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The Social Limits to Growth
Abstract
This revised edition, first published in 1977, contains a new introductory section by Tibor Scitovsky. It sets out to analyze the inherent defects of the market economy as an instrument of human improvement. Since publication, it is believed to have been very influential in the ecological movement and hence is considered to be relevant today. The book tries to give an economist's answer to three questions: Why has economic development become and remained so compelling a goal even though it gives disappointing results? Why has modern society become so concerned with distributional processes when the great majority of people can raise their living standards through increased production? Why has the 20th century seen a universal predominant trend toward collective provision and state regulation in economic areas at a time when individual freedom of action is widely extolled and is given unprecedented reign in non-economic areas? The book suggests that the current impasse on a number of key issues in the political economy of advanced nations is attributable, in part, to an outmoded perspective on the nature, and therefore, the promise of economic growth. The critique has some important implications for policy and opens up a range of policy issues. -after Author
... "ПАРАДОКСЪТ НА ИЗБОРА" Една от темите, чието обсъждане изглежда все по-наложително в рамките на икономическата литература през последните години и за която вече е разработен първоначален аналитичен инструментариум в изследователските полета на поведенческата, институционалната икономика и икономиката на щастието, e особените психологически отражения на материално задоволения живот в съвременните общества, структурирани около пазарната размяна (срв. със Седларски, 2020;2020a;2020b;2022а;2023а;2023b;2014;Koutsobinas, 2015;Putnam, 2000;Lane, 2000;Schwartz, 1994;Frank, 1985;Hirsch, 1978). Измененията в конвенционални модели на човешко поведение, социални ориентири, легитимни житейски цели и жизнени стилове (срв. ...
... Мотивацията за действие в пазарната икономика -за труд, за спестяване, за инвестиране се осигурява именно на основата на неравномерното разпределение на богатството, на желанието да имаш не по-малко от другите или повече от тях и същевременно на оскъдността на някои желани от множество хора блага (вж. Маркс, [1859] 1983Фром, 2004;Hirsch, 1978;Frank, Cook, 1995;срв. със Седларски, 2019a). ...
... А от изложението дотук става ясно, че тъкмо изключването на сравнението е един от възможните подходи за постигане на по-голямо щастие и удовлетвореност от това, което имаме. В своята широко цитирана книга "Социалните граници на растежа" икономистът Фред Хирш (Hirsch, 1978) въвежда понятието позиционни блага, развивайки по-ранната концепция за показното потребление на един от бащите на стария институционализъм Торстен Веблен и идеите на Лайбенщайн за т.нар. популярни, снобски и Вебленови блага (вж. ...
This article summarizes the main concepts in Barry Schwartz's book 'The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less' in the context of the latest insights in happiness economics, the discussion of social status and the cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism in economic literature. It highlights the author's ideas related to current analytical results in behavioral and institutional research.
... For example, when competing for 'positional goods'. Generally, this race for goods is accompanied by a distributional struggle that exacerbates the social tensions rather than heightens social integration, creating a new beggar-my-neighbour (Hirsch, 1977). ...
... Renewable energy fits both definitions (provide literature here). Collective action, as proposed by Fred Hirsch (1977), serves as a remedy for societal issues arising from economic growth, such as congestion, pollution, and scarcity. It counters individualistic behaviour by encouraging coordinated efforts to address common problems. ...
Historically, significant energy transitions have coincided with turning points in human history, such as shifts from human to animal energy, from animal and biomass to fossil and nuclear energy, and more recently, from fossil to renewable energy due to the climate and ecological crisis. These transitions have led in the past to profound societal transformations, from hunter-gatherer societies to agrarian, manufacturing, and industrial societies, influencing the establishment of capitalist regimes and modern liberal democracies. The current energy transition however seems not so socially disrupting as one can expect. However, to underline the social change potential embodied in energy transition we develop a theoretical model of collective action linked to energy field. The article suggests that, based on the idea that energy communities can become social activators of a communalism of energy, we can envision a strategy for the reappropriation of energy as a common good and for a radical change of societal organization of energy, more horizontal, inclusive, equal and capable of reproducing new forms of energy citizenship.
... Mas a educação também é utilizada enquanto investimento, a fim de se obter, por exemplo, maiores retornos no mercado de trabalho, como uma ocupação de melhor prestígio, maior rendimento, estabilidade no emprego etc. E enquanto investimento, o valor da educação alcançada por um indivíduo em particular depende de quanta educação os demais indivíduos possuem. Nesse sentido, a educação seria um bem posicional (Bills, 2016;Hirsch, 1978), pois o que está em jogo não é quanta educação o indivíduo possui, mas sim quanta educação ele possui em relação aos demais. Com efeito, o que importa é a sua posição na distribuição de educação entre uma dada população em determinado momento. ...
... Melhor dizendo, não é o nível de educação em si que confere tal vantagem, mas sim a sua posição em uma fila imaginária onde os mais escolarizados estão à frente, e os menos escolarizados atrás. Por essa razão, conforme a famosa analogia feita por Hirsch (1978), se todos ficarem na ponta dos pés, ninguém consegue ver melhor. Ou, como Boudon (1981) colocava de modo mais concreto, a mera expansão educacional não seria suficiente para reduzir a desigualdade de oportunidades. ...
Para entender as mudanças sociais ocorridas nos últimos anos, o Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Ipea) criou o projeto Dinâmica Econômica, Mudanças Sociais e Novas Pautas de Políticas Públicas. O objetivo deste projeto é propor tipologias de estruturas de classe no Brasil que possam ser úteis para a elaboração de políticas públicas, em um contexto de mudança da estrutura produtiva da economia brasileira e da estrutura ocupacional, marcada pela redução relativa da ocupação industrial e do crescimento dos serviços. A hipótese que dirige a proposta de pesquisa é que essa nova reconfiguração produtiva tem implicações para a estratificação social brasileira, com o surgimento de novas demandas de políticas sociais, em razão do surgimento de novos grupos ocupacionais ou da ampliação/redução de grupos sociais que já existem. Ou seja, a dinâmica econômica do início do século XXI está reconfigurando a estrutura social brasileira. Nesse sentido, a aplicação da metodologia do mapeamento da estrutura de classes permite identificar essa reconfiguração da estrutura social brasileira, detectar o surgimento de demandas de políticas públicas ou possibilitar a adaptação de outras.
... What happens when considering social capital and economic growth over time? Some authors contend that over time economic growth can have detrimental effects on social capital (see Polanyi, 1968;Hirsch, 1976;Olson, 1982). They attribute the reason of the decline of social capital to the weakening of the cultural and ethical base of the market economy (Hirsch, 1976), and to the increase in the individualistic and competitive value system that "reduce society to deserts" (Polanyi, 1968). ...
