This post is initial thoughts and ideas on a new\u00a0research\u00a0project. The post degenerates into a set of notes that will be fleshed out over the next few weeks and various issues will become the topics of further posts.<\/p>\n
It looks like we will have flat-line growth for another 4 to 5 years due to\u00a0the\u00a0economic crisis by which time the evidence we are closing in on the ecological buffers and\u00a0unsustainable\u00a0reliance on fossil fuel, oil in particular, will be even more irrefutable. In a recent talk by John Hollway in which he discussed three ways we can start both imagining and living in a way that is not dependent on monetary relations and consumerism he pointed to the role of necessity in Greece and\u00a0Argentina\u00a0as the driver for beginning to organise socially and live differently.<\/p>\n
Tim Jackson in his book\u00a0Prosperity\u00a0Without\u00a0Growth<\/strong><\/em> demonstrates very clearly that we are in a confronted with a seemingly impossible\u00a0dilemma\u00a0\u00a0between social and economic collapse if we don’t continue to grow (as\u00a0defined\u00a0by GDP) on the one hand and ecological collapse (leading to\u00a0social and economic collapse) if we do. His book is\u00a0concerned\u00a0with defining a new form of macro-economics that is based on new\u00a0definitions\u00a0of\u00a0prosperity that does not rely on continuing capital accumulation and\u00a0consumption\u00a0of consumer goods.\u00a0The sort of decoupling between economic growth and the\u00a0throughputs\u00a0of energy and material that is needed to preserve the rate of growth capitalism needs will be impossible to achieve. The only alternative is to devise a zero growth economy and find new ways of defining and achieving prosperity and a\u00a0meaningful\u00a0and satisfying way of life.<\/p>\n We seem to have\u00a0achieved\u00a0a zero growth economy.<\/p>\n Survival, Greece, Argentina, Detroit, etc. How are people adapting through necessity – the wasted lives and collateral damage of globalised and\u00a0deregulated\u00a0capitalism. Growth me return in the short to medium term but the\u00a0ecological\u00a0horn of the dilemma will kick in as some time. With peak oil this could be well before the end of this century. If so a zero growth\u00a0economy\u00a0and life style will only be delayed. The conditions we now face may just be a dress\u00a0rehearsal\u00a0for what the current younger and\u00a0subsequent\u00a0generations will have to deal with as their enduring reality.<\/p>\n Opportunities in terms of investigating new ways of living, new ways of deriving meaning,\u00a0satisfaction\u00a0and\u00a0fulfilment\u00a0from life, new ways of\u00a0relating\u00a0to one another, new forms of sociability and conviviality, new understanding about the social function of work, a new understanding of the public sector and civil society, new forms of citizen local, national and global citizenship.\u00a0Empirically, what is happening already as a reaction to and\u00a0accommodation\u00a0of austerity –\u00a0philosophically, culturally,\u00a0economically\u00a0and socially. What is the significance of this for\u00a0imagining\u00a0a more generalised non-growth economy and way of life. What are the implications of this for education, given the massive and cumulative investment in indoctrinating individuals socially and\u00a0psychologically\u00a0into the world based on\u00a0monetarised\u00a0social relationships, mediated through the language and ownership of consumer goods, carried out by the marketing and advertising industries\u00a0explicitly\u00a0and government policy and subtler forms of ideological\u00a0indoctrination.<\/p>\n Related resources:<\/p>\n One small Greek island\u2019s relentless struggle to get by This post is initial thoughts and ideas on a new\u00a0research\u00a0project. The post degenerates into a set of notes that will be fleshed out over the next few weeks and various issues will become the topics of further posts. It looks like we will have flat-line growth for another 4 to 5 years due to\u00a0the\u00a0economic crisis … Continue reading “Zero growth and austerity as opportunity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terrywassall.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhttp:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/greek-crisis-samos-chronicles\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"