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Should degrowth embrace the Job Guarantee?
Abstract
a b s t r a c t Degrowth should consider the right to work e a Job Guarantee (JG) e as a way of making a smaller economy more just and socially sustainable. Economic shrinkage in richer countries is accompanied by increased unemployment, a bad enough problem in itself but also a barrier to voters' acceptance of the degrowth path. Since being out of work is distinct from being poor, anti-poverty income policies should be approached separately. The JG is one of several paths to full employment, including reduced working time. This essay only briefly mentions some real-world JG programs and some technical objections. The main suggestion is to move employment from being a matter of economics, particularly economic growth, to being a political right. A right to work is necessarily effective and would avoid sacrificing the ecological and social goals of degrowth on the altar of full employment.
... Fully in line with Barca's argument is the widespread adoption in recent degrowthwork debates of the proposal for a job guarantee (JG). Most prominently, Alcott (2013) has argued that since 'sea changes in attitudes towards "work"' are unlikely and the 'dignity of work' (and other assumed benefits of the work-based society) need to be spread (p. 57), 'the social marketing of degrowth' (p. ...
... One reason why degrowth recently may have lost track of its own earlier critiques of work may be the adoption of a certain political pragmatism, which implies avoiding to appear too radical to not scare off potential voters or obstruct the building of broad alliances, for example with trade unions (Alcott, 2013;Barca, 2019). Related to that, we observe a general preoccupation in recent degrowth debates with a given set of 'policies' (eg Fitzpatrick et al., 2022), which is again a pragmatic attempt to make degrowth useful and practical for conventional politics, but may hinder reflection or a deeper analysis of what kind of fundamental changes in politics, norms, structures and institutions are actually needed. ...
Critiques of work are at the roots of degrowth. Early degrowth pioneers, in particular Gorz and Illich as well as the French décroissance tradition, placed considerable emphasis on overcoming the centrality of work in the organisation of society. However, more recent degrowth authors have largely been inconsistent or conflicting in the stance they take towards work. This contribution traces the development of degrowth thought with regard to work and critiques of work, from its roots in the 1970s up until the present. It finds that at large, current degrowth debates do not embrace their postwork roots or engage with the postwork literature that has re-emerged over the last decade. At the same time, work is a prominent topic on the degrowth agenda and despite its contradictions, degrowth remains open for critical work scholarship. For future degrowth debates, we argue that the perspectives of critiques of work and critiques of growth are natural allies and that a genuinely critical and radical degrowth debate should again adopt a clearer stance towards work. From engaging once more with postwork perspectives, degrowth could gain a more profound analysis of the unsustainable status-quo and renewed momentum as a much-needed corrective in sustainability debates.
... Ecological macroeconomics is a recent and flourishing field of research, and its scope is still in expansion. Among its numerous topics one can find: sustainable consumption , work-sharing, productivity, and work itself (Jackson and P. Victor 2011;, interest rates and debt (Cahen-Fourot and Lavoie 2016; Jackson and Peter , the monetary system (Dittmer 2013(Dittmer , 2014(Dittmer , 2015, economy-environment interactions and green monetary policy Galanis 2017a, 2018), employer-of-lastresort policies (Alcott 2013;, the integration of energy, the environment, and the macroeconomy (Berg, Hartley, and Richters 2015;Dafermos, Nikolaidi, and Galanis 2017a;, and the study of zero-growth economics (Cahen-Fourot and Lavoie 2016; Jackson and Peter . ...
... This thesis demonstrates that a degrowth transition can reduce the environmental impacts of human activities while preserving and even improving socio-economic conditions and quality of life. These results run counter to the claims of opponents of degrowth that degrowth can only produce social and economic distress. Alcott, Blake (Jan. 2013 pp. 191-207. -(2017b). "A Stock-Flow-Fund Ecological Macroeconomic Model ". In: Ecological Economics 131, pp. 191-207. -(Oct. 2018 ...
This thesis investigates an ecological and social paradigm, degrowth, from the perspective of macroeconomics. The decrease in production and consumption that a degrowth transition represents requires anticipating and analysing its potential macroeconomic consequences, in order to prevent any detrimental effects. For this, the thesis mobilises post-Keynesian economic theory and proposes macroeconomic models adapted to the questions raised in each chapter. The models it proposes are used to verify the macroeconomic coherence of the reasonings put forward, to facilitate analytical comparisons and to produce numerical simulation of different transition scenarios. Various economic policies are envisioned, particularly in terms of taxation and working time. The first chapter looks at issues of macroeconomic stability, rate of profit, and changes in income distribution. The second chapter shows how ecological investments and changes in lifestyles and consumption patterns can be complementary, and analyses the macroeconomic consequences of these transformations. The third chapter looks at the phenomenon of accelerated obsolescence and establishes its link with interpersonal inequalities between workers and capitalists. Finally, the fourth chapter examines the possibility of guaranteeing the financing of a pay-as-you-go pension system, of social protection in general and of public services in a degrowing economy. This thesis demonstrates that degrowth can be environmentally, socially, and economically beneficial. These results run counter to the assertions that degrowth can only produce economic and social catastrophe
... In transitions to degrowth societies, employment should be treated differently. Rather than consider it an economic goal and outcome resulting from a mixture of economic and political determinants, it should be a societal goal if not political right (Alcott, 2013: 58, Sekulova et al, 2013. The respective scholars emphasise the negative impact of unemployment on wellbeing, which extends beyond the question of income loss to diminished 'feelings of usefulness' (Alcott, 2013: 56). ...
... The policy option of a job guarantee comes closest to transforming employment into a political right. Its proponents see it as an opportunity to restructure the economy to become more socially just (Alcott, 2013). One way to organise such a job guarantee would be for the state to act as 'employer of last resort', providing work to people both capable and willing. ...
Increasing shares of the sustainable consumption literature postulate the need for a focus on limits to consumption as a basis for achieving absolute reductions in resource use. After all, improvements in the sustainability of consumption expected from technological innovation and efficiency gains have been eaten up by rebound effects, to date. The decoupling that proponents of green growth were hoping for is nowhere in sight. However, discussions about limits to consumption immediately meet opposition from political representatives, powerful associations and industry lobby groups alike. Specifically, opponents claim that we simply cannot afford a scaling back of consumption and the economic growth it is supposed to drive due to the growth-dependent nature of our welfare systems. Such claims have become very dominant narratives that influence what societies deem ‘realistic’ and ‘possible’ regarding the politics of sustainable consumption, cementing the current status quo. It also shows that research on strong sustainable consumption governance, that is, governance pursuing a reduction in consumption levels and fundamental shift in consumption patterns (especially in the Global North), needs to target such claims head on, if existing paradigmatic barriers to a sustainability transition are to be overcome. But what counter-narrative(s) can scholars offer? To identify potential elements of such counter-narrative(s) for consumption scholars to draw on, the present article investigates what answers critical sustainability research, in particular the degrowth literature, has in stock regarding the affordability of reductions in consumption-driven growth from the perspective of democratic welfare states.
... Gerber and Gerber (2017), for instance, argued that decommodification may be the best option toward a post-growth future. Mitchell and Muyskens (2008), Lawn (2010) and Alcott (2013), environmental protection, Paris-compliant emission reduction pathways, and standards for better product quality and durability and greater resource use efficiency. ...
... Future research could investigate how rapid and drastic emission reductions can effectively be achieved in a socially sustainable way and how ecological debts owed to the global South and future generations can be somewhat "addressed". These research avenues could explore paths of debt cancellation, making social security and welfare systems less dependent on growth (see, for instance, Bohnenberger and Fritz, 2020), full employment via job guarantees -for instance, see Mitchell and Muyskens (2008), Lawn (2010) and Alcott (2013) and, last but not least, making money public by seeing money as a public resource (Mellor, 2010(Mellor, , 2015. ...
