…

Keynesian policy-making failed in the 1970/80s when it was no longer able to satisfy the requirements for returns on capital. In short: the Keynesian growth model reached its limits. The answer was the neo-liberal counter-revolution, as Milton Friedman, its mastermind, called it. In the meantime, the neo-liberal growth model of finance capitalism is also in a crisis. In view of the failure of Keynesianism – above all in the global context – and the apparent ecological limits, hopes for a new Keynesian phase, an eco-Keynesian growth program beyond neo-liberal finance-market capitalism, miss the mark. Many concepts discussed by the emancipatory Left – even Keynesian – are still important, especially those aimed at reducing social injustice and exploitation: radical redistribution, shortening of working hours, economic democracy and control of capital and investment. It is necessary to re-conceptualize these in connection with ideas that go further, such as (re)appropriating common goods, deglobalisation, new forms of work, food sovereignty[4] and energy democracy, under the guiding principles of an economy that does not grow, but shrinks to a point of stabilisation. So it is necessary to discover the hidden Keynes, the theoretician of stagnation, who sketched a society freed from the compulsion to work and the profit motive. In the end we have to pass through and go beyond Keynes, in order to arrive at our just degrowth economy.

8.) Reduce production, shorten working hours, redistribute wealth, regulate investment

Degrowth means a break with the superficial, positive-sum game logic of distributory policy making and the illusion of an economy based on scarcity, one in which there is only redistribution when the economy grows. Not only has „trickle-down“ failed radically; growth actually contributes to the production of underdevelopment and the increasing inequality of distribution. Yet there is enough for all. Wealth must be distributed equitably, and not grow further. For this to happen, we not only need a minimum income, but also a maximum income, as the French décroissance movement demands.

Degrowth also says goodbye to the illusion of a growth-based full-employment society. For a long time, the real rates of growth have not been sufficient to integrate the work force, set free by increases in productivity and commoditisation, back into the labour market. The alternative to making large sections of society poorer and „obsolete“ is to shorten the working hours for everyone. In addition, reducing the absolute number of hours performed in wage-labour is actually necessary for a long-term reduction of the GNP. 20 hours are enough – for a start![5] And don’t forget: there is a life beyond working for wages, in which – as feminist economists always stress – much of the necessary work (re)producing society is performed. And this also has to be distributed – to everyone.

The reduction of working hours is sand in the gears of the growth economy and it creates necessary strategic latitude, but that alone is not enough. In the end, additional massive „rationalisation“ would be the answer of corporations, and their imperative to make profits, to grow, would not be dislodged. New forms of demonetised transaction, a just solidarity-economy and the cultivation/management of commons are crucial. At the same time it is necessary to intervene in the actually existing finance capitalism, to control investment democratically and turn it around – away from fossil high-growth sectors to the „care economy“, use-value oriented grass-roots services and social-ecological reorganisation. And instead of servicing (public) debt, we struggle for debt cancellation. Drop the debt! [6]

9.) Beyond capitalism

All those who seriously attempt to go beyond a criticism of growth and strive for degrowing the economy face enormous challenges, because it is a matter of fundamental social transformation, one which takes hold at the roots. Plausible technocratic concepts for a degrowth economy, as well as exemplary islands of projects of a solidarity-based economy are essential – but they are not enough if the accumulation process of capitalism continues. Growth is driven by the blind self-realisation of capital: Money is invested in production in order to earn more money, which requires an increase in the production of value. So degrowth means that the self-valorisation opportunities of capital decrease and the fictitious asset claims, inflated by the financial markets, cannot be realised. In addition, in order to arrive at a just and ecological economy, many production facilities – above all in the fossil sectors – must be shut down in the course of a transformation to a degrowth economy (disinvestment). Both mean the destruction of capital. There is no way around this central core of political economy if global social rights are to be realised, and thus no way around the question of power. The problem: the neo-liberal project of globalisation, with its liberalisation of markets (WTO, IMF), privatisation, de-regulation and attacks on collective social agents, has increased the power of transnationally active capital enormously. FAQ: what constellation of social agents, with what interests, means and strategies has the will and ability to establish a just degrowth economy and the necessary de-commodification and de-monetisation of the (re)production sectors?

10.) Buen vivir beyond tradition and modernity

The idea of eternal growth, tied to the idea of homo economicus, is an integral component of the concept of modernity. It is time to abandon this notion here and now. But the good news is: „We never were modern!“, as Bruno Latour discovered and Donna Haraway confirmed.[7] Nor are we the „dromomaniacs“ (speed fanatics) as we have been called by the French urbanist Paul Virilio.[8] But even if we abandon growth – farewell, farewell! – we will continue to claim the modern concepts of human rights and democracy, which have been the fruits of struggles for emancipation. Degrowth does not mean abandoning the idea of the possibility for progress – instead it means liberating the idea of progress from the belief in piling up goods and economic growth. Thus, degrowth does not mean returning to tradition, to the stone age, or giving in to an anything-goes post-modernism. Degrowth takes seriously the post-colonial situation and the multi-polar constellation caused by the ascendancy of newly industrialising countries – and thus the question of global justice and equality. The concrete utopia of the good life (buen vivir) in an egalitarian society without growth constitutes a new point of orientation beyond tradition and modernity. The idea of a just degrowth economy reopens the horizon of opportunity beyond the dominance of ruling economic conceptions and imperatives. It is a matter of de-colonizing the imagination, of the de-mystification of fetishised conceptions such as economic growth, progress, wage labour, efficiency and GNP. Preguntando caminamos…