... Some authors contend that over time economic growth can have detrimental effects on social capital (see Polanyi, 1968;Hirsch, 1976;Olson, 1982). They attribute the reason of the decline of social capital to the weakening of the cultural and ethical base of the market economy (Hirsch, 1976), and to the increase in the individualistic and competitive value system that "reduce society to deserts" (Polanyi, 1968). Complementary to this argument is that a more complex and differentiated society deriving from economic development comes with a substitution of interpersonal relations with impersonal ones, undermining the possibility of creating trust (Hardin, 1998). ...
Countries where interpersonal trust is high have, on average, high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Does this mean that economic growth is associated to growing trust over time? We review the literature addressing this question, and provide updated empirical evidence on the effects of economic growth on trust over time. Trust is a well-established measure of social capital, widely considered in economic studies. We use country panel data from the Penn World Tables and information on people trusting others from the Survey Data Recycling (SDR) v.2.0 database, the largest source of data on trust currently available. Results confirm the positive cross-sectional relation found in previous studies. However, over time trust decreases when GDP grows. A number of robustness checks and a test of causality support this conclusion. The relationship between economic growth and trust over time is negative when inequality is higher than the country’s average level of inequality. This is possible because growing income inequality increases the chances for social comparisons, which substitute trust in individuals’ utility functions. Additionally, income inequality hampers cooperation and cohesiveness in favour of competition, and increases the probability of social unrest.
... Those with the assumption of rational choice of individuals generally propose carbon taxes to correct "imperfect" price signals allowing consumers small scale decision-making. On the other hand, authors like Fred Hirsch (1977) explain that piecemeal or marginal decisions, which are the base of agent-based models, do not allow us to choose between alternative states. Donella Meadows (1999Meadows ( , 1982 also considers these small-scale changes as one of the least-powerful ones to transform systems. ...
... This entails a dependency on the private car for the most basic daily needs, overriding the initial individual benefits (Bastos et al., 2016;Hayden, 1984;Sheller and Urry, 2006). Single-family houses are thus private goods (Hirsch, 1977) that can provide benefits to a certain limited amount of people, but lose their intrinsic characteristics when they are extensively put into practice. Therefore, both the type of dwelling and the emerging context play a role in time and energy use in transport Bastos et al., 2016;Nichols and Kockelman, 2014). ...
https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/690394
Achieving sustainability is a wicked problem requiring the consideration of many non-equivalent and non-comparable variables and fields simultaneously, not only climate change mitigation and adaptation, as it is framed in many cases. These include other issues, such as resource scarcity (peak oil, phosphorous scarcity, etc.), pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation, eutrophication, hunger and poverty. To tackle this polycrisis, we must understand the metabolism of socio-ecological systems beyond a mere accounting of inputs and outputs, including the internal configuration of society and the role and entanglements of resources. This way, we can explore the option space for deep transformations. Functional and structural elements in social-ecological systems are organised hierarchically and in networks, just as cells constitute organs connected in bodies.
In this thesis, I explore some overlooked and critical concepts transforming the economics paradigm: societal metabolism, networks, biophysical limits, and incommensurable trade-offs. The objective is to contribute to the holistic understanding and quantitative analysis of socio-ecological systems. More specifically, the inclusion of time use and its nexus to energy and power capacity are analysed at different scales. To do so, I connect a theoretical background derived from bioeconomics and practice theory and use methods from ecological economics (Multi-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism – MuSIASEM and its tool, End-Use Matrix) and industrial ecology (Environmentally Extended Input-Output Tables - EEIO). The case studies explore various sectors at different scales, mainly from the perspective of European countries, including the residential sector, the automotive industry, and global production networks. Therefore, this thesis aims to break down the silos between disciplines and sectors.
The first case study assesses household metabolism by reviewing key factors and possible strategies for its sustainability across many dimensions. We analyse the concept of home as an institution and its function in the economy, the form and materiality of dwellings, and how these elements shape, relate to, and limit each other. More specifically, I analyse the role of the funds: human activity (i.e., time use), power capacity (i.e., devices and appliances), and floor area (i.e., buildings). The study provides a list of strategies to improve its sustainability, considering the effects in different dimensions. This study is a first step towards better models and a holistic quantification of household metabolism.
From the household to the global economy level, human time is a key and overlooked limit. Working time at the global level is a zero-sum game, where some countries have net imports and others have net exports of embodied labor due to trade. The second case study analyses the international exchanges of embodied working time for the EU, the US, and China in 2011 and how these affect national metabolisms. Global production networks are shaped by the international division of labour, functional specialisation, and unequal exchange. In this case, half of the EU and US's consumption of embodied working time is foreign. This imported time has implications for the activities carried out in their national economies (towards tertiarization) and in fewer working hours per worker.
These hierarchical relations and functional specialisation in the international division of labour can also be found within individual economic sectors. The third case study exposes the different characteristics and roles of the automotive industry in a selection of eight European countries in 2018 through a multidimensional and multilevel quantitative assessment. This is an application of the End-use Matrix to a specific industrial activity that shows how the variety of functions within the same sector are linked to different levels of direct energy use and economic and environmental impacts.
... Employers use educational degrees or diplomas to screen job applicants and put them in an imaginary labour queue based on their expected training costs (Thurow, 1975). The best positions go to the individuals with the lowest expected training costs (i.e., the highest qualifications), and, as in signaling models, education is mainly regarded as a positional good (Hirsch, 1977;Wolbers, De Graaf & Ultee, 2001) 1 . A distinct feature of the job competition model, though, is that wages are rigidly tied to jobs with the number and types of jobs being primarily dictated by technology. ...
... Other forms of externalities, such as consumption and positional externalities (Hirsch 1976;Frank 2005), and different types of market failure, such as information asymmetries (Stiglitz and Weiss 1983), similarly affect the quantity and quality of transactions in ways that are more prevalent and arguably more central to people's lives than is conveyed by introductory microeconomics textbooks. ...
The standard introductory course in microeconomics presents a sophisticated set of tools for understanding the dynamics of markets, which are of central importance in all contemporary societies. Unfortunately, most textbooks for this course inadequately address, and frequently distort, the following six issues critical to students’ understanding of economic society: the nature of work and its relation to utility; social interdependence in decision-making; economic growth as the principal objective of modern socio-economic systems; the overall importance of market externalities; the pervasiveness of market power and its impact on consumers; and the relationship between property rights and economic justice. The outcome is that students are often left with the impression that unfettered markets necessarily deliver economic efficiency and just outcomes, resulting in a pedagogy that serves as ideology, legitimating prevailing and unequal social conditions. This article is intended to highlight these ideological aspects of the standard microeconomics curriculum and to offer professors some relatively simple strategies for addressing these issues without the need to significantly alter the curriculum.
... Ethico-social arguments for limits to inequality in the Western canon can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle and have more recently emerged from different disciplines. They include political economists, such as Thorstein Veblen (1899Veblen ( [2005), political scientists such as Fred Hirsch (1977), economists such as Robert Frank (2000), eudaimonic psychologists such as Richard Ryan and Edward Deci (2001), sociologists such as Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (2009) and political philosophers such as Ingrid Robeyns (2017Robeyns ( , 2019. ...