Among economists it is widely acknowledged that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a poor indicator to measure social welfare or social progress. Yet paradoxically, to date, GDP is very influential in economics, public policy, politics, media and society. Therefore, voices have been raised to move beyond GDP and adopt alternative measures to evaluate economic performance. The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) are leading indicators within Ecological Economics that have been calculated since 1989. Prior research struggled how to best capture economic welfare. First, there is some confusion on whether these indicators are measuring either current welfare or sustainability, or a combination of both. Second, different views exist on how these alternative indicators should account for cross-time and cross-boundary issues such as climate change, which is an item that brings enormous costs that are shifted in time and space. This dissertation contributes to the debate of welfare measurement by highlighting these indicators are macroeconomic monetary welfare measures that account for the benefits and costs of economic activity. They do so by valuing the contributions from unpaid work, the market, state and shadow economy as they are all different means to satisfy people’s needs and wants. Furthermore, the social and ecological costs caused by the economic process are also included, since these indicators see the economy as embedded in society and in the Earth System. As a consequence, alternative measures of economic welfare are potentially capable of guiding economies and societies on a just transition toward living well within limits by providing an alternative to move beyond GDP. Chapter 1, A Conceptual Exploration and Critical Inquiry into the Theoretical Foundation(s) of Economic Welfare Measures, investigates the time and boundary complexity involved when measuring welfare. In Chapter 2, Cost-shifting versus “Full” Accountability: Dealing with Cross-time and Cross-boundary Issues in the ISEW and GPI for Belgium, the theoretical insights from Chapter 1 are translated in a “2.0 methodology” as two distinct types of welfare indicators with different time and geographical boundaries are calculated for Belgium. In Chapter 3, Is Europe Faring Well with Growth? Evidence from a Welfare Comparison in the EU-15 from 1995 to 2018, the newly developed and improved methodology is applied to the EU-15. This chapter shows that the EU-15, seen from a GDP perspective, has recovered from the financial crisis, but not from a welfare view. Chapter 4, Are the ISEW and GPI able to reveal social and biophysical limits to growth? An in-depth analysis of the threshold hypothesis for the EU-15, investigates whether the welfare stagnation in the EU-15 can be explained by decreasing social benefits of extra consumption and increasing ecological costs.
... Shrinking economies are associated with increasing unemployment because of reduced economic output and lower labor requirements (Alcott, 2013;Kallis et al., 2012;Klitgaard and Krall, 2012). In modern capitalist societies, income from formal employment is the primary mode by which most people support themselves and their families, with social safety nets available to varying extents for those who are unemployed and cannot meet their basic needs (Alvarez-Cuadrado et al., 2014;Piketty and Goldhammer, 2014). ...
... Current growth-centric economic policies are unlikely to be appropriate or useful in the postgrowth context; instead, labor policies and modes of employment that enhance social capital rather than economic efficiency will become necessary for community resilience. Possible responses include job guarantees, a universal basic income, and an 'amateur economy' enabling greater work sharing (Alcott, 2013;Kallis, 2017;Kallis et al., 2012;Raventós, 2007;Sekulova et al., 2013). These policies will need wider institutional transformation, including monetary reform and local currencies, taxation reform, and new models of ownership suitable for local, cooperative economies (Kallis, 2017;Kallis et al., 2012;). ...
Maintaining steady growth remains the central goal of economic policy in most nations. However, as evidenced by the advent of the Anthropocene, the global economy has expanded to a point where limits to growth are appearing. Facing the end of growth requires a careful re-examination of plausible future conditions. We draw on a diverse literature to present an interdisciplinary exploration of post-growth conditions in the areas of climate change, ecological impacts, governance, and education, finding that such conditions may invalidate many prevalent assumptions regarding the future. The post-growth world, while subject to significant uncertainty and heterogeneity, will be characterized by profound hazards and discontinuities for both human and natural systems. Furthermore, we argue that an economic paradigm change will be predicated on an involuntary and unplanned cessation of growth. This implies a necessary strategic expansion of the heterodox economic discourse to formulate appropriate responses in view of likely post-growth realities.
... They often focus on redirecting technological change from labor productivity growth toward improving energy and resource productivity (Lange 2018;Petschow et al. 2020), thereby intensifying economic activity in sectors with low productivity (growth) (Jackson & Victor 2011), or shifting the cost of labor to energy and resources (Köppl & Schratzenstaller 2021). Other proposed policy measures include working time reductions (Kallis et al. 2013), a job guarantee (Alcott 2013), universal basic income (Weeks 2011) and universal basic services (Gough 2019). While some of these policies also aim to maintain stable employment rates (e.g., working time reductions, job guarantee), these policies tend to have broader goals, which are more in line with the second, broader conceptualization of labor markets' functions: These policies try to decouple employment from some of its social functions, such as the provision of income (e.g., universal basic income), livelihoods (e.g., universal basic services) or social status (job guarantee). ...
Many socio-economic systems require positive economic growth rates to function properly. Given uncertainty about future growth rates and increasing evidence that economic growth is a driver of social and environmental crises, these growth dependencies pose serious societal challenges. In recent years, more and more researchers have thus tried to identify growth-dependent systems and develop policies to reduce their growth dependence. However, the concept of 'growth dependence' still lacks a consistent definition and operationalization, which impedes more systematic empirical and theoretical research. This article proposes a simple but powerful framework for defining and operationalizing the concept of 'growth dependence' across socio-economic systems. We provide a general definition consisting of four components that can be specified for different empirical cases: (1) the system under investigation, (2) the unit of measurement of growth, (3) the level of growth and (4) the relevant functions or properties of the system under investigation. According to our general definition, a socio-economic system is growth-dependent if it requires a long-term positive growth rate in terms of a unit of economic measurement to maintain all its functions or properties that are relevant within the chosen normative framework. To illustrate the usefulness of our scheme, we apply it to three areas at the heart of the existing literature on growth dependence: employment, social insurance systems and public finance. These case studies demonstrate that whether or not a system is growth-dependent hinges not only on the empirical properties of the system itself but also on the specification of the concept of growth dependence. Our framework enables coherent, robust and effective definitions and research questions, fostering comparability of findings across different cases and disciplines.
... However, should salaries be kept at the same levels as before the work-time reduction reform, this would imply a substantial salary-increase in real terms. Additionally, if the unemployed or the involuntary part-time workers are allowed to share the existing jobs, for example through a substantive job-sharing program, as has been proposed in degrowth scholarship (Alcott, 2013;Scarrow, 2018), then the total number of hours worked may very well increase. This would most likely lead to a growing tax base, although it depends on the number of unemployed, the share of involuntary part-time workers, and their levels of income. ...
Non-technical summary
Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. By recognizing the impact of continuous economic growth on environmental problems, the concept of degrowth proposes a practical approach to achieving sustainability. It urges experts in sustainability to think carefully about the impacts of economic growth, echoing recent scientific findings that question the need for endless growth. Therefore, this article highlights the potential of degrowth as a transformative approach that can expand capacities necessary for socio-ecological sustainability.
Technical summary
This article highlights the potential of degrowth as a transformative approach that can expand capacities necessary for socio-ecological sustainability. By addressing economic growth as a fundamental driver of unsustainability, degrowth offers a concrete pathway toward achieving sustainable outcomes. It calls for sustainability scientists to explicitly consider the role of economic growth, aligning with recent scientific assessments that support a critical stance on growth. Although degrowth and sustainability share common goals such as respecting biocapacity and equitable distribution of ecological budgets, degrowth approaches differ by placing emphasis on national and local solutions and exploring aspects such as technology, time, work, commodity, and property. Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. Growth-critical perspectives such as degrowth and post-growth have the potential to propel sustainability discourses into new, more impactful realms of development.
Social media summary
Engaging with economic questions is crucial for sustainability science to maintain its transformative potential. Degrowth proposes a practical approach for achieving sustainability.
... The relationship between MMT and degrowth has scarcely been discussed in the academic literature (the exceptions being Hickel, 2020;Mastini et al., 2021;briefly Jackson andVictor, 2019, p.26 andSchmelzer et al., 2022, p.222; and, discussing the job guarantee, Alcott, 2013 andUnti, 2018). Generally, the two movements seem to be advancing in different social milieus and institutional territories, using different political strategies. ...
... Kallis, 2013;Gollain, 2016;Foster, 2017;Malmaeus et al., 2020). A critical voice in this conversation is Alcott's (2013) notion of job guarantee, in which he argues that work is a political right that relies on the historical values of most European societies, praising earning against receiving. ...
... To ensure that all people have the means to access the core goods and services that they require, and to protect people from the risk of poverty, a form of sustainable welfare would be offered (Büchs, 2021). This could be in the form of universal basic services, a universal basic income, or perhaps a job guarantee (Alcott, 2013;Büchs, 2021;T. Jackson & Victor, 2021). ...
This thesis explores the implications of the ecological crisis for the relationship between education and economic growth. The thesis is grounded in the researcher’s lived experiences as a primary school teacher in the Latrobe Valley, a region that is economically dependent on significant deposits of brown coal. However, the region is also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The thesis explores the role of education in this context. It makes an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating how the concerns of educational policy scholars are interrelated with many of the issues discussed within the field of ecological economics.