11.) Trans-communalism instead of post-democracy

Democracy has been suffering severe attacks through the neo-liberal rollbacks since the 1970/80s. At the latest with the emergency conditions of the world economic crisis and the massive bailout packages put together overnight for the banks we have arrived at a post-democracy. The social impact of the crisis and the social consequences of the biocrisis increase the pressure on democratic structures. Therefore, a just degrowth economy requires new democratic institutions, a reconstitution of local and national democracy. European democracy and a global democracy are still a long way off. Therefore the restructuring of production aims for deglobalisation, a new articulation of the local level with the national and global on the basis of new democratic procedures.[9] Among these are the control of financial markets, and especially investments. We will not fall into the trap of shortsighted localism. Nor that of racist chauvinism in view of the streams of migrants and the projected nine billion people living on this planet. Instead, it is necessary to invent democratic trans-communal strategies.

12.) The horizon of degrowth

Defensive battles against the politics of austerity will impact the second phase of the crisis, which began in the Euro zone. These struggles against social cuts are and will continue to be defensive. An offensive project that actually points beyond (neo-liberal, finance-market driven) capitalism is not yet evident. But we need a new horizon in order to focus our energies. One of the guiding points (directions) which mark this new horizon is the (solidarity-based) degrowth economy.

The altermondialiste or „global justice“ movements (comprising trade unions, political groups, networks and organisations) with their anti-neo-liberal position played an important part in reconstituting the social question after the long years of the neo-liberal „pensé unique“ of the 90s. Around 2007/08 – symbolized by the founding of Climate Justice Now! at the climate summit in Bali, the first degrowth conference in Paris, and most of all by the indigenous movements at the World Social Forum in Belem[10], etc. – the reconstitution of the field of critical political ecology, environmental and climate justice began.

It appears imperative to us that ecological justice becomes an integral component of a potential second cycle of the „global justice“ movement. The degrowth horizon links the social and ecological questions (of distribution), it connects micro-practices with macro-economic concepts and joins trans-communally the local with the national and the global level. The just degrowth economy is a perspective for an offensive movement that connects the old and the completely new in a coming horizon.

(Translated from German by Larry Swingle, Coorditrad, with additions from Michelle Wenderlich)

[1] Cf. Sustainable Development Commission (2009), Prosperity without growth?, http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining-prosperity.html; NEF (2010), Growth Isn’t Possible, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/growth-isnt-possible.

[2] Cf. www.denkwerkzukunft.de/index.php/englishdocuments Cf. also the ideas of Zac Goldsmith, a conservative representative in the House of Commons, „The Constant Economy.“

[3] This saying can be traced back originally to J.F. Kennedy, and it claims that growth raises the income of the poorest. Cf. for example, the speech by the managing director of the IMF, Rodrigo de Rato, A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: How Europe, by Promoting Growth, Can Help Itself and Help the World, http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2006/052206.htm; and the report by NEF (2006), Growth Isn’t Working, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/growth-isn%E2%80%99t-working.

[4] Cf. http://viacampesina.org.

[5] Cf. www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours.

[6] Cf. www.cadtm.org

[7] Bruno Latour (2008), We Have Never Been Modern. Attempt at a Symmetrical Anthropology, Harvard University Press; Donna Haraway (1991), Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, New York.

[8] Paul Virilio (1986), Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology, Autonomedia.

[9] Walden Bello (2002), Deglobalisation: Ideas for a new world economy, Zed Books.

[10] Cf. www.movimientos.org/fsm2009.

Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance

2011-02-21T12:28:00.001Z

http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=11232

By Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger

What don't we know, and why don't we know it? What keeps ignorance alive, or allows it to be used as a political instrument? Agnotology—the study of ignorance—provides a new theoretical perspective to broaden traditional questions about "how we know" to ask: Why don't we know what we don't know? The essays assembled in Agnotology show that ignorance is often more than just an absence of knowledge; it can also be the outcome of cultural and political struggles. Ignorance has a history and a political geography, but there are also things people don't want you to know ("Doubt is our product" is the tobacco industry slogan). Individual chapters treat examples from the realms of global climate change, military secrecy, female orgasm, environmental denialism, Native American paleontology, theoretical archaeology, racial ignorance, and more. The goal of this volume is to better understand how and why various forms of knowing do not come to be, or have disappeared, or have become invisible.

Possibilidades ilimitadas

2011-02-20T19:09:00.000Z

"Enquanto no passado viver significava para o homem médio encontrar em seu redor dificuldades, perigos, escassez, limitações de destino e dependência, o mundo novo aparece como âmbito de possibilidades praticamente ilimitadas, seguro, onde não se depende de ninguém. Em torno desta impressão primária e permanente vai-se formar cada alma contemporânea, como em torno da oposta se formaram as antigas. Porque esta impressão fundamental converte-se em voz interior que murmura sem cessar algo assim como que palavras no mais profundo da pessoa e lhe insinua tenazmente uma definição da vida que é, simultaneamente, um imperativo. E, se a impressão tradicional dizia: «Viver é sentir-se limitado e, por isso mesmo, ter de contar com o que nos limita», a novíssima voz grita: «Viver é não encontrar limitação alguma; portanto, abandonar-se tranquilamente a si mesmo. Praticamente nada é impossível, nada é perigoso e, em princípio, ninguém é superior a ninguém.»"

Ortega y Gasset
in «A Rebelião das Massas», Relógio d'Água.

Fonte: http://dissidentes.blogspot.com/2011/02/possibilidades-ilimitadas.html