This paper addresses a neglected aspect of the UK housing crisis: how to
rapidly but fairly decarbonise the housing stock to meet tough net zero
targets while meeting housing needs of the entire population. To do so the
authors adopt a radical approach based on sufficiency. The sufficiency
approach is based on determining both a housing floor – a decent minimum
standard for all – and a housing ceiling - above which lies unsustainable
excess. The authors define these thresholds in terms of bedrooms and
floorspace and analyse the distribution of housing in England. They find
that excess housing is widespread, concentrated in home ownership,
particularly outright ownership, and characterised by above average
emissions per square metre. They conclude that current policies based
solely on energy efficiency and increasing housing supply cannot achieve
agreed decarbonisation goals while securing decent accommodation for
those who are housing deprived. To do this will require new policies that
distinguish between sufficient and excess housing and more effective use
of the housing stock to meet housing needs within planetary boundaries.
... It is at first known by few people, who in turn potentially acquire some sort of advantage vis-à-vis fellow researchers, if not society at large. In this respect, all knowledge begins as what economists call a positional good, namely, its value is tied directly to its scarcity (Hirsch, 1976). This initial condition makes knowledge ripe for rent. ...
... These skills also increasingly dawn on the nature of being more and more specialized. Alongside an "absolute" return to specialized education, education also becomes about "positional competition," meaning that workers acquire skills to differentiate themselves from other competitors in the labor market (Hirsch, 1976). In the worst case, some have argued that education becomes a form of credentialism, meaning that it is a barrier to entry into high paid work, but one that adds little value to productivity (Collins, 1979;Dore, 1976). ...
... While members of the middle and working classes may eschew legitimate cultural practices or regard them with suspicion and disdain, the position of the dominant class at the pinnacle of the cultural hierarchy normally goes unchallenged because it appears to be built upon ease, casualness and natural superiority. The competition for positional goods (Hirsch 1976) is mediated through a social logic referred to by Bourdieu (1984) as distinction, perceived as natural differences. The result of the naturalisation of the specifically capitalist character of production and consumption relations is that economic growth appears to be the ideal breeding ground for upward mobility and progress and in everyone's interest. ...
As a research field, social movement and political project, degrowth is a multifaceted phenomenon. It brings together a range of practices including alternative forms of living and transformative initiatives in civil society, business and the state. Yet no comprehensive theory of degrowth transformations has so far been developed. Deep Transformations fills this gap. It develops a theory of degrowth transformations drawing on insights from multiple fields of knowledge, such as political economy, sociology and philosophy. The book offers a holistic perspective that brings into focus transformation processes on various scales and points to various mechanisms that can facilitate degrowth. These include, for instance, eco-social policies, transformative initiatives in business and civil society and alternative modes of being in and relating with the world.
... Nor should we forget the growing thrust of technological change. Education has become a positional good (Hirsch, 2005;Salem et al., 2009). Everything seems to indicate that at the level of social mechanisms, this change of circumstances led to less risk aversion as gains outweighed losses (Breen & Yaish, 2006). ...
Same performance, different paths. Social status, school performance and choices after compulsory Mismos rendimientos, diferentes trayectorias. Estatus social, desempeño escolar y decisiones tras la educación obligatoria education https://doi. Abstract The sociological literature has made great efforts to clarify the effect of social origin on educational trajectories. This influence has been analyzed directly, based on the impact of social origin on school decisions, and indirectly, considering school performance (Boudon, 1974). However, to date, the study of primary and secondary effects in Spain has been carried out considering a dual scenario (Baccalaureate versus vocational training). Consequently, those who, having completed compulsory education, do not attain any post-compulsory education qualification have yet to be considered. The non-analysis of students who drop out of school can lead to a statistical bias in the educational performance analysis. To account for the role of social origin, this paper examines students' educational performance in a multiple-choice context, considering options such as dropout, Vocational Training, or Baccalaureate. Our purpose is to find out to what extent social origin affects school decisions when we measure individuals with the same performance, measured through the scores in Language in the last year. Employing a mediation model (non-linear probability nested, KHB model) with the longitudinal survey of the 238 Marqués-Perales, I., Herrera-Usagre, M. Same performance, different paths. Social status, school performance and choices after compulsory Revista de Educación, Andalusian Panel on Education and Labor Market Transitions (IECA, 2010 and 2018, n=1,502), our results indicate that the direct effect of socioeconomic status explains up to two-thirds in the variability of educational decisions after post-compulsory education. On the other hand, the indirect effect of social background , i.e., its direct influence on academic performance, manages to explain up to one-third of the variability in educational decisions. Far from disappearing, socioeconomic status continues to influence educational choices, even when controlling for achievement. Resumen La literatura sociológica ha desplegado grandes esfuerzos para esclarecer el efecto que tiene origen social en las trayectorias educativas. Esta influencia se ha analizado tanto de forma directa, a partir del impacto que tiene el origen social en las decisiones escolares, como indirecta, tomando en consideración el rendimiento escolar (Boudon, 1974). No obstante, hasta la fecha en España, el estudio de efectos primarios y secundarios se ha realizado tomando en con-sideración un escenario dual (bachillerato versus formación profesional). En consecuencia, no han sido considerados aquellos que, habiendo terminado la educación obligatoria, no alcanzan ningún título de educación postobligatoria. Esto supone dejar de analizar una parte importante de la población estudiantil pudiéndose generar un sesgo estadístico. El presente trabajo trata de dar cuenta del papel del origen social consideran-do el rendimiento educativo del alumnado en un contexto de elección múltiple (Abandono, Formación Profesional o Bachillerato). Nuestro propósito radica en saber en qué medida el origen social actúa sobre las decisiones escolares cuando medimos a individuos que tienen el mismo rendimiento, medido a través de las puntuaciones en Lengua del último curso. Empleando un modelo de mediación (de probabilidad no lineal anidado, modelo KHB) con la encuesta longitudinal del Panel de Educación y Transiciones al Mercado Laboral de Andalucía (IECA, 2010 y 2018, n=1.502), nuestros resultados indican que el efecto directo del esta-tus socioeconómico explica hasta dos tercios en la variabilidad de las decisiones educativas tras la educación postobligatoria. Por otro lado, el efecto indirecto del origen social, es decir, su influencia en el rendimiento académico logra explicar hasta un tercio de la variabilidad de las decisiones educativas. Lejos de desapa-recer, el estatus socioeconómico sigue condicionando las decisiones educativas incluso cuando se controla por rendimiento. Por último, estos resultados cor-roboran la existencia de un efecto de compensación en los estudiantes de alto estatus socioeconómico y bajo rendimiento. 239 Marqués-Perales, I., Herrera-Usagre, M. Same performance, different paths. Social status, school performance and choices after compulsory Revista de Educación,
... Leontief [75] examined the environmental implications of the global economy, offering a range of alternative scenarios for the world's population, economic growth, and environmental conditions in the ensuing decades. Growth does, in fact, have limits, but they are more influenced by social than by physical factors, claims Hirsch [60]. According to Botkin et al. [14], new approaches to education and learning are especially important for addressing global issues and bridging the gap between the risks and complexity of these issues and our inadequately developed capacity to address them. ...