... WEGo nations could also make contributions by exploring other options to decouple employment-and economic security more generally-from growth, including establishment of a job guarantee (Alcott, 2013), universal basic services (Coote and Percy, 2020), or variations on a basic income (Van Parijs and Vanderborght, 2017). Of course, such policies require funding, which points to a tension-evident in the WEGo case studiesbetween those aspects of a WE agenda that require greater public spending and a post-growth vision that, all else being equal, would limit state revenues. ...
The idea of sufficiency faces great obstacles in contemporary political economies in which production and consumption growth has long been considered imperative. Despite evidence supporting calls for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth approach to environmental challenges, only pro-growth environmental perspectives have found significant mainstream political support until now. However, one recent formulation that has a strong affinity with a sufficiency approach—a wellbeing economy—has found growing support among mainstream political actors including governments and international organizations. Does the growing support for a wellbeing economy represent the long-sought breakthrough for a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth environmental approach? To help answer this question, we conduct case studies of New Zealand, Scotland, and Iceland—the three founders of the Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). These nations have (to varying degrees) taken steps to downplay the centrality of economic growth and instead highlight wellbeing as the ultimate goal. They have also moved “beyond GDP” by introducing new wellbeing measurements and using them in policymaking. However, movement in a post-growth direction is limited by continuing dependence on economic growth to achieve intermediate goals, such as employment creation and provision of welfare state services, that are closely associated with the goal of wellbeing. We therefore characterize the emerging practice of the wellbeing economy as a “weak post-growth” approach. To become a “strong post-growth” perspective, it needs to be linked to a much more challenging project of disentangling contemporary societies' dependence on economic growth. The article includes a discussion of ways that WEGo nations could contribute to addressing that considerable challenge and build on the sufficiency-oriented elements evident in the wellbeing economy.
... The job guarantee (JG) is one of several paths to full employment, including reduced working time. The JG helps employees balance their work and free time, reducing the burden on society as well as feelings of uselessness and social stress [51]. ...
Recently, environmental issues have increased, whereas the Earth’s natural resources have deteriorated. These problems have forced people and companies to engage in environmental economics to achieve sustainability. However, several barriers have been identified in the implementation of environmental economics. This literature review provides insights into environmental economics and the sustainable development goals (SDGs), as well as the correlation between these two subjects in general. Thus, information about potential barriers to the implementation of environmental economics and possible solutions will be presented. A total of 75 documents were analyzed, including articles, books, official reports, or paperwork from governments and/or related institutions. This study is beneficial, especially for developing countries that are just preparing for, or in the process of conducting, the initial implementation of environmental economics, as well as achieving the sustainable development goals. Interdisciplinary topics that integrate human aspects with environmental economics are limited yet crucial for future research.
... Therefore, the idea is to sustain policies that will redirect labor to ecologically desired sectors. Policies of targeted-demand toward green-job-intensive sectors is likely a necessary condition to bring about such a change: namely, we must produce and consume less and differently (Kregel 2009;Fontana and Sawyer 2016;Raworth 2017;Kallis 2018 In fact, scholars of different approaches have discussed different ways of creating jobs with low GHG emissions and establishing a space for communication and negotiation that is more balanced and inclusive (Alcott 2011;Alessandrini 2013;Tcherneva 2014;Sachs 2015;Nelson and Power 2018;Unti 2018). Our proposal intends that the success of these programs to be evaluated by its ability of greening the economy in all three instances (process, outcome, and beneficiaries) rather than the common private efficiency criteria. ...
The western model of development is experiencing a general- ized crisis manifested by economic, political, ecological and sociological worldwide instabilities and heated popular responses sparking in several points of the globe. As a matter of illustration, 13% of the world population lives in a situation of food insecurity and 19% lives without electricity, meanwhile society experiences increasing rate of green gas emissions, biodiversity degradation, and deposits of reactive nitrogen. Aims at proposing an economic theory that supports access to basic human rights to every human being without depre- dating the quality of the environment have led a group of post-Keynesian/neo-Kaleckian economists to push for a frame- work that couples economic stability with concerns related to the broader social and environmental systems. To contribute to the newly intensified push of a post-Keynesian/neo- Kaleckian ecological economics, the paper introduces a metric for green jobs, using non-dichotomous measurements as pro- posed by “fuzzy logic,” as a tool to operationalize economic policies such as an ecological employment-guarantee pro- gram, for instance.
... e biggest goal is to shape potential successful entrepreneurs. In a narrow sense, it is entrepreneurship training behavior to cultivate the knowledge, quality, and skills needed for the purpose of independent entrepreneurship [19]. It is to cultivate people with entrepreneurial qualities. ...
The ability of college students has important index to evaluate the training quality of universities. Domestic scholars begin to cultivate spirit and ability of students. With the rapid development of tourism industry and the continuous emergence of “tourism +” new business forms, there is an urgent demand for professionals with outstanding innovation and entrepreneurship ability. China’s education field urgently needs a system that can scientifically evaluate the teaching quality. The purpose of this topic is to enrich the theoretical methods of universities. Taking S University as the research sample, the relevant evaluation index system is set up, and, on this basis, the evaluation model of network is established, providing relevant basis for evaluation and cultivation of universities. According to certain evaluation indicators, this paper constructs the main framework of teaching quality evaluation in colleges and universities. 7 representative universities in China are randomly selected, 6 of which are samples and 1 university is the research target, MATLAB is used to calculate the scores of each index, the current situation of quality in a university is analyzed, and corresponding improvements opinion is proposed. Based on the analysis of the current education in a university, it is found that, in the current education, innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge and professional knowledge are taken into account, and the academic achievements are remarkable, forming a preliminary education system, but it is also found that there are some problems of low educational practicality, and corresponding suggestions for this problem are put forward. If the evaluation system is put into practical application, it will improve the education level of cultivating innovative entrepreneurial talents in tourism major in universities.
... A mature and complete entrepreneurship education system suitable for China's national conditions has not yet been formed. ere is still a lack of quantitative in-depth research on the level [15]. ...
Based on the analysis of the current employment and entrepreneurship of college students based on the supply-side structural reform, the employment and entrepreneurship guidance of college students is far from meeting the needs of the society. Therefore, the innovation of talent training mode needs to become an important goal of college development at this stage. Based on the previously mentioned background, this paper included 853 university students as research objects and their data from 2010 to 2018. First, we used the BP neural network as the starting point to conduct in-depth research, selected the sequential model algorithm based on the Keras framework, built a one-layer network and six types of eigenvalue labels to predict the development direction of college students’ employment and entrepreneurship, and evaluated the prediction accuracy of the model. This proves that the prediction effect of the model has the value of continuing in-depth research, and then, the prediction model is further optimized. Then, we added a three-layer network to the model and an SGD optimizer and used Softmax as the regression function to verify that the optimized model predicts well. The average accuracy of the prediction model constructed in this paper is 81.48%, the standard deviation is 4.34%, the Acc value of the model is stable at around 0.835, and the loss value is stable at around 0.3, which proves that the prediction model has a good prediction. It provides a set of application models that can be used for reference for the combination of BP neural network related knowledge and college students’ employment and entrepreneurship development direction prediction. Based on the background of the supply-side structural reform, this paper mainly analyzes and researches the current employment and entrepreneurial paths of college students in my country, hoping to provide reference for the cultivation of talents in colleges and universities.
... These issues remain the subject of much debate. (See Bosch & Lehndorff, 2001;Kallis, 2013;Kallis, 2018;Spiegelaere & Piasna, 2017;Frey, 2020;D'Alisa et al., 2015;Cárdenas & Villanueva, 2021;Alcott, 2013;Cieplinski et al., 2021;D'Alessandro et al., 2018;Büchs, 2021) for examples of more detailed discussion of degrowth policy options). ...
A reduction in the average length of the working week is a policy response which is gaining increasing political and popular support for its potential help to address a number of key societal challenges, particularly the declining health and wellbeing of workers and social cohesion. Drawing on a series 40 of in-depth interviews with people who have voluntarily reduced the amount of time they spend in formal employment we use Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to show the mechanisms through which these improvements are likely to occur. SDT is a well-validated psychological theory which suggests there are three innate psychological needs which when fulfilled lead to enhanced wellbeing: relatedness, competence and autonomy. Interviews showed that when people reduced time in formal employment they dedicated more time to activities which increased the likelihood that these three psychological needs would be adequately met. The activities undertaken were also broadly compatible with a degrowth imaginary. These findings are important as they help to develop the empirical case for a transition away from an economic model focused on ever increasing economic growth and instead illustrate the potential individual, social and environmental benefits of a less work focused way of living.
