STWR - Share The World's Resources

Rather than economic growth, waste is the most serious threat to the environment. In switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the global economy could grow larger and sustainably feed an increasing population - without destroying the earth's ecosystems, argues Garry Lipow.

Historically both state and market control of the economy has resulted in the same phenomenon: an impoverished underclass and a new class of the super rich. Only a truly shared economy controlled by civil society can secure universal wealth and prosperity, writes Phillip Blond.

The global financial crisis has forced the high priests of efficient market theory to question their unfaltering belief in the rationality of markets and investors. This shift could be the beginning of a significant change in the paradigms underpinning the wider economc system, writes Gillian Tett.

Apologists for the current economic system continue to occupy Wonderland, because it is only in Wonderland that environmental problems can be solved by a blind adherence to economic growth, argue Richard York, Brett Clark, and John Bellamy Foster.

As ideas aimed at perfecting globalization turn into policies, progressives must boldly aspire once again to paradigms of social organization that unabashedly aim for equality. Ideas are not enough, says Walden Bello.

Politicians suggest that economic violence by the poor can be characterised as a ‘security risk’. Wouldn’t it be better to address the causes of the ‘spurious economics’ that create violence in the first place? By Nitasha Kaul.

Self-reliant local economies are better suited to withstand crisis and are more responsive to the needs of local communities. So why are politicians so resistant to the growing sentiment in favour of protectionist policies, asks Pranav Bihari.

As the free market capitalist economy breaks down before our eyes, we must return to the conviction that economic growth and the affluence it brings is a means and not an end. It demands a major shift from the free market towards public action that politicians have yet to grasp, writes Eric Hobsbawn.

Not only have economists failed to guide the world out of the financial crisis, they were also primarily responsible for leading us into it. Either economics has to be abandoned as an academic discipline - or it must undergo an intellectual revolution, writes Anatole Kaletsky.

Global policy makers and influential individuals cannot conceive of a more imaginative way out of the financial crisis than replicating the patterns of the past. When will they reach the simple and obvious conclusion that we must consume less? By Jayati Ghosh.