Most everyone who’s interested in global inequality has come across the famous elephant graph, originally developed by Branko Milanovic and Christoph Lakner using World Bank data (see below). The graph charts the change in income that the world’s population have experienced over time, from the very poorest to the richest 1%.We can update the elephant graph using the latest data from the World Inequality Database, which covers the whole period from 1980 to 2016 using a method … [Read more...]
Why the “Anthropocene” is not “Climate Change”
“Anthropocene” is a widely proposed name for the geological epoch that covers human impact on our planet. But it is not synonymous with “climate change,” nor can it covered by “environmental problems.” Bigger and more shocking, the Anthropocene encapsulates the evidence that human pressures became so profound around the middle of the 20th century that we blew a planetary gasket. Hello, new Earth System. Hello, Anthropocene.The phrase “Earth System” refers to the entirety of our planet’s … [Read more...]
Education, jobs and capitalism
American capitalism has a hate-love relationship with the nation’s schools. On the “hate” side is a stream of complaints from business leaders and organizations about the many students, particularly in city schools, who fail achievement tests, are high school dropouts or, if they complete high school, do not have the academic qualifications for college and advanced-skills education. Given these educational failings, they ask, how will the nation’s economic system obtain the workforce needed for … [Read more...]
Degrowth: A Call for Radical Abundance
When orthodox economists first encounter the idea of degrowth, they often jump to the conclusion that the objective is to reduce GDP. And because they see GDP as equivalent to social wealth, this makes them very upset.Nothing could be further from the truth.I reject the fetishization of GDP as an objective in the existing economy, so it would make little sense for me to focus on GDP as the objective of a degrowth economy. Wanting to cut GDP is as senseless as wanting to grow it.The … [Read more...]
Unlike a Globalized Food System, Local Food Won’t Destroy the Environment
If you’re seeking some good news during these troubled times, look at the ecologically sound ways of producing food that have percolated up from the grassroots in recent years. Small farmers, environmentalists, academic researchers and food and farming activists have given us agroecology, holistic resource management, permaculture, regenerative agriculture and other methods that can alleviate or perhaps even eliminate the global food system’s worst impacts: biodiversity loss, energy depletion, … [Read more...]
Why Growth Can’t be Green
Warnings about ecological breakdown have become ubiquitous. Over the past few years, major newspapers, including the Guardian and the New York Times, have carried alarming stories on soil depletion, deforestation, and the collapse of fish stocks and insect populations. These crises are being driven by global economic growth, and its accompanying consumption, which is destroying the Earth’s biosphere and blowing past key planetary boundaries that scientists say must be respected to avoid … [Read more...]
Ten Years After the Crash: more of the same, or a new beginning?
The year 2008 was a momentous one. The ‘anniversary’ headlines are of course all about the financial crash. As Nick Mathiason in The Guardian put it at the time: "It was the year the neo-liberal economic orthodoxy that ran the world for 30 years suffered a heart attack of epic proportions." While the global establishment panicked, governments rallied round and got the flatlining monitor back up again by pumping in trillions of dollars to stop the world banking system from collapsing. The … [Read more...]
The Commons, Short and Sweet
I am always trying to figure out how to explain the idea of the commons to newcomers who find it hard to grasp. Here is a fairly short overview, which I think gets to the nub of things.The commons is….A social system for the long-term stewardship of resources that preserves shared values and community identity.A self-organized system by which communities manage resources (both depletable and and replenishable) with minimal or no reliance on the Market or State.The … [Read more...]
Bulldoze the Business School
Visit the average university campus and it is likely that the newest and most ostentatious building will be occupied by the business school. The business school has the best building because it makes the biggest profits (or, euphemistically, “contribution” or “surplus”) – as you might expect, from a form of knowledge that teaches people how to make profits.Business schools have huge influence, yet they are also widely regarded to be intellectually fraudulent places, fostering a culture of … [Read more...]
Localization: a strategic alternative to globalized authoritarianism
For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the past few years is deeply worrying. It has us asking ourselves, how did this happen? How did populism turn into such a divisive and destructive force? How did authoritarianism take over the political scene once again?From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialized and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalization. When I say globalization, … [Read more...]