Thinking in terms of degrowth does not mean breaking with
growth, but rather with the ideology of accumulation. Degrowing means a
decision to revalue things and our relations with our surroundings. It's worth asking ourselves which we would choose: a calm degrowth or
an unsustainable social pressure? By
Ramón Alcoberro.
Industrialised countries have mounted an unprecedented campaign to stop the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from providing policy
advice to the poorest countries in Africa and across the globe - but developing countries and progressive economists are fighting back.
Neoliberal policy is directly responsible for declining economic growth
and rapidly increasing rates of social inequality, both in the West and
internationally. But the neoliberal model was made by specific people, and can be undone by people. Here are some solutions that address the actual issues at stake, writes Jason Hickel.
Mainstream economists are still unwilling to accept that the pursuit of GDP is unsustainable on a planet with finite resources and that free trade, in practice, doesn't make us all better off. The solution to poverty is sharing now, not growth in the future, argues Herman Daly.
Decades of
pro-market policies have significantly widened the gap between rich and poor
across the world. With the possibility of protracted austerity measures in the
North and the global economic downturn affecting countries in the South, this
trend now threatens peace and security internationally, argues Paul Rogers.
The most critical shift that is required today is to change the business model in order to respond to basic needs with what we have. This new paradigm will facilitate the arrival of decentralized production and consumption systems that are now viable in all sectors of the economy, writes Gunter Pauli.
Globalisation has increased international labour competition, resulting in a downward pressure on wages. A global minimum wage system could stop this ‘race to the bottom’ and thereby reduce income inequality, argues Thomas Palley.
Sweatshops can only be justified under the rubric of ‘market freedom’ and ‘comparative advantage’. What we need is a new economics, one that can think beyond the limited boundaries of neoliberal ideology and make an effort to construct a more humane and democratic world, writes Jason Hickel.
After a brief revival of Keynesian policies in the early days of the financial crisis, governments have reverted to the neoliberal mantra of light-touch regulation of the market. Is it now up to social movements to bring about a social democratic revival of the state? An exchange between Ha-Joon Chang and Oisín Gilmore.
Neoliberal capitalism has paradoxically increased the power of governments to intervene, but only for the sake of competitiveness in the global economy. It is now time for the state to once again take responsibility for the social consequences of policy action, says Albena Azmanova.