In honor of its 50th anniversary, the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) held its XXV World Conference in Paris. The conference provided a venue for reviewing earlier developments and reevaluating prospective directions in the futures field. Scientific-based futures studies has a long history, drawing from a variety of fields including sociology, policy sciences, philosophy of science, economic prognostics, and environmental sustainability. Futures studies became widely acknowledged as an academic discipline in the 1960s when it became evident in the global scientific community. The 1970s saw a focus on global challenges and discussions about preferred futures. The synthesis of futures studies emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, with critical and evolutionary approaches contributing to the advancement of theoretical foundations. The twenty-first century focuses on anticipation and futures literacy, the development of post-normal, metamodern, and integral approaches, and the attainment of foresight in common practice. Future research is expected to focus on various aspects, including artificial general intelligence (AGI), socio-technical transitions, singularity, sustainability, societal collapses, entrepreneurial innovation, energy futures, decolonization, negation and post-prefix notions, systemic foresight, applied foresight, and on-site foresight. Future research activities are expected to also include research objects, policy challenges, and problems that do not yet exist.
... Üstüner and Holt, 2010). This is potentially problematic from a postgrowth-perspective since consumption, which in turn uses natural resources, is used to build identity and cultural capital (Hirsch, 1976). While consumption of crafted goods might be a way of elevating one's position in society, the key to distinguishing status consumption from craftoriented consumption lies in how the consumed object is treated rather than in what we consume. ...
How may a "craft-orientation" facilitate a shift toward an ecologically sustainable economy that does not perceive the pursuit of economic growth as a self-evident good? Responding to this question, this paper is rooted in the argument that efforts to increase economic growth collide with ecological sustainability goals and pose a substantial threat to human prosperity. Drawing on key insights from scholarship on craft, we establish the notion of craft-orientation, understood as (i) activity guided by the desire to do a job well for its own sake, (ii) prioritization of human engagement over machine control, standardization and efficiency, and (iii) an epistemic rather than instrumental relationship to objects of production. By linking this orientation to postgrowth ideas, we advance knowledge of the relationship between craft and sustainability in three related ways. First, we add craft-orientation to the postgrowth toolbox by conceptualizing craft as a mode of organization that embodies and concretizes postgrowth ideas. This particularly involves the need to rethink efficiency and labor-intensiveness, the role of technology, and the localization of production and consumption. Second, addressing craft scholarship that seeks to understand the relationship between craft and sustainability, we strengthen the relevance of craft in discussions on sustainability by linking it with the concept of postgrowth. Third, grounded in the ontological assumption that the formulation of alternatives is performative, we situate our conceptualization of craft within current societal movements and show how these movements create enabling conditions for the future influence of craft-orientation as an important mode of organizing for postgrowth society.
... The theory of credentialism maintains that an increase in the level of education has prompted a process of inflation among qualifications: jobseekers have an increasingly higher level of studies, yet this has not gone hand-in-hand with the creation of more highly qualified jobs (Mason, 2002). This has led to an increase in the requirements for finding a job and not so much an increase in the level of qualification required (Collins, 1979;Hirsch, 1977). Employers are faced with a large supply of qualified workers willing to take jobs that do not require that level of education. ...
This study analyses the working conditions of highly educated mobile workers in five major European Union (EU) markets. The study uses the overeducation indicator, analyzing its transformation over the period 2005–2016. Using annual data from the European Union Labour Force Survey, the results reveal very different conditions between home country nationals and mobile workers from newer (enlargement)—EU-13—and older—EU-15—member states from the perspective of successful economic and social integration. The EU enlargement process has not completely removed the penalty for educated workers from EU-13 countries, but it has significantly reduced it, as has the premium received by mobile workers from other EU-15 member states, thus leading to their better integration and greater equality.
... The previous publications of Easterlin (1974), Scitovsky (1976), and Hirsch (1976) served as the foundation for the empirical study of happiness. But these studies primarily used income as the basic predictor of happiness. ...
The study for the 1 st time examines electricity-happiness nexus in Central Asia over the period 1996-2022 employing Panel methods such as Quantile and threshold regressions. The findings document that the association between electricity and happiness is negative in general. However, the results reveal that economic development stage plays a crucial role in the context of electricity-happiness nexus. More specifically the negative effect of electricity on happiness decreases as economic development grows. Policy implications that focus on developing the economies in a sufficient level to achieve stable electricity supply and transition on renewable energy, should be encouraged consequently the rate of happiness will increase in Central Asian region.
... It has been questioned from both the social and the ecological side, whether the paradigm has the capability to meet the alarming challenges of global wellbeing, climate change, and biodiversity loss. It has been claimed already in the 1970s, that stronger sustainability actions are urgently needed, and indeed a paradigm shift towards the limits to growth approach (Meadows et al. 1972;Hirsch 1976;Daly 1977). It means that rather than settling for efficiency gains and relative improvements, we need to think in terms of absolute limits to material development and absolute reduction of our negative impact on both nature and climate, especially in affluent countries (Naess and Moberg 2021). ...
In the face of the climate crisis, cities have committed to ambitious sustainability targets. The UN Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a globally shared language for decision-makers and policymakers regarding their sustainability objectives. Espoo, Finland's second-largest city, has become a pioneer in implementing the Agenda, not least due to its recent nomination as 'Europe's most sustainable city'. This article investigates the use of the Agenda in strategic governance in Espoo with the aim to identify challenges and opportunities of SDG localisation. Although the Agenda has affected many aspects of policymaking in Espoo and ambitions have been high to shine as an SDG pioneer, a systematic integration of sustainability concerns into policymaking is not yet achieved. Moreover, there is a need to question the reliance of the Agenda framework on the ecological modernisation paradigm, which does not see economic growth and ecological sustainability at odds.
... The so called 'social limits to growth' argumentation has a long history but in the last sixty years or so has gradually permeated into economic and environmental policy discussions. The position taken is that fast growing economies (in GDP terms) will not necessarily result in increased levels of social welfare and wellbeing, either at the individual level or more broadly through communities and regions (Mishan, 1978;Daly, 1973;Hirsch, 1976;Raworth, 2017;Hansen, 2022). Most recently, the position has been buttressed by analysis showing that inequality is often associated with inefficiencies in the economy which require correction (Stiglitz, 2013). ...
... At the same time, the Global South, the peripheries and the lower classes have to face emergencies at an early stage. 2. Competition for status: The economist Fred Hirsch [54] argues that (unequal) economic growth does not serve to satisfy solely basic needs. Rather, a significant part is caused by a culture-driven will to downwards social demarcation. ...
