Virtual hang + discussion :: May 17th @ 10am PST/1pm EST/ 7pm CET zoom.us/j/930-995-451
Thanks to all who came to RG1 & RG2 - super nice to jam on this material with y'all! We journey onwards now, from symbiosis to social ecology to.... degrowth! Degrowth proposes political programs that incorporate social-ecological limits into economics.
"It doesn’t have to be this way. We can call a halt to the madness – throw a wrench in the juggernaut. By de-enclosing social goods and restoring the commons, we can ensure that people are able to access the things that they need to live a good life without having to generate piles of income in order to do so, and without feeding the never-ending growth machine.
“Private riches” may shrink... but public wealth will increase.In this sense, degrowth is the very opposite of austerity. While austerity calls for scarcity in order to generate growth, degrowth calls for abundance in order to render growth unnecessary.
Degrowth, at its core, is a demand for radical abundance." - Jason Hickel
Degrowth is a movement that questions the current economic paradigm's reliance on ever-increasing consumption as an indicator of progress.
With paltry few exceptions, economies as we know them today are based on the idea that a growing GDP, or production of goods and services, is an accurate measure of the welfare of a country. However, infinite growth of economic activities is fundamentally at odds with the finite resources of our planet.
Thinkers in the field of degrowth seek ways in which we can thrive, without taking the planet beyond its capacity to renew or sustain the resources we depend on for survival.
In this xyrden virtual hangout we will explore this field together to get acquainted with some of its core ideas. In the context of the global pandemic it may seem as if degrowth is becoming a reality - however, this is not the case. According to economic anthropologist Jason Hickel: