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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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Adapt or Die! Interview on Business in the Postgrowth Economy

Adapt or Die!

How does business work in a low to no growth environment? Prof. Dr. André Reichel talks about the challenges and opportunities for companies in a postgrowth economy

Prof. Reichel, you are working on issues of postgrowth and business for many years – what changes are we about to witness in the next 10, 20 or 50 years in the economy
Across Europe, we most likely will see receding economic growth rates in the coming decades. And although the global economy continues to grow, it does so at a significantly lower pace than in the years before the financial crisis of 2008/2009.… Read more

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From Now to Next: The Form of the Firm in the Next Economy

tl;dr: Form theory helps you envision a future for companies that enables them to create a convivial society beyond growth.

(This is an extended summary of an article published in March 2017 in a special issue on organizing for the post-growth economy in »ephemera: theory and politics in organizations«) 

When you reflect about the future, especially if you want to go beyond coffeehouse level reasoning, some conceptual framework is necessary that can tolerate the future.… Read more

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Sustainability as a Key Idea informing Social Practice and Order

tl;dr: Sustainability is a social phenomenon of political, economic and ethical struggles to change social practices towards more ecological and societal equity with care.

Why on Earth another scholarly book, an introduction even, on Sustainability? Because most introductions focus on a list of definitions, principles, and cases for Sustainability and sustainable development. They present a panopticum of »everything sustainable« but lack the focus on its social and political nature. This is often reserved for more advanced texts but we – Thomas Pfister, Martin Schweighofer, and I – were deeply convinced that you have to introduce Sustainability as essentially political and thus essentially contested.
… 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