... Post Keynesianism can clearly establish a dialogue with and supports ILO's and UN's post-WWII goals as well as ILO's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and 2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. Meanwhile, their dialogue with neo-Kaleckians (Sachs 2004a;Sawyer 2020) and degrowth economists (Alcott 2011;Unti 2018;Moserand 2019) enhances their ability to be an integral piece of the Decent Work Platform developed by the ILO, which is intrinsically associated with the Green Economy due to the implications of climate change and environmental degradation on economic and social development. ...
The 2008 economic crisis expanded the discussion about stabilization policies beyond its usual academic circles. Such concerns seem even more eminent now as, amidst the COVID-19, governments around the world search for solutions to the looming crisis. John Maynard Keynes, Michal Kalecki, and Hyman Minsky have long inspired those who believe that the private sector is unable to maintain long-lasting stability and, even less so, full employment. The remedy relies not in the indirect mechanisms of monetary fine-tuning, but rather on the direct means of fiscal policy. Less acknowledged, however, is that despite of their different approaches, neither of these three authors considered conventional pump-priming fiscal policy a direct policy. Considerations of this nature have, nonetheless, been pursued by a group of post-Keyensian/neo-Kaleckian economists-who argue that discussions about economic stability should be coupled with concerns related to the broader social and environmental systems. To contribute to the newly intensified push of a post-Keynesian/neo-Kaleckian ecological economics, the paper introduces a metric for green jobs, using non-dichotomous measurements as proposed by 'fuzzy logic', as a tool to operationalize an ecological job-guarantee program. ARTICLE HISTORY
... To date however, there has been limited debate on the place of job guarantees within post-growth thinking. Principally, Alcott (2013) suggests that employment should be moved from a matter of economics, to being a political right, with a focus on the just distribution of employment, thus avoiding that risk that degrowth's ecological and social goals would be sacrificed by the need for employment. However, he assumes that an income guarantee, in the form of basic income, would still be available. ...
This article aims to bring labour market activation policy into the orbit of eco-social policy, which we can understand as sustainable welfare without growth. Activation is extensively addressed from economic and social policy perspectives; however, environmental sustainability concerns are absent. Typically, each domain, activation and sustainability, is seen as mutually exclusive. Growing debate about sustainable welfare without growth features much discussion about the effects of productivism and about re-orienting and re-valuing work and how we use our time; however, such discussion tends to leave activation and unemployment untouched. One could ask whether there is any role for activation in eco-social policy: why focus on employment and employability, or even push people into work, if postgrowth requires a downsizing of paid employment and working time in everyone’s lives? The purpose of this article is to explore this question and to consider how activation could be re-valued and re-thought as a policy tool for eco-social policy.
... For the long-term, car-freed spaces are essential for the re-organisation of urban space in more fundamental and degrowth-inspired terms: the character of severely reducing cars and using streets for other purposes can trigger a change in the social imaginary of the urban fabric now colonised by their presence. The new options combined with ICTs, have the potential to boost new types of work organisation, if policies such as cooperative housing schemes (Lietaert, 2010), or rent control were put in place to facilitate neighbourhood residential security or to support remote work from home, or from co-working facilities close to home, and that could facilitate a redefinition of paid and unpaid work via job guarantees, basic income levels, and autonomy allowance policies (Alcott, 2013, Liegey et al., 2013. ...
Following Illich’s (1974) notion of convivial tools and the distinction he makes between “self-propelled transit” and “motorized transport” of mobility, we apply the emerging paradigm of degrowth to urban mobility. Based on the degrowth literature and Illich’s work, we derive principles and criteria for the mobility of a degrowth society that include institutional, energy and material use, infrastructure, local environmental impacts, social impacts and justice, proximity and speed, and autonomy. To ground our analysis in real-world conditions, we consider the practical perspective of mobility and add another set of criteria: comfort and safety, travel time, monetary cost, and health. We then compare urban mobility options, including recently developed hybrid mobility and sharing schemes. Our results show that, although private means have an advantage in terms of personal practicality, they are not desirable from a degrowth perspective, due to their high social and environmental costs and as constituting a source of urban injustice. Public, hybrid, and self-propelled mobility options would become more practical if such injustices were recognised, and if effective public policies challenged the radical monopoly of cars. Further, hybrid options and sharing/pooling schemes have the potential to reduce the use of private means for metropolitan mobility. The adoption of this degrowth framework can enrich debates on sustainable urban mobility and moves beyond the common proposition of promoting public transport as the solution.
... Hasonló, de radikálisabb elképzelés a foglalkoztatás garantálása (Alcott 2013). Mivel ebben az esetben a munka mindenki számára elérhető lehetőség lenne, politikai célra kevésbé használható, és -elsődleges hatását tekintve -a megélhetés biztonságát nyújtaná az embereknek. ...
Gazdasági tevékenységeink ökológiai és éghajlati katasztrófát indítottak el. A szakirodalom szerint a nemzetközileg elfogadott fenntarthatósági célok elérése valószínűtlen a termelés és fogyasztás csökkentése nélkül. A főáramú közgazdaságtan és politika a gazdasági növekedésre mégsem az élhető és békés jövőt fenyegető veszélyforrásként, hanem alapvető és pozitív célként tekint. Miért? Bár a termelés és fogyasztás további növelésének jólléti hatása a gazdag országokban nem egyértelmű, hiánya jelentős társadalmi csoportoknak okoz komoly problémákat: függőségi helyzetben vagyunk. Ez a cikk áttekinti a gazdasági növekedéstől való függés legfontosabb okait és az enyhítésüket célzó – növekedésen túli – gondolkodás főbb irányait. A maitól sokszor radikálisan különböző megoldások sok bonyolult kérdést vetnek fel. Ezek kapcsán a tudományos működés helyreállításához és a problémák konstruktív kezeléséhez nyílt, átlátható vitára van szükség, a környezeti és társadalmi aspektusokat egyaránt figyelembe véve. Mivel jelenleg a gazdasági növekedés támogatói alapvetően hallgatnak a paradigma fenntarthatatlanságáról, és intenzív társadalmi vita sem folyik a lehetséges kiutakkal kapcsolatban, a cikk explicit célja a szakmai és nyilvános vita élénkítése.
... One recommendation to solve the issue of meaningful use of people's time is some form of 'jobs guarantee' that seeks full employment while at the same time reducing the number of working hours per individual (Alcott 2013;Unti 2015). Laying aside the macroeconomic arguments here, one of the goals of a jobs guarantee and related concepts like a basic and maximum income (Alexander 2015) or work sharing (Schor 2015) is to free people to pursue the kind of work they find interesting and fulfilling. ...
... In terms of employment policies, the proposal for a job guarantee is another point of convergence between the GND and degrowth narratives. A job guarantee enables full employment despite contracting aggregate economic activity and it creates the possibility for people to earn a living outside the sphere of capital accumulation (Alcott, 2013;Unti, 2012). Work provided through the job guarantee can be channeled towards environmentally sustainable projects as it involves production for use rather than exchange. ...
The IPCC warns that in order to keep global warming under 1.5°, global emissions must be cut to zero by 2050. Policymakers and scholars debate how best to decarbonise the energy system, and what socio-economic changes might be necessary. Here we review the strengths, weaknesses, and synergies of two prominent climate change mitigation narratives: the Green New Deal and degrowth. Green New Deal advocates propose a plan to coordinate and finance a large-scale overhaul of the energy system. Some see economic growth as crucial to financing this transition, and claim that the Green New Deal will further stimulate growth. By contrast, proponents of degrowth maintain that growth makes it more difficult to accomplish emissions reductions, and argue for reducing the scale of energy use to enable a rapid energy transition. The two narratives converge on the importance of public investments for financing the energy transition, industrial policies to lead the decarbonisation of the economy, socializing the energy sector to allow longer investment horizons, and expanding the welfare state to increase social protection. We conclude that despite important tensions, there is room for synthesizing Green New Deal and degrowth-minded approaches into a ‘Green New Deal without growth’.