As climate change is not just a climate-related problem, social inequality is not only a problem of poor people. This essay explains why a structural social inequality, also in the distribution of power, is one of the main causes of the current polycrisis and inhibits a transformation of our society towards sustainability. Nevertheless, the institutional debate on "sustainable development" in the frame given by the United Nations and governmental organizations continues to suffer from a social blindness, because it is still ideologically trapped in the dominant development model of modernization. While modernization is an expression of a separation thinking and consider privileges and disadvantages as independent from each other, sustainability (in a broader meaning) is an expression of an interconnected thinking. It stands for a good life not at the expense of others: Global South, peripheries, lower classes, future generations, and nature. What our society celebrates as "economic growth" is mostly based on an incomplete invoice in which externalized costs are hidden. At prosperity islands' visible and invisible borders, structures of social inequality act like a "sorting machine" that sets who experiences development as progress and who as a recession; who benefits from it and who pays the price. Because on a limited planet each growing order causes a growing disorder elsewhere (according to the laws of thermodynamics), the current environmental crisis cannot be overcome without changing the structures and relations within the society. A sustainable transformation requires a fair redistribution of wealth, opportunities, and power-it means also a "democratization of democracy" in the Western countries. This essay is largely based on discourse analysis, literature and Internet research.
... The term positionality refers to the idea that the value of educational credentials is attributable, in part, to their relative scarcity in the population. The term derives from the concept of positional good which was coined by Hirsch [14]. The fiercer the competition for educational success, the more likely it is to be affected by the resources that are available to the affluent and educated social strata. ...
This paper investigates the transmission of educational attainment from parents to offsprings as a mediator of intergenerational class mobility in Europe. The study covers the last two decades with data drawn from a cross-national large scale sample survey, namely the European Social Survey (ESS), for the years 2002 - 2018. Interest has focused on the question of persistence of inequality of educational opportunities by examining attainment of nominal levels of education and the association between the educational attainment of the parent with the highest level of education and their descendants. The study covers also new trends in social mobility which consider education as a ‘positional good’ and a novel method of incorporating educational expansion into the transition probabilities is proposed, providing answers to whether the rising accessibility of educational qualifications attenuates the association between social origin and educational attainment. Therefore, the concept of positionality is taken into account in the estimation of intergenerational transition probabilities and to complement the analysis mobility measures are provided for both methods, nominal and positional. The proposed positional method is validated through a correlation analysis between the upward mobility scores (nominal and positional) with the Education Expansion Index (EEI) for the respective years. The upward mobility scores estimated via the positional method are higher correlated with the EEI for all years indicating a better alignment with the broader trends in educational participation and achievement.
... It was during the Seventies that the environmental question entered the policy debate with the publication of 'The Limits to Growth: a Report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind' (Meadows et al., 1972): this approach called for qualitative improvements in living conditions decoupled from a quantitative increase in consumption (Daly, 1974), stressing the existence of limits in terms of increase in individual satisfaction (Easterlin, 1974), social limits to growth (Hirsch, 1976) and, foremost, environmental equilibrium (Lovelock, 1979). These approaches, which, somehow inevitably, led to a theory of the steady state, were immediately challenged by a broad public that considered such instances acceptable only in a society informed by principles of justice and equity and capable of ensuring decent living conditions for all its members (ILO, 1976;Emmerij, 1984). ...
This paper illustrates the interplay between economic growth and social inclusion, whereas the latter is produced by the organizations of the social and solidarity economy, highlighting its synergies with the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. Assuming that economic growth and social inclusion are not antinomic concepts, but, rather, the two sides of the same coin, technological progress can be restricted to the subset of the eco-efficient innovations, and social inclusion can be added to the arguments of a production function, thus obtaining a macroeconomic model encompassing the three dimensions of sustainable development. By introducing social inclusion in a modified Solow model, the paper illustrates how the former is an important driver of economic growth and can complement input accumulation, reducing the inconsistencies between growth and development. Given the heterogeneity among equilibrium level of output of different countries, this model identifies an alternative pattern of development, compatible with the initial conditions of a low resource economy lacking endogenous technological progress. This research provides a strong case for the integration of socio-economic and environmental concerns into policy planning, building on the specific resources that can be mobilised and the peculiar socio-economic needs expressed by society.
JEL codes: O00; O35; Q01; L30
... In economics, Herman Daly's (1977) "steady-state economics", and the works of his tutor Georgescu-Roegen (1971, 1975 on "bioeconomics", initiated what has now become the heterogenous, and often contradictory, school of ecological economics (Spash 2020). Other seminal contributions considered the environmental limits to growth (Meadows et al. 1972), issues of scale (Schumacher 1973), paradoxes of income growth (Easterlin 1974), and the social impossibility of "keeping up" with the consumeristic trade mill (Hirsch 1977). ...
This report introduces post-growth and degrowth literature and arguments to position the Finnish bioeconomy within the existing alternatives to the increasingly challenged idea of green growth. The bioeconomy has emerged as a central pillar of Finland’s economic policy since the early 2010s. The current Bioeconomy Strategy of the Finnish Government aims to double the bioeconomy by 2035 by shifting the focus from production volumes to value added. Accordingly, the objective is to accelerate the yearly growth of the bioeconomy from 3% up to 6%, with-out exacerbating environmental degradation. The dominant bioeconomy visions, both in Fin-land and elsewhere, hinge on the possibility of green economic growth: that is, decoupling ecological destruction from economic growth through technical innovation, circularity, and other forms of process upgrading.
While empirical research shows several cases of relative decoupling, these are often limited to single environmental indicators, short periods of time, and/or territorially defined national economies. On the contrary, absolute decoupling that is global and sufficiently large and fast is empirically unsupported and, therefore, unlikely within the current mindsets, values, praxis and models of development.
Drawing on the burgeoning scientific literatures questioning the possibility of green growth, we argue that the Finnish bioeconomy policy targets lack robust empirical evidence, and we call for the relevant actors to revisit the current bioeconomy strategy and reconsider the assumptions of green growth.
In this report, building on postgrowth and degrowth propositions and arguments, we discuss the feasibility, modalities, and desirability of alternative pathways to growth-centred approaches. After having reviewed the main strands of degrowth policy, we introduce them to the Finnish case to lay out the preliminary outline of a transformation from a growth-centred economy to a society free from the imperatives of growth, endless expansion, and accumulation.
To avoid further economic insecurity and deprivation of marginalised groups, a post-growth bioeconomy requires (i) embracing onto-epistemic justice and plurality, together with unlearning oppressive and extractive practices; (ii) rapidly descaling harmful activities and sectors together with embracing simplicity and slower-paced lifestyles; (iii) re-centring economic provisioning around socioecological well-being and economic justice; (iv) democratising economic practices, both nationally and internationally, by pulling the bioeconomy out of the corporate grip.
