Tag: Degrowth

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Artificial Intelligence as Convivial Technology

tl;dr: Artificial Intelligence research needs to focus on enriching people’s relation to each other, empower them to organise their life beyond the market, and assist in the transformation towards sustainability

Technology is never neutral. It transforms the world, our perceptions of it, and our relations towards one another in a fundamental way. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as technology, as a technological paradigm, as specific applications of machine (self-)learning as well as automation of highly cognitive decision routines, raises questions if we should use it, how we should use it, and what happens then.… Read more

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In Search For Meaning: The Real Challenges for the World Economic Forum 2019

tl;dr: Globalization needs new meanings beyond economic growth

This year’s World Economic Forum catchphrase is ”Globalization 4.0“ and focuses on a ”New Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution“. The discussions this year will not be affirmative of new technologies and optimistic about new economic opportunities. Rather a very concerned view on the new global realities dominates, especially but not exclusively:

  • the rise of Neo-Nationalism and the politics of isolation and confrontation, especially in the former globalization heartlands like the USA and UK, but also in emerging countries like Brazil and core European countries like Hungary and Poland;
  • the ongoing and accelerating human-made climate change that requires global cooperation for successful mitigation, not national isolation.
… Read more
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Brown-Green Degrowth? On Nazis, Nationalism & the Postgrowth Economy

tl;dr: Stefan Laurin’s painting of Degrowth into the right-wing nationalist corner is lazy armchair journalism

The ideas of a Degrowth-oriented society are a crude mixture of environmentalism and National Socialism – says German journalist Stefan Laurin in a recent blog article. Laurin, who is writing for German outlets like the conservative high-brow magazine ‘Cicero’ as well as the left-wing ‘Jungle World’, focuses his critique on Niko Paech, German economist and Degrowth researcher.… Read more

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Degrowth and Free Trade

tl;dr: The protection of domestic social production in free trade agreements works with Degrowth and ensures peace through trade

Since David Ricardo, mainstream economics favors free trade over economic isolationism when it comes to increasing the »wealth of nations«. Although Paul Samuelson’s notable criticism on some aspects of free trade all but left a minor dent in this believe. The potential downsides of free trade, so the consensus goes, can be managed by (i) allowing for innovation and structural change, (ii) by increasing employability and enabling lifelong learning, as well as (iii) by redistributing globalization gains more equally within a country through taxation.… Read more

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Postgrowth and Degrowth

tl;dr: Degrowth is just one postgrowth approach, not the postgrowth approach.

Since Serge Latouche in 2004 threw in »décroissance« as a missile word into the sustainability debates, growth criticism regained its 1970s strength while connecting strongly to issues of social justice and equality, emancipation and democratic renewal, as well as a critique of capitalism. Degrowth, the English translation of the term, has then occupied the center stage in this newly emerging discourse. In Germany, the term »Postwachstumsökonomie« (postgrowth economy) has been introduced by Niko Paech in 2006.… Read more