... One recommendation to solve the issue of meaningful use of people's time is some form of 'jobs guarantee' that seeks full employment while at the same time reducing the number of working hours per individual (Alcott 2013;Unti 2015). Laying aside the macroeconomic arguments here, one of the goals of a jobs guarantee and related concepts like a basic and maximum income (Alexander 2015) or work sharing (Schor 2015) is to free people to pursue the kind of work they find interesting and fulfilling. ...
It is increasingly acknowledged that 21st-century archaeology faces serious challenges from a variety of directions, ranging from the theoretical to the practical. Above all, the discipline’s entanglement with capitalism, capitalist ideologies and capitalist institutions is simply unsustainable. The concept of degrowth involves a reconceptualization of archaeology’s possible future(s) in terms of a withdrawal from capitalism and an emphasis on collective and caring praxis looking towards both a sustainable future and the possibilities of the immediate present. A degrowth approach to archaeology can provide a useful supplement to existing critiques and proposed alternatives to current practices. Degrowth proposals such as reorienting economic behaviours towards cooperative, convivial and dépense (communal use of surplus) activities while freeing people to pursue work they find meaningful have potential applications in archaeological practice that address some of the problems currently facing the discipline.
... Recently, the concept has gained some attention in sustainable welfare research with proposals like the Ecological Basic Income proposal of Schachtschneider [88] and the Ecological Transition Income of Swaton [89]. The job-guarantee [90,91] can be interpreted as a variation of the transition income when the jobs offered are particularly resource-light or contribute to environmental conservation in one or the other way. ...
While the social consequences of environmental policies are extensively evaluated in sustainability research, few studies exist on the ecological impact of social benefits and the welfare state. Sustainable welfare is a novel research field that seeks to close this knowledge gap and develop integrated eco-social policies. Within this, researchers are starting to ask how citizen’s needs can be guaranteed in an environmentally sustainable way and how their welfare benefits should be delivered. Should citizens receive a universal basic income, be given vouchers for ecologically beneficial or socially needed goods and services, or be provided with access to socio-ecological infrastructures and services? This article develops a framework for sustainable welfare benefits with six criteria of sustainable welfare and nine different types of welfare benefits that belong to the domains of universal basic income (UBI), universal basic services (UBS), and universal basic vouchers (UBV). Using this framework, existing policy proposals are categorized and evaluated. The advantages and disadvantages of the different types of welfare benefits are discussed and new application areas highlighted. The analysis shows that a successful policy will likely include all forms of welfare benefits, with certain types being more adequate for certain fields and societal circumstances. The framework for sustainable welfare benefits can serve as a starting point for further research on integrated policy design and inform policymakers on the selection of eco-social policies.
... Following Barca (2017), future studies should engage with the centrality of work as a mediator of the social metabolism in the maritime realm and examine the role of organized labor as a critical agent of systemic change. In a context of climate breakdown and ecological collapse, it becomes urgent to link environmental and labor demands to bring about effective change: promoting, for instance, the downscaling of shipping to sustainable levels together with relocalization of production and job guarantee schemes (Alcott 2013). Furthermore, socio-ecological and labor struggles could find a common rallying ground in demanding a democratic control over critical infrastructures and metabolic vehicles. ...
Shipping carries virtually all internationally traded goods. Major commercial ports are fully integrated into transnational production and distribution systems, enabling the circulation of massive flows of energy and materials in the global economy. Port activity and development are usually associated with positive socio-economic effects, such as increased GDP and employment, but the industry’s continuous expansion produces adverse outcomes including air and water pollution, the destruction of marine and coastal environments, waterfront congestion, health risks, and labor issues. In its quest to marry economic growth and environmental sustainability in the maritime industries, proponents of the newly coined blue growth paradigm assume the negative impacts of ports and shipping to be fixable mostly through technological innovation. This paper questions the validity of the premise that the unlimited growth of the port and shipping industries is compatible with environmental sustainability and analyses the feasibility of technological improvements to offset the sector’s associated negative impacts. Based on insights from ecological economics and political ecology, ports can be described as power-laden assemblages of spaces, flows, and actors, which produce unequally distributed socio-ecological benefits and burdens at multiple scales. Focusing on the case of the Port of Barcelona, this study argues that the continuous expansion of port activity increases seldom accounted-for negative socio-environmental impacts, acquiring an uneconomic character for port cities and regions. In contrast, de-growth is presented as a radical sustainability alternative to ocean-based growth paradigms. The paper concludes by discussing its prospective ‘blue’ articulation in the context of maritime transportation while offering some avenues for future research and policymaking.
... The area of human resources is essential to implementing an environmental and socially responsible company position. In turn, the need to connect talent management and engagement with all areas of the company is a fundamental task for human resources management (Lewis and Heckman, 2006), and job protection is a key factor for operationalizing the model of economic degrowth (Alcott, 2013). ...
The earth and the natural world have physical limits. Thus, industries or firm systems operating on this planet have limits as well. Infinite growth is intrinsically impossible. Some firms have integrated these principles into their management methods while struggling to survive in a traditional competitive environment with short‐term economic constraints. This paper explores the managerial practices that help firm systems address these paradoxical tensions of being responsible for the environment and having a long‐term degrowth orientation while also successfully competing in traditional capitalistic markets. Using a social system approach, the paper applies functional differentiation focusing on the internal aspects of the management of the firm. The paper highlights that the role of each subsystem can be crucial for integrating the survival of the firm system and the natural system's limits. Each subsystem has a potential effect on the natural system that can be analysed and managed in a specific way.
... In the context of the threat of unemployment, degrowth authors have tried to explore alternative economic systems in which full employment can be provided without depending on economic growth ( Jackson, 2011;Alcott, 2013). By the redistribution of labor, especially by having part-time jobs, and by rewarding labor differently, such a system can be created. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce three storylines that address the relation between economic growth, technical innovation and environmental impact. The paper assesses if and how these storylines as guiding visions increase our range of future orientations.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first explains its general outline and then explores different strands of literature to arrive at its analytical conclusions.
Findings
Pursuing the three storylines in a paradigmatic articulation creates paradoxes. The growth paradigm focuses on economic growth as its main goal. To overcome environmental degradation, products have to be substituted by environmentally friendly alternatives, but the continuous substitution of finite resources seems unlikely possible. The storyline of innovation sees technological development as a driver of economic progress, and holds that innovations allow the decoupling of economic growth from environmental impact, a claim that is compromised by the occurrence of rebound effects. The degrowth storyline holds that economic growth has to be stopped altogether, but is unclear how this can be done.
Originality/value
By articulating paradigmatic perspectives as storylines, a new understanding on how these perspectives can be figured as a constructive repertoire of guiding visions and not as mere theory-based descriptions.
... There is also the problem of unemployment stemming from the economic contraction associated with energy decline (Alcott 2013;Klitgaard and Krall 2012). Mass unemployment during times of economic contraction imposes severe fiscal pressures on governments and contributes to social tensions that can frustrate necessary policy responses. ...
Could declining world energy supplies result in a turn toward authoritarianism by governments around the world? Mainstream forecasts of an increase in world energy production lasting until at least mid-century are coming under sustained criticism from researchers emphasizing the dynamics of resource depletion. Energy decline is a likely near-term challenge that polities around the world will face. Energy metabolism is a constraining factor for societal complexity and economic production, as established in the anthropological and biophysical economics literature and supported by a multitude of examples of both modern and pre-modern societies. It can be argued that political systems will necessarily face significant destabilization and the potential for a reversion to more autocratic forms as a result of energy depletion. We review relevant risk factors for this shift toward authoritarianism and discuss the contrasting aspects of democratic and authoritarian governance under conditions of energy decline. We conclude with a discussion of possible responses to counter the risks of democratic failure. Overall, we find that opacity of the links between energy, the economy, and politics may hamper such responses and that a more widespread understanding of the role of energy in society will be advantageous to the survival of democratic governance.
... The area of human resources is essential to implement an environmental and socially responsible position in the company. In turn, the need to connect talent management and engagement with all areas of the company is a fundamental task of human resources management (Roca, 2014) and job protection is a key factor to ensure the model of economic degrowth (Alcott, 2013). Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) means aligning aspects of human resource management, such as training, performance evaluation and rewards, to the emerging environmental management goals of organizations (Jackson et al, 2011;Renwick et al, 2013;Jackson et al., 2014). ...
... The area of human resources is essential to implement an environmental and socially responsible position in the company. In turn, the need to connect talent management and engagement with all areas of the company is a fundamental task of human resources management (Roca, 2014) and job protection is a key factor to ensure the model of economic degrowth (Alcott, 2013). Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) means aligning aspects of human resource management, such as training, performance evaluation and rewards, to the emerging environmental management goals of organizations (Jackson et al, 2011;Renwick et al, 2013;Jackson et al., 2014). ...