These suggestions are not to be used as a blueprint, but as guiding principles. Their opera- tionalisation requires fostering public dialogue, democratic deliberation and ground-up insti- tution building to imagine and codesign more realistic, equitable, and collectively desired futures beyond growth and socioecological violence. As a preliminary discussion, introducing the problems of the current bioeconomy based on green growth, and the potential models and paradigms beyond growth, the report lays out the foundation for imagining and codesigning more specific pathways towards socio-ecologically viable and just post-growth bioeconomy and post-growth futures in Finland.
... Considering data from 1955 to 1971, Duncan (1975) showed that while median income increased by 40% the distribution of life satisfaction was unchanged. A similar theme is taken up in Hirsch (1977) and Scitovsky (1976), as well as Frank (1985). ...
Employing various panel data analyses including threshold panel model, this paper has examined how economic status determines the relationship among democracy, macroeconomic variables and happiness. Considering panel data of 83 countries over the time period from 2010 to 2016, this study tries to establish that, factors determining subjective well-being (SWB) or life satisfaction has different effects differently for low and high income countries. This study has found that though per capita GDP has no direct impact on happiness, it establishes the role of other variables in determining happiness. It has been found that countries with higher level of income democratic quality and inflation have significant impact on happiness. The impact of democratic quality is positive whereas the impact is negative in case of inflation. Moreover, inequality and health expenditure per capita by the government respectively have negative and positive impact in case of low income countries. It is also evident that unemployment has a strict negative impact across all type of countries but the magnitude is higher in low income countries.
... That is how a basic cause for high unemployment often emerges, known as "the crowding out" (Teulings and Koopmanschap 1989). In this concept, education is referred as "positional" (Hirsch 1977), it serves as an indicator of worker's trainability implying estimate of training costs for employers. It may become a 'defensive expenditure necessary to protect one's market share' (Thurow 1975), that is, individuals may have to invest in additional education simply to maintain their relative position in the labor queue if other workers are also obtaining additional education. ...
This paper examines the availability and significance of internationally comparable statistics (classifications and indicators) in studying labor market outcomes of education. The study employs mixed-methods approach, building on time-series data for twenty years long period (2002-2022). The study presents functional interpretation of the modern structure and reciprocity of standardized labor market information; adds to the methodology of collecting and analyzing labor market data; and identifies some missing data needed to inform economic policy and enhance job security. Selective review of education-work literature delineates five orthodox theories of relationship with foremost respect to information that were further compared and analyzed with respect to data conformity and ability to support economic choices. Though much has been done, the present study finds considerable support in further methodological development in raising the scale and convergence of the statistical coverage for help increasing transparency and effectiveness of both labor markets and school systems. This research employs only sound orthodox labor market theory and uses internationally comparable aggregate statistics from OECD, ILO, UNESCO, and UN. Due to the changing structure of the labor markets any further follow-up studies will be a must.
... For example, credential inflation theory hypothesizes that the association between education and the social destination position weakens as the value of educational credentials to job applicants decreases as high educational degrees expand (Collins, 1979;Hirsch, 2005;Spence, 1973;Thurow, 1975). In contrast, skill-biased technological change (SBTC) theorists assume that the link between education and the social destination position does not necessarily diminish over time, as the increase in the number of highly educated individuals could be (at least in part) absorbed by the rising creation of highly skilled jobs in the process of occupational upgrading (Acemoglu, 2002). ...
This contribution highlights that conventional social mobility research in the sociological sciences is faced with a severe limitation, as it neglects the importance of intercohort changes in the social origin structure. This is illustrated by the example of OED triangle research, in which compositional changes are only partially recognized as important factors for social fluidity. The paper shows that the implications of an intercohort compositional change of social origin in the process of educational expansion and occupational change have often been overlooked in this literature. The paper makes theoretical and methodological suggestions for a better integration of the compositional change of social origin into future empirical analyses of the OED triangle.
... These principles are seen as the basis of future prosperity. Somewhat counter-intuitively, folk discourse demonstrates people's apprehension of complex phenomena that recently turned into sociological and anthropological concerns; they are the precedence of consumption and the symbolic value of objects (Baudrillard, 1996), relative social positioning (Frank, 2007) and positional goods (Hirsch, 2013), inseparability between moral and material aspects of debt (Peebles, 2010), as well as devastating consequences of resource waste. It is also evident that traditional Russian views on financial prudence and living within one's means are consistent with the sustainable development agenda of nowadays. ...
The Veblenian concept of different dispositions driving social behavior is applied in the discourse analysis of folkloric material. A sample of 935 proverbs and sayings represents the 19th century Russian popular discourse on housekeeping, work, consumption, spending, borrowing, lending, and debt. We compare the beliefs and messages carried by the folklore with the ideas of Thorstein Veblen. The core values of the past and the traditional habits of thought turn out to be much less ceremonial than conventional wisdom might imply. In Veblenian parlance, they are rather ‘productive’ and conducing to household welfare. Parsimony, providence and thrift, financial prudence and shrewd housekeeping, pragmatic learning and diligence at work, are socially approved and spurred. On the other hand, some behavior types currently associated with ‘progress’, welfare or ‘innovation’, were perceived as unproductive. Negative connotations are attached in the folklore to behavior such as overconsumption, indolence, greed, waste, ostentation, conspicuousness and inept dandyism, which often led to borrowing and debt. We conclude that the ceremonial character/nature of traditional institutions might be greatly exaggerated, whereas their instrumentality understated. It challenges the notion that tradition is mainly about ceremony, and that traditional values are hopelessly obsolete. Old habits such as self-reliance, self-restraint in finance and consumption, waste prevention, anti-consumerism and anti-acquisition, appear consistent with the sustainable development agenda. We also argue that Veblenian ethical ideas as well as his method remain relevant for socio-economic research.
... While members of the middle and working classes may eschew legitimate cultural practices, or regard them with suspicion and disdain, the position of the dominant class at the pinnacle of the cultural hierarchy normally goes unchallenged, because it appears to be built upon ease, casualness and natural superiority. What Hirsch (1976) called the competition for "positional goods" is mediated through a genuinely social logic that Bourdieu refers to as "distinction", perceived as natural differences. The naturalization of the specifically capitalist character of production and consumption relations is, hence, a general feature of all capitalist economies, yet perceived as rational interactions of autonomous market subjects (Bourdieu, 2005). ...
... Research on the possession of a good as a measure of social status goes back, at least to Veblen (1899) who introduced the term conspicuous consumption, i.e., the consumption of goods to publicly display economic power. Alongside Hirsch (1977), they argued that the consumption of such goods satisfies both utilitarian and social needs (i.e., status display). In line with our model, Leibenstein (1950) shows that the demand for a positional good is decreasing in the number of consumers purchasing it. ...
We provide an alternative behavioral approach to the well-known argument that a merger to monopoly is desirable only when it is accommodated by a (supply-side) technology transfer and cost reduction. When consumers are subject to positional effects, like status or envy, there are instances where a merger to monopoly may be welfare-enhancing due to a (demand-side) utility-increasing argument.
JEL Classification: L11; D11; D42.
