Blog • 06.07.2020
In the face of unfettered globalization, the rise of right-wing movements around the globe and the dangers of climate catastrophe, it seems easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism, growth and domination. However, in recent years something new has emerged to counter what Mark Fisher has called “capitalist realism:” after decades on the defensive against neoliberalism, th...
Blog • 08.04.2019
A review of Giorgos Kallis’ new book Although the number of publications about degrowth has been exploding in the last decade – with hundreds of articles as well as dozens of edited volumes and special issues already published – until now there had not been a single academic monograph systematically outlining what degrowth is all about. Of course, the broad contours of the concept of degrowth...
Blog • 18.04.2017
There is a wide range of emancipatory alternatives working towards a social-ecological transformation. It is more important than ever to underline this. From Brexit, to the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) in Germany, to Trump —the current political turmoil is a clear sign of the discontent that exists with the prevailing system, and that expresses itself through a societal shift towards t...
Blog • 20.03.2017
Historical roots of current debates on sustainable degrowth The future of economic growth is one of the decisive challenges of the twenty-first century. Though beginning at different times in different places, during the last two centuries, overall global economic growth has profoundly transformed life of humans and of the rest of nature. Today, societies, economies, and cultures are essentia...
Blog • 09.02.2017
Since the 2014 Leipzig Degrowth Conference, the argument that climate justice cannot exist without degrowth has repeatedly been made. In a keynote at the Degrowth conference in Budapest, in September 2016, I developed this line of thinking further and argued that the opposite is equally important: There is not degrowth without climate justice. My argument, which I presented as someone involved ...
Blog • 26.10.2016
Aktuell gibt es in der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung eine Kontroverse zu Wachstumskritik. Vor einer Woche hat Rainer Hank unter dem Titel „Wachstum im Schneckentempo ist in" in der FAZ einen sehr kritischen Beitrag zur „Degrowth-Bewegung" geschrieben. Darauf antwortete Matthias Schmelzer in einer Replik, die in gekürzter Fassung am 23. Oktober 2016 in der Frankfurter Sonntagszeitung e...