... Fotopoulos (2010aFotopoulos ( , 2010b and Trainer (2010Trainer ( , 2014 emphasize the incompatibility of degrowth and the market economy but elaborate little on concrete policy scenarios to foster a large-scale transition towards more equitable societies. A reduction in working time (e.g., van den Bergh, 2011;Alcott, 2013;Knight et al., 2013;Andreoni and Galmarini, 2014;Fitzgerald et al., 2015) represents a concrete proposal that has received broader attention and could indeed find wide-spread support. ...
Degrowth has evolved within a decade from an activist movement into a multi-disciplinary academic paradigm. However, an overview taking stock of the peer-refereed degrowth literature is yet missing. Here, we review 91 articles that were published between 2006 and 2015. We find that the academic degrowth discourse occupies a small but expanding niche at the intersection of social and applied environmental sciences. The discourse is shaped by authors from high-income, mainly Mediterranean, countries. Until 2012, articles largely constitute conceptual essays endorsed by normative claims. More recently, degrowth has branched out into modelling, empirical assessments, and the study of concrete implementations. Authors tend to agree in that economic growth cannot be sustained ad infinitum on a resource constraint planet and that degrowth requires far reaching societal change. Whether degrowth should be considered as a collectively consented choice or an environmentally-imposed inevitability constitutes a major debate among degrowth thinkers. We argue that the academic discourse could benefit from rigid hypotheses testing through input-output modelling, material flow analysis, life-cycle assessments, or social surveys. By analyzing the potentials for non-market value creation and identifying concrete well-being benefits, the degrowth discourse could receive wider public support and contribute to a paradigmatic change in the social sciences.
... Appendix A Philippe (2008) 19 Johanisova and Wolf (2012) 37 Domènech et al. (2013) 2 Huppes and Ishikawa (2009) 20 Kallis et al. (2012) 38 Garver (2013) 3 Cattaneo and Gavaldà (2010) 21 Klitgaard and Krall (2012) 39 Infante Amate and González de Molina (2013) 4 Hueting (2010) 22 Muraca (2012) 40 Jarvensivu (2013) 5 Kallis and Martínez-Alier (2010) 23 Nierling (2012) 41 Johanisova et al. (2013) 6 Latouche (2010) 24 Speth (2012) 42 Kallis et al. (2013) 7 Lietaert (2010) 25 Tokic (2012) 43 Kallis (2013) 8 Martínez-Alier et al. (2010) 26 Trainer (2012) 44 Karlsson (2013) 9 Matthey (2010) 27 van den Bergh and 45 Lorek and Fuchs (2013) 10 Schneider et al. (2010) 28 van Griethuysen (2012) 46 Mauerhofer (2013) 11 Berg and Hukkinen (2011) 29 Xue et al. (2012) 47 Nørgård (2013) 12 Hall (2011) 30 Alcott (2013) 48 Sekulova et al. (2013) 13 Kallis (2011) 31 Alexander (2013) 49 Sorman and Giampietro (2013) 14 Schneider et al. (2011) 32 Boonstra and Joose (2013) 50 Andreoni and Galmarini (2014) 15 Alexander (2012) 33 Borowy (2013) 51 Buch-Hansen (2014) 16 Bilancini and D'Alessandro (2012) 34 D'Alisa and Cattaneo (2013) 52 Kallis and March (2014) 17 Deriu (2012) 35 Demaria et al. (2013) 53 Videira et al. (2014) 18 Douthwaite (2012) 36 Dittmer (2013) 54 Xue (2014) ...
Debates around ecological and social limits to economic growth and new ways to deal with resource scarcity without compromising human wellbeing have re-emerged in the last few years, especially with the increasing calls for a degrowth approach. In this paper, a framework is developed to support a systematic analysis of degrowth in the selected academic literature. This article attempts to present a clearer notion of what degrowth academic literature has been exploring, by identifying, organizing and analysing a set of proposals for action retrieved from a selection of articles. The framework is applied to classify these proposals according to their alignment to ecological economics policy objectives (sustainable scale, fair distribution, and efficient allocation), type of approach (top-down versus bottom-up), and geographical focus (local, national, or international). A total of 128 peer-reviewed articles focused on degrowth were reviewed, and 54 that include proposals for action were analysed. The proposals identified align with three broad goals: (1) Reduce the environmental impact of human activities; (2) Redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries; and (3) Promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society. The findings indicate that the majority of degrowth proposals are national top-down approaches, focusing on government as a major driver of change, rather than local bottom-up approaches, as advocated by many degrowth proponents. The most emphasised aspects in the degrowth literature are related to social equity, closely followed by environmental sustainability. Topics such as population growth and the implications of degrowth for developing nations are largely neglected, and represent an important area for future research. Moreover, there is a need for a deeper analysis of how degrowth proposals would act in combination.
... This concern has led a number of authors to suggest that special policies would be needed to maintain full employment in a steady-state economy. These include working time reduction (Lintott, 2004;Schor, 2005;Kallis et al., 2013), a job guarantee (Lawn, 2004;Alcott, 2013), or the shift towards lower productivity sectors of the economy (Jackson and Victor, 2011;Nørgård, 2013). ...
There has been increasing interest in new economic models that aim to improve quality of life without increasing consumption. This article provides the first empirical analysis of how close modern-day economies are to the concept of a "steady-state economy", and explores whether there is any relationship between a country's proximity to such an economy and its social performance. The analysis is carried out using the Degrowth Accounts, a set of 16 biophysical and social indicators that are derived from Herman Daly's definition of a steady-state economy and the social goals of the degrowth movement. These indicators are applied to ∼180 countries over a 10-year period. The analysis reveals that the majority of countries in the world are biophysical growth economies. There are only a small number of countries where resource use is relatively constant from year to year (e.g. Denmark, France, Japan, Poland, Romania, and the US), and only four countries experiencing biophysical degrowth (Germany, Guyana, Moldova, and Zimbabwe). There are no countries that achieve a true steady-state economy, defined as an economy with a stable level of resource use maintained within ecological limits. However, a few countries come relatively close, including Colombia, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, and South Africa. In general, countries with stable resource use perform better on many social indicators than countries with either increasing or decreasing resource use. This finding runs contrary to conventional economic thought. However, social performance is also higher in countries with greater per capita resource use. Overall, these findings suggest that a steady-state economy can be socially sustainable, but countries need to become much more efficient at transforming natural resources into human well-being if all seven billion people on Earth are to lead a good life within ecological limits.
... A more comprehensive, but in many ways more problematic, governmental strategy would be a job guarantee for people who are able and ready to work. This means that the state would act as an employer of last resort (Alcott, 2013). While this strategy would surely undo Okun's law and eliminate involuntary unemployment (Mitchell and Wray, 2005), there are many open questions (Sawyer, 2005). ...
Two empirical correlations are studied: one between economic growth and environmental impacts, and the other between the lack of economic growth and unemployment. It is demonstrated that, at a global level, economic growth is strongly correlated with environmental impacts, and barriers to fast decoupling are large and numerous. On the other hand, low or negative growth is highly correlated with increasing unemployment in most market economies, and strategies to change this lead to difficult questions and tradeoffs. The coexistence of these two correlations – which have rarely been studied together in the literature on “green growth”, “degrowth” and “a-growth” – justifies ambivalence about growth. To make key environmental goals compatible with full employment, the decoupling of environmental impacts from economic output has to be accompanied by a reduction of dependence on growth. In particular, strategies to tackle unemployment without the need for growth, several of which are studied in this article, need much more attention in research and policy.
In academia and political debates, the notions of ‘degrowth’ has gained traction since the dawn of the 21st century. While some uncertainty around its exact definition remains, research on degrowth revolves around the idea of reducing resource and energy throughput as a unifying theme. We employ a mixed-methods design to systematically review the scientific peer-reviewed English literature from 2008 to 2022 that refers to ‘degrowth’ or ‘post-growth’ in title, keywords or abstract (N = 951). We find a lack of concrete distributional and monetary policy proposals in the sample analyzed, and a low overall degree of collaboration among authors in relation to degrowth’s age and size. The scientific peer-reviewed literature analyzed can be grouped into seven clusters along two major gradients, one along methodology (qualitative-quantitative) and the other along scale-of-analysis (individual-societal). We conclude that the academic literature about degrowth would benefit from a more prominent discussion of the political implications of its ideas and proposals, and that in particular the debate about distributional policy implications of degrowth should be more prominent and concrete, with a stronger focus on distributional policies in a degrowing economy.