This chapter describes the economic Growth Trap wherein the West has fallen. It explains why and how neoliberal capitalism depends on everlasting economic growth. This has resulted in ecological overshoot, of which climate change is a symptom. The Growth Trap has also fostered socio-political instability, rising inequality, job insecurity, and ruptured the social fabric. This chapter also introduces the Great Stagnation, which, since the 1970s, has been slowly ending the Great Take-Off and Great Acceleration described in Chap. 1. While the Great Stagnation could reduce ecological overshoot in the West, the increasingly zero-sum economy that it is resulting in brings its own hazards. More specifically, as this book shows, under the pressure of the Growth Trap, the Great Stagnation will accentuate the dangers of the decline in oil, the rise of the Oligarchy and of the Permanent War Economy. It creates a dilemma of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” as far as economic growth is concerned.
W prezentowanym studium badamy trwałość przynależności do klas produktywności badawczej na poziomie indywidualnym w ciągu całej kariery akademickiej. Analizujemy przebieg kariery 2326 polskich profesorów tytularnych, uwzględniając ich biografie naukowe i historie publikacyjne. Badamy daty kolejnych awansów naukowych i liczbę publikacji (79 027 artykułów) pomiędzy awansami w ciągu 20-40 lat pracy naukowej w 14 dyscyplinach (nauki ścisłe, techniczne, inżynieryjne, matematyczne i medyczne, czyli w obszarze STEMM). Interesuje nas przemieszczanie się pomiędzy trzema klasami produktywności – najwyższą, przeciętną i najniższą – w trakcie kariery profesorów, od etapu doktoratu do etapu profesury tytularnej.
Zastosowaliśmy tutaj unikalne podejście do produktywności: produktywność znormalizowaną do prestiżu czasopisma, w ramach której większą wagę przypisuje się artykułom publikowanym w czasopismach o dużym wpływie na rozwój nauki niż w czasopismach o niskim wpływie, uznając tym samym wysoki stopień stratyfikacji nauki akademickiej pod kątem miejsca publikacji (zasada „publikacja nierówna publikacji”).
Nasze wyniki pokazują, że połowa najbardziej produktywnych doktorów kontynuowała pracę jako najbardziej produktywni doktorzy habilitowani, a z kolei połowa najbardziej produktywnych doktorów habilitowanych kontynuowała pracę jako najbardziej produktywni profesorowie tytularni (52,6% i 50,8%). Przechodzenie naukowców od najwyższej do najniższej i od najniższej do najwyższej klasy produktywności występowało w niewielkim stopniu: dotyczyło tylko 100 (4,3%) naukowców. W modelach regresji logistycznej dwoma silnymi czynnikami warunkującymi przynależność do najwyższej klasy produktywności wśród profesorów tytularnych okazały się wysoka produktywność w okresie bycia doktorem i wysoka produktywność w okresie bycia doktorem habilitowanym (zwiększając szanse średnio o 179% i 361%). Ani płeć, ani wiek (biologiczny lub akademicki) nie okazały się statystycznie istotne.
As the challenges posed by climate change, limited resources, and social inequality continue to intensify across the globe, with a renewed emphasis on mental health, democracy, and improving life quality, the idea of "degrowth" has emerged as a feasible solution to the conventional pursuit of endlessly increasing economic growth. Degrowth advocates for decreasing economic activities and consumption to reduce the ecological footprint of humans, whilst concurrently promoting social justice, democratization, and improved well being through various proposals.
We highlight the need to revolutionize child education to enable an effective transition towards a degrowth society. It is during childhood, that we learn how to behave as a member of our society and when we develop the character, habits, and future adult's underlying values. It is from conception until adolescence when the main human development process occurs shaping our future being (Maté & Maté, 2022).
We ' ve address a literature review on childhood education and degrowth. From this analysis two important gaps have been detected. One related with the childhood stage of human life which is not specifically addressed in any of the studies. Second, most of the approaches to tackle this issues, are centre in contents and in environmental education but missing deuteropedagogy or hidden curriculum approaches. In terms of how people learn from their environment, Gregory Bateson (1998) suggests that the social context and the way in which messages are conveyed play a crucial role in teaching and learning, rather than the content itself. He introduces deutero-learning as a subconscious process that is more powerful than explicit education.
In the same vein, Bauman (2001) notes that Mead, after summarising decades of studying lifestyles in different societies, concluded that the social structure and learning process in a society profoundly influences how individuals think and share knowledge, beyond the actual content of learning.
By examining the existing body of knowledge, we aim to shed light on how early life experiences and socialisation shape individuals' perceptions, beliefs and behaviours in adulthood, particularly in the context of intersubjective social perceptions and political engagement.
The formation of symbolic frameworks, cultural representations and shared meanings that shape an individual's understanding of society and the world begins, it is argued, with early socialisation within the family and educational institutions.
People's worldview or 'common sense' is a major axis of behaviour and political culture, while childhood experiences and learning are crucial for the later development of adult political behaviour (Inglehart, 1991; Amenabar Bieitia, 2014).
Darcia Narvaez (2013, 2024) contrasts nomadic foraging communities, which prioritize children's needs, with modern cultures that often neglect them. She highlights the first six years as crucial for social skills and relational intelligence, fostered by caregiver interactions and the Evolved Developmental Niche (EDN), which supports cooperation and compassion.
One of the objectives of this study in progress is to examine the impact of education (formal and not formal) on the reproduction of the growth ideology and the damaging values and behaviours promoted by capitalism and modernity. Frankfurt School's thinkers, such as Fromm and Marcuse, criticized the emphasis on possession over intrinsic human values and the problematic psychological premises of capitalism. These include the pursuit of happiness through material pleasure and the belief that selfishness promotes harmony.
They advocate for a reconciliation with nature and challenge the market-driven desire for consumption.
Hirsch argues how money has become an end, undermining societal bonds and increasing individualism which consequently impacts in mental illnesses. Some authors (Han, 2012; Fisher, 2016; Alonso Fernández, 2017) link rising depression rates in affluent societies as systemic, linked to the socioeconomic system, and not as caused by biological or individual reasons as it is many times presented.
The goal of this research is to find a way to empower individuals with the practices, mentality, and principles necessary to disengage from the growth society, tightly linked to the work and consume society. An education that encourages alternative values and customs that can facilitate healthier human and planetary existences. We examine the potential and challenges of degrowth education, addressing some of the major obstacles to viable solutions to the current multidimensional crisis.
Degrowth pedagogy (Prádanos, 2015) focuses on deconstructing the neoliberal subject (Díez-Gutiérrez et al., 2019). To achieve a feasible degrowth transition, implementing an ethic of limits (Jones, 2021; Kallis, 2019) must promote self-regulation, cooperation, and care as opposed to individualism, competition, and materialism. Encouraging frugality and promoting performative democratic education are crucial. Our objectives are to explore methods for decolonising the imaginary (Latouche, 2008) and to evaluate the significance of childhood education in the reproduction of the socioeconomic system. We will approach this issue through three dimensions which connect education with degrowth criticism and prescriptions: planetary boundaries and the call for frugality; the deepening of democracy with the call for critical thinking and participation; and the substitution of competition for cooperation and care in the quest for eradicating misery. This approach is debated at the crossroads of anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology and political science.
