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Economic Crisis & Paradigm Conflict Green Economy review culture and economic development power relationships and economic design scarcity, class & crisis.

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Presentation on theme: "Economic Crisis & Paradigm Conflict Green Economy review culture and economic development power relationships and economic design scarcity, class & crisis."— Presentation transcript:

1 Economic Crisis & Paradigm Conflict Green Economy review culture and economic development power relationships and economic design scarcity, class & crisis –waste & debt Post-Fordism & the Global Casino Postindustrial alternatives: creativity, community & abundance

2 Redefining Wealth Quantitative: Money & Material Accumulation Qualitative: Well-being Regeneration

3 Principles of a Green Economy 1.The Primacy of Human Need, Service, Use-value, Intrinsic Value & Quality 2.Following Natural Flows 3.Waste Equals Food 4.Elegance and Multifunctionality 5.Appropriate Scale / Linked Scale 6.Diversity 7.Self-Reliance, Self-Organization, Self-Design 8.Participation & Direct Democracy 9.Human Creativity and Development 10.The Strategic role of the Built-environment, the Landscape & Spatial Design

4 A Green Economy-1 1.The Service Economy Hot Showers and Cold Beer Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access, Shelter, Community, etc. People production 2. The Lake Economy Flowing with nature, Every output an input, Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the work. Biomimicry: integrate with and imitate natural systems.

5 Human Development in the Green Economy Production: human creativity the key Consumption: end-use Direct targeting of human need = massive resource savings Regulation: participation at all levels.

6 The Economy in Loops

7 A Green Economy-2 Substitutes human creativity for resources & energy: shift in labour/resources balance. –Human development should be the primary strategy for sustainability Eco-production: high eyes to acres ratio. Efficiency depends on participation.

8 Labour & Resource Relationship Industrial economy: resource-intensive. labour productivity: Substitutes resources for labour. Green Economy: people-intensive / resource-saving. Substitutes human creativity for resources

9 A Green Economy-3 The 3 Ds –Dematerialization doing more with less –Detoxification benign materials –Decentralization human & ecosystem scale

10 The Industrial Definition of Wealth Money Material N.B.: Perpetuation of the System demands the perpetuation of this definition

11 Industrialism: Accumulation Production-for-productions-sake Invisibility of key factors Centralization of production, massive upfront investment Focus on labour productivity : resources substitute for human energy Cog-labour: humans as component parts Regulation: controls as limits Scarcity-based: role of waste since WWII Globalization: free trade & intellectual property

12 Postindustrialism: Regeneration New relationship of culture to economics: centrality of human development Substitution of human creativity for resources Direct targeting of human need: conscious consumption Human-scale technologies: production distributed over the landscape ; Integration: ALL places are places of production Qualitative Wealth is PLACE-BASED Distributed regulation: incentives for positive action throughout economy. Self-reliance / interdependence: Trade recipes, not cookies

13 Industrialism: The Divided Economy Invisible Visible Use-value Exchange-value Consumption Production People Things Unpaid Paid Women Men Informal Formal Private Public

14 Invisible Economy (1) Total Productive System of an Industrial Society (layer cake with icing) GNP-Monetized ½ of Cake Top two layers Non-Monetized Productive ½ of Cake Lower two layers GNP Private Sector Rests on GNP Public Sector Rests on Social Cooperative Love Economy Rests on Natures Layer Private Sector PublicSector underground economy Love Economy Mother Nature All rights reserved.Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson 2

15 Invisible Economy (2)

16 Scarcity & Class... inequality & relative scarcity: 1. control of scarce resources &... 2. monopoly of high culture...by a minority.