Zusammenfassung
In den Industrienationen des globalen Nordens hat Erwerbsarbeit eine zentrale Bedeutung erlangt. Sie ist Quelle materieller Existenzsicherung, sozialer Einbindung und Identitätsentwicklung. Daneben bildet Erwerbsarbeit eine wesentliche Grundlage für die Finanzierung des Sozialstaats. Erwerbsarbeit hat zugleich enorme klimapolitische Bedeutung. Als Produktionsfaktor in einem kapitalistischen Wirtschaftssystem beinhaltet sie unzählige Tätigkeiten und Abläufe, die mit Energie- und Ressourcenverbrauch verbunden sind. Zudem ist sie Treiber von Wirtschaftswachstum und damit steigender Umweltbelastung. Erwerbsarbeit ist daher ein bedeutendes Element des klimapolitischen Umbaus von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Das Kapitel folgt der Frage: Wie muss Erwerbsarbeit gestaltet werden, damit sich Menschen sowohl im Rahmen ihrer Berufstätigkeit als auch außerhalb ihrer Erwerbsarbeit klimafreundlich verhalten können? Es bietet eine Einschätzung des Status quo, eine Darstellung von Konzepten erwerbsarbeitsbezogener Klimapolitik, eine Gegenüberstellung von Barrieren und treibenden Kräften eines Strukturwandels sowie einen Abschnitt zu gestaltungspolitischen Maßnahmen für eine klimafreundlichere Arbeitswelt.
The aim of the chapter is to give a critical overview of how work and labour have been conceptualized within the heterogeneous degrowth discourses. While degrowth has articulated a sophisticated critique of capitalist growth not only from an environmental perspective but also with respect to its structural function for welfare democracies, (re)thinking and framing work/labour in an envisioned degrowth society remains one of the biggest challenges within the degrowth discourses. After a detailed overview of the different perspectives on work/labour in the degrowth scholarship, the chapter focuses on the specific contribution of materialist ecofeminism. It concludes by indicating possible cross-fertilizations and alliances between degrowth and materialist ecofeminism with respect to social-ecological reproduction and the rethinking of labour/work.
Der Vergleich der in den Jahren 2001 und 2017 von den deutschen Bundesregierungen veröffentlichten Armuts- und Reichtumsberichte zeigt, dass diese fast gänzlich unverändert vom Narrativ geprägt sind, der Sozialstaat müsse nach der Devise „Fördern und Fordern“, trotz Prekarisierung und Ausweitung des Niedriglohnsektors, als Garant für die Reduktion von Armut und Arbeitslosigkeit sowie die Erreichung eines Zustands der Vollbeschäftigung als Königsweg zur Wohlstandssicherung gelten. Die dort unterstellte positive Wechselwirkung von Wirtschaftswachstum und hohen Beschäftigungszahlen führt dazu, dass trotz steigender Einkommens- und Vermögensungleichheit alternative politische Stellschrauben ähnlich aus dem Blick geraten wie Postwachstumsideen, ökologische Folgen eines ungebremsten Wachstums sowie der gesellschaftliche und individuelle Sinn von Arbeit.
Ten years have passed since the global financial crisis first struck. But its shockwaves remain with us, from depressed wages and persistent debt burdens to charged protest movements, divisive politics, and renewed nationalisms – especially, but not only, in the rich global North. Moreover, the broader economic discourse has radically changed, with worldwide implications. Researchers and the (sustainable) development community, in particular, both echo and shape this changing global discourse. Today, inequality is on everyone’s lips. This policy brief examines inequality, and how its perspective on poverty and wealth can enhance research and policy. Above all, use of an inequality lens fosters vital systems thinking about how wealth is created, who captures it, who loses it – or bears the ecological costs – and how to achieve fairer outcomes.
This article draws on interviews, observations, and surveys from two mixed-methods sociological studies of people's relationships to paid and unpaid work to argue that the concept of the work ethic is a fruitful entrypoint for exploring critical issues of work, leisure and consumption in rural places, and indeed anywhere there are efforts to realize degrowth strategies. Then, I survey some of the major themes about work in a selection of widely-cited degrowth writings and argue that the work ethic could use more attention—particularly the question of how the dominant work ethic at any place and time might constrain or enable degrowth as a political-ecological aspiration. This question is actually a hopeful one, because it suggests that in-depth studies of instances where something other than the Protestant, capitalist (i.e. expansion-oriented) work ethic dominates can (and already do!) show us the kinds of culturally-embedded relationships to work that are complimentary to a degrowth agenda. Moreover, such studies show that alternative modes of working are viable. In other words, sociological and anthropological studies can provide empirical evidence that vibrant, meaningful human life can continue in the absence of constant economic growth. Keywords: Degrowth, employment, work, work ethic, sociology, anthropology, rural
The job guarantee was designed to address the problems of unemployment. However, in light of the environmental crisis, it is important to recognize the ways in which this policy proposal may be harnessed to cope with broader issues of social justice and ecological sustainability. This chapter looks specifically at how the vision of a job guarantee program aligns with and promotes the burgeoning movement of degrowth. In this respect, the most important feature of the job guarantee is that it eliminates the profit constraint on employment. With a job guarantee in place, the working class will not be hostage to profit-driven economic growth to secure an income. Under the existing paradigm of global capitalism, the world population faces a trade-off between ecological and economic prosperity. By severing the link between aggregate demand and employment, a job guarantee offers possibilities for an ecologically sustainable future without unemployment. In other words, a job guarantee decouples employment from economic growth and establishes a path for the reconciliation of economic and environmental goals. This chapter discusses the ways in which a job guarantee may be utilized to buttress the social justice and environmental aspirations of degrowth.
This is a contribution from Steady State Manchester to the debate about policies for the city region. We are a group working out how best to respond here to environmental challenges including climate change, resource depletion and damage to the environment deep-seated social problems including poverty, social deprivation and fragmentation economic problems including debt, unemployment, austerity and instability These issues need to be tackled nationally and globally as well here in our region where we can " take back control " and devise our own solutions. It's a huge task and we don't have all the answers. We've borrowed and built on ideas from Manchester and all over the world. We do know that we can't carry on with business as usual. Economic growth, as conventionally understood, is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) plans contain some good ideas but will not create the fundamental shifts we need to reduce our massive carbon footprint. Nor will they put local people in control and reduce inequalities. These practical proposals for Greater Manchester are relevant to the new GM Mayor and the local authorities but perhaps more so to everyone who lives or works in Greater Manchester. They cover money, work, enterprise, housing, caring for each other, democracy, inequalities and the strengths of communities as well as energy and the environment. We set out specific policy proposals here, and also refer to other documents we have produced setting out detailed policies, or in some cases those of other organisations. In every case we explain our thinking.
This paper aims to look at alternatives to the classic models of development by exploring the paradigm of degrowth in a tourism context. Degrowth touted as an alternative to mainstream paradigms of development, aims to ensure a high quality of life for people in a society where work, production and consumption are reduced. As a weapon to the problems accrued by capitalism, degrowth reorients the current unsustainable and inequitable path through the transition to a smaller economy with less production and consumption. By arguing that natural limits to growth of many destinations have already been surpassed and their carrying capacity levels have been reached, degrowth proposes the abandonment of growth which promotes nothing other than a quest for profits on part of the owners of capital and results in disastrous implications for the environment and the humanity. As a philosophical concept and movement, degrowth is revolutionary and anticapitalist directed to sustainable change which results from an interest in locality and place, small and medium-sized enterprises, employment generation and reduction in working hours, ecology and quality of life, decommodification of tourism activity, carbon reduction in transport, changed pattern of production and consumption, and high priority in the travel experience.
Proposals under the headings of employer of last resort (ELR) and job guarantee have been made under which jobs would be available to all at a basic wage. These schemes promise a combination of full employment and price stability. This paper examines whether they would be able to deliver on such a promise. The paper discusses the notion of ‘functional finance’ which forms an important element of ideas on ELR. The nature and role of money as envisaged in the tax driven money approach which is often associated with the ELR proposals is critically examined. It is argued that whilst the ELR budgetary costs may be relatively small, this would also be the case from any public sector employment program. The question is raised as to whether there would be jobs of a type which could fit in with the ELR proposals, and what the nature of these jobs might be. The paper considers the extent to which ELR would involve underemployment and unemployment by another name. The possible inflationary implications of the ELR are next considered. This has two aspects: first to consider whether inflation would result from unemployment falling below any form of supply-side inflation barrier (such as a NAIRU), and second to consider whether the use of a base wage would bring price stability as claimed. In the subsequent section, the idea that ELR employment would form a buffer stock is critically examined.