We want to combine the above macro argument with the analysis of what we consider case evidence, as revealed the data extracted from the preliminary research on the literature and observant participation at "O Pelouro" school, in Galicia (Spain).
The school was established in 1973 in Caldelas de Tui, adopting a unique experimental, innovative and inclusive approach to education. It seems to meet the requirements we are looking for, such as a democratic, caring and emotional approach, as well as the absence of quantifiable assessment, age and subject divisions or conventional timekeeping. We intend to explore the aims of the founder/principal and other school staff, and to examine the outcomes of different cohorts of pupils and families who have attended the school over the last 50 years, to see if it can serve as a model for implementing some of the above ideas.
Ecology and Environment management
Este trabajo parte de la premisa de que un cambio profundo y amplio es necesario ante la crisis ecosocial global, que necesita de una autolimitación colectiva dada las actuales dinámicas de extralimitación ecológica y desigualdades sociales en las sociedades capitalistas contemporáneas. Para esta autolimitación colectiva se argumenta que la noción y praxis de la convivialidad, a la cual dio forma Ivan Illich por primera vez en la década de 1970, torna esencial. La convivialidad se manifiesta y tiene el potencial de expandirse a través de transformaciones agroecológicas en el sistema alimentario que constituyen un nexo primordial entre lo material y lo sociocultural, permitiendo cambios en los imaginarios sociales dominantes. Estos cambios se traducen y encarnan en prácticas sociales e institucionales relacionales que tienen el potencial de situar la interdependencia, la ecodependencia, la vulnerabilidad y el cuidado como principios básicos del funcionamiento democrático para una transformación socioecológica post- capitalista que permita superar la crisis ecosocial global.
Providing an in-depth, novel analysis of education’s role in today’s economy by scrutinizing its theoretical underpinnings, this volume critiques the suitability of the current, dominant economic framework for education and for shaping educational policymaking worldwide.
Critically examining the history and philosophy that underpin our present societal understanding of the link between economics and education, the book argues for an urgent redefining of education’s role in the economy based on intellectual foundations that significantly differ from our current, dominant conceptions. Across seven chapters, the book posits that the adoption of a new philosophical framework, the reshaping of economic and educational aims, and the adjustment of our educational system are each necessary to better promote human flourishing.
Ultimately providing a platform to entirely reconsider the idea that the primary aim of education is to serve the economic system – in particular, economic growth – this book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students studying educational policy, the philosophy of education, and the history of education more broadly. Education policymakers and academics studying education and the economy may also find this book of interest.
Le développement rapide d’Internet amène à penser que ce réseau pourrait devenir un outil important pour les entreprises. Afin d’évaluer ce potentiel, nous analysons Internet sous deux angles : celui de l’industrie, et celui de l’utilisateur. Ces observations conduisent à quelques éléments de détermination des facteurs clés de succès présents et à venir sur ce secteur.
Solving environmental problems has been one of the most urgent tasks for both the scientific community and the world’s population in recent decades. Carbon emissions lead to climate change, which, along with environmental pollution, reduces biodiversity, leads to degradation of water and soil. The article discusses theoretical approaches to the green agenda and the resulting practical recommendations on regulating the activities of economic entities. Special attention is paid to the relationship between developed and developing countries, between which the environmental burden is distributed unevenly. Authors also propose ways of economic development aimed at increasing the welfare of the population and reducing the burden on the environment.
Along with the increasing development of society and economy, it is becoming more and more important to keep the balance for environment and development. In this context, air pollution control has become a key factor affecting economic and social development. Taking Wuhan’s air pollution situation as a sample and using the entropy method, this paper constructs an evaluation model of air pollution emission level, and evaluates the air pollution emission level of Wuhan. We can find that the total emissions of air pollution for Wuhan shows a gradual upward trend over time, which not only brings about economic growth, but also brings about the increasing emission of air pollution. And the air pollution in Wuhan mainly comes from industrial pollution. Meanwhile, among the weights of air pollution emission indicators, sulfur dioxide emission indicators and industrial sulfur dioxide emission indicators account for a large weight. It can be seen that although the overall pollutant emission level of Wuhan shows a downward trend, while paying attention to economic growth, we need to pay more attention to emission reduction and fossil energy consumption. Therefore, the government can reduce air pollution by focusing on detecting major polluting industries, promoting industrial technological progress and innovation, and strengthening the effective implementation of emission trading system.
The fully updated second edition of this innovative textbook provides a system analysis approach to sustainability for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. To an extent unparalleled in other textbooks, the latest scientific data and insights are integrated into a broad and deep transdisciplinary framework. Readers are encouraged to explore and engage with sustainability issues through the lenses of a cultural and methodological pluralism which promotes dialogue and alliances in the search for a (more) sustainable future. Ideal for students and their teachers in sustainable development, environmental science and policy, ecology, conservation, natural resources and geopolitics, the book will also appeal to interested citizens, activists, and policymakers, exposing them to the variety of perspectives on sustainability issues. Review questions and exercises provide the opportunity for consolidation and reflection. Online resources include appendices with more advanced mathematical material, model answers, and a wealth of recommended additional sources.
Worldviews are defined as combinations of value orientations and belief systems. Both are an inevitable part of the sustainability disourse. Both can be correlated to the worldview dimensions (previous chapter). Values are empirically explored through surveys; several value categories have been proposed. Beliefs tend to be linked to values; they are difficult to explore empirically. Important beliefs have to do with the place of humans in Nature, the roots of good and evil, the role of human ingenuity, the constraints of the collective on the individual, and the balance between coordination and competition. Throughout the sustainability discourse, ethical questions about how to reconcile individual desires with what is considered collectively desirable emerge. I consider here briefly the roots and critique of Modernity ethics, and discuss some alternative and new ethical positions (virtue ethics, development and eco-spiritual ethics).
The quest for sustainable development is not only an existential need and an intellectual challenge, but also an emotional and ethical appeal for action. Underneath is what we need and expect from life, what we value in life and what we believe about life. Take SDG 1: No poverty, or SDG 2: Zero hunger. Poverty and hunger are surrounded by feelings of pity, generosity, ignorance, envy, guilt, hate and blame, and have explanations ranging from bad luck or laziness to corruption, mismanagement and war. The same is true for most of the other SDGs.
With the rise of modern behavioural economics and
increasing interest in subjective well-being research, the
question of the relationship between economics and
psychology has again been brought to the fore. Drawing on
the history of economic thought, this book explores the
historical relationship between the two disciplines. This book
will be invaluable reading to anyone interested in the history
of the study of economics and psychology, as well as of great
interest to students and scholars of history of economic
thought, psychological economics, behavioral economics
and the history and philosophy of social sciences.
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