17 Markets and Material Connection between needs, wealth & markets. the Invisible Hand: worked... 1.for an economy focused on meeting primary needs simplicity. 2.in a situation of relative scarcity 3.in the absence of sophisticated information technology

18 The Threat of Abundance Productivity boom of the Roaring Twenties –output outdistances worker wages Crisis of effective demand & structural overproduction: Great Depression as a reaction to potential abundance. White-collar work, universal education: the threat to cultural monopoly. –increasingly social character of production; rise of industrial unionism

19 The Post WW II Waste Economy Permanent War Economy The Suburb Economy: Oil / Autos / Subdivisions Note gender and racial subtext of sprawl

20 The greatest misallocation of resources in human history. …James Howard Kunstler

21 Keynesianism & the Crisis of Effective Demand Baran & Sweezy: crisis of profitable investment outlets for capitalism. Money: a tool of national economic planning. Strong domestic multipliers. The Paper Economy: growing disjunction between the real & financial economies Planned Inflation & Purchasing Power re-redistribution of income: offsetting wage hikes in the unionized sectors Debt & the Economic Treadmill: Work-and-spend

22 Fordism & the Reinforcement of Industrial Wealth Matter Waste Fordism Suburbanization/ Consumer Economy War Industry Money Debt Keynesianism Paper Economy Planned Inflation New forms of credit- money

23 1970s: End of the Line for the Fordist Waste Solution saturation of markets social & environmental costs coming due: fiscal crisis of the state limits to inflationary strategy Vietnam war, decline of the dollar, German/Japanese competition OPEC & the energy crisis –Petrodollars & Currency Crisis

24 Post-Fordist Casino Economy floating exchange rates: interest rate standard –Eurodollars & Petrodollars new technologies & Megabyte Money financial sector: 30-50 times (?) larger than the material economy Speculation: Stomp the weak / Get rich quick Empty wealth creation: de facto redistribution of wealth. The End of Mass Consumption & rise of new producer services: new forms of effective demand. Polarization of work and society –end of social contracts: attack on Welfare State –the growing gap between rich and poor

25 Debt & Forced Economic Growth 1.Competition for money 2.Lack of purchasing power 3.Wage dependency equals Export warfare The main point that needs to be understood is that in order for money to come into circulation, someone must go into debt to a bank. If there were no bank debt, there would be virtually no moneyits as simple as that. Since banks charge interest on all this debt, and since the money to pay the interest can come only from further debt, debt grows like a cancer within the global economic body. This debt imperative creates a growth imperative that is forcing us to destroy the life-support systems of the planet. –Thomas Greco

26 Debt in the US Economy 1970s: debt 1½ the size of GDP 1985: twice the size of GDP 2005: 3½ times the size of GDP

27 Source: Magdoff, 2008: calculated from tables L.1 and L.2; Flow of Funds Accounts of the US; and table B- 78 from the 2006 Economic Report of the President

28 The Global Casino: Hijacking the Information Revolution expansion of employment in speculative industry –Wall St.: more advanced technologically than the military. Bubble Economies: last frontiers for capitalist growth. -stock crash of 1987 -tech stock bubble of late 90s -housing bubble of 2001-07 Housing speculation: most destructive & exploitative of the poor & average people.

29 Decommodifying Money diversification of forms of everyday exchange –supporting the informational character of currencies. –undercutting the scarcity-power of money. financial industry restructured as public utility and/or service industry. –money directed to priority areas of green development –transition: green Tobin tax new forms of remuneration –direct consumption; basic incomes; account- money; free food, health care & housing gradually enlarging the sphere of gift relationships –consistent with new productive forces based in mass collaboration...or turns them into service workers

30 Living in De-Material World Redesign not controls Direct focus on human (& environmental) need The Service Economy: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) encouraging provision of services not stuff. Servicizing (voluntary EPR). The Lake Economy: economic biomimicry: sectoral orientation: regenerative food, energy, manufacturing, c ommunications. New forms of economic security Conscious support of the Commons Disarming the autonomous power of money Building a community/ecosystem base: localization.

31 Security in Gift Economies "In that way, the giving of surplus to friends and neighbours is not very far from the giving of surplus to the cashier in a bank. The quality of integrated society, like the legal rules of banking, guaranteed that the gift would not be forgotten and a future claim ignored. --Hugh Brodie on Irish rural life


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