Sixteen recent longitudinal studies are examined for evidence relevant to the claim that a change to one's employment status affects one's mental health. Although there were limitations to the set of studies examined, most of the studies supported this claimed relationship. Examination was then made of the size of this effect. In carrying out this examination, the set of study results were divided into two categories: (a) those addressing the question of the extent to which gaining employment impacts on mental well-being; (b) those addressing the question of the extent to which employment loss impacts on mental health. The meta-analyses indicated that there was a weighted effect size of .54 for the first question, and a smaller weighted effect size (.36) for the latter question.
Discusses an entitlement program in the State of Maharashtra in India - the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) - which entitles any rural resident of the state to a job and fulfills this guarantee by creating a system of public works designed to promote large rural development. Implementation of such an ambitious program in this state presents many problems. Public works must be planned and implemented so that jobs can be provided to a dispersed constituency. Implementation must be made responsive to fluctuations in the demand for employment, which are sizable and occur over time and across space. In addition, measures must be designed to keep corruption in check. -from Author
What is happiness? Why are some people happier than others? This new edition of The Psychology of Happiness provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of research into the nature of happiness. Major research developments have occurred since publication of the first edition in 1987 - here they are brought together for the first time, often with surprising conclusions. Drawing on research from the disciplines of sociology, physiology and economics as well as psychology, Michael Argyle explores the nature of positive and negative emotions, and the psychological and cognitive processes involved in their generation. Accessible and wide-ranging coverage is provided on key issues such as: the measurements and study of happiness, mental and physical health; the effect of friendship, marriage and other relationships on positive moods; happiness, mental and physical health; the effects of work, employment and leisure; and the effects of money, class and education. The importance of individual personality traits such as optimism, purpose in life, internal control and having the right kind of goals is also analysed. New to this edition is additional material on national differences, the role of humour, and the effect of religion. Are some countries happier than others? This is just one of the controversial issues addressed by the author along the way. Finally the book discusses the practical application of research in this area, such as how happiness can be enhanced, and the effects of happiness on health, altruism and sociability. This definitive and thought-provoking work will be compulsive reading for students, researchers and the interested general reader
Since 1997, a number of researchers (many of whom are now associated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City) have been advocating a job creation program that has been variously called the employer of last resort (ELR), job guarantee, public service employment, or buffer stock employment program. These proposals were based on earlier work by Hyman Minsky, Abba Lerner, Phillip Harvey, Wendell Gordon, and Charles Killingsworth and recalled the US New Deal experience with job creation programs. Most of the work so far has been at the theoretical level (Harvey 1989 and Ginsburg 1983 are important exceptions). However, Argentina recently adopted a job creation program that is explicitly based on our proposals. This paper provides a preliminary analysis of Argentina's experience. Through most of the 1990s, Argentina was the poster child for the Washington Consensus, adopting a currency board, opening markets, downsizing government, and freeing capital. After its economy collapsed and unemployment and poverty skyrocketed, it implemented a limited employer of last resort program called Plan Jefes de Hogar, to provide jobs to poor heads of households. A Labor Ministry economist, Daniel Kostzer, had become familiar with the ELR proposals developed in the US and helped to design and implement the Jefes program. By most measures, the program has been a tremendous success, providing jobs to 2 million workers, or about 5% of the population and 13% of the labor force.
This paper argues that the social construction ‘economic man’ is the product of a hierarchical dualism in western society that has also created ‘rational man’ and ‘scientific man’. Women and the natural world form the subordinated half of these dualisms. Central to this paper is the claim that this dualism is not only a cultural/theoretical one, but also a material one. The social construction of ‘economic man’ is the product of a bifurcated knowledge system and a materially divided society. ‘Economic man’ reflects a society in which the embeddedness and embodiedness of humanity is hidden by the division of mind from body, and science/culture from the natural world. For this reason it is not possible to incorporate women and nature into the ‘economy’ through the commodity form by according them a value as price. It is argued that the economic system can only exist if women and nature remain externalised, as women form the bridge between an autonomous individualised ‘man’ and the biological/ecological underpinning of his existence. Central to this analysis is the distinction between social and natural/biological time. ‘Economic’ man lives in social time (clock time) while women are responsible for biological time. This is not because women are closer to nature/biology in an essential sense. Rather, this relationship is imposed upon them by a male-dominated society.
In this paper we emphasize the interrelation of the monetary, free-enterprise sector of the economy and its maintaining basis. The current discussion on sustainability has so far placed too little attention on this circumstance. To us this interrelation is fundamental; it is one important key to understanding present day economics and economies. By concentrating on this interrelation we question the widely accepted dualism between the public and the private, between the officially acknowledged economic and the invisible economic. By this we create our own specific approach to the question of how to reform economic thought and action in order to achieve a naturally and socially sustainable living.
The concepts of welfare, economic growth, production, environmentally sustainable national income, environmental sustainability, environmental function and asymmetric entering are defined, because the confusion about these concepts hampers sound information. Based on these concepts the arguments are enumerated why it is plausible that environmental sustainability most probably cannot be attained with a growing production level (national income, NI) and why broad acceptance of a lower production level, meaning de-growth of production, will make attaining this goal much easier or at least possible. Some consequences of unsustainable development are provided and the alleged conflict between employment and environment is refuted. The conclusion is that our planet is threatened by a wrong belief in a wrongly formulated growth.
This paper classifies strategies to reduce environmental impact according to the terms of the I = PAT formula. Policies limiting resource depletion and pollution (Impact) – by heavily taxing resources or rationing them on a country basis – are thus called ‘direct’ or ‘left-side’ strategies. Other policies to achieve the environmental goal of lowering Impact strive to limit Population and Affluence, or to use Technology to lower the ratio of resource inputs to goods-and-services outputs. Next it is shown that lowering any of these ‘right-side’ factors causes or at least enables the other two to rise or ‘rebound’. This has two consequences: 1) Since I = PAT does not express these interdependencies on the right side, it is more accurately written I = f(P,A,T); and 2) Success in lowering any of the right-side factors does not necessarily lower Impact. Rationing or Pigouvian taxation of resources or pollution, on the other hand, necessarily lower impact and are therefore preferable to population, consumption and technological environmental strategies. Finally, lifestyle and technology changes towards more sufficiency and efficiency would follow the caps as consumers and producers work to retain the greatest amount of welfare within the limits given.
This paper addresses three aspects of ‘growth’: the discourse, the policy, and the impacts. The growth discourse claims that the central factor for social, economic, political and environmental progress is economic growth – it is assumed to create wealth, and provide the necessary means for social and environmental purposes. On the basis of the growth discourse, different growth policies can be derived, based on different economic and political ideologies.In order to reveal the implications of de facto degrowth, two thought experiments are conducted, for physical and economic end-to-growth strategies. The latter is capable of meeting environmental objectives, but implies significant social tensions and hardships and calls for transition strategies consisting of carefully designed steps.
Ce travail s’est fixé pour objectif de formuler des fondements théoriques des politiques actives du marché du travail en Afrique. En s’appuyant sur la théorie des trajectoires notionnelles, un modèle dynamique de l’emploi a été développé. L’analyse du modèle montre que lorsque la population active adopte des stratégies évolutives d’offre de travail, la dynamique de l’emploi est positive, par contre lorsqu’elle adopte des stratégies de subsistance sur le marché du travail, la dynamique de l’emploi est négative ; l’économie s’installe dans un cercle vicieux de sous-emploi. Dans une telle situation, la mise en œuvre de politiques actives du marché du travail est nécessaire pour rompre le cercle vicieux ou inverser la tendance négative de l’emploi. This paper aimed to formulate theoretical analysis framework of actives labour market policies in Africa. Based on the theory of notional trajectories, a dynamic model of employment has been developed. Analysis of this model shows that when labour force adopts progressive strategies of labour supply, dynamics of employment is positive. By cons when labour force adopts subsistence strategies on the labour market, dynamics of employment is negative, therefore national economy moves into vicious circle of underemployment. In such situation, implementation of actives labour market policies is needed to break the vicious circle or reverse negative trend of employment.(Full text in french)
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