Saturday, May 02, 2020

5 #degrowth principles from 170 Dutch academics

This was translated and posted on Twitter by Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel). His website is https://www.jasonhickel.org/.

I wanted to have it all in one place to refer to. I didn't see it on his website.

  1. Shift from an economy focused on aggregate GDP growth to differentiate among sectors that can grow and need investment (critical public sectors, and clean energy, education, health) and sectors that need to radically degrow (oil, gas, mining, advertising, etc).
  2. Build an economic framework focused on redistribution, which establishes a universal basic income, a universal social policy system, a strong progressive taxation of income, profits and wealth, reduced working hours and job sharing, and recognizes care work.
  3. Transform farming towards regenerative agriculture based on biodiversity conservation, sustainable and mostly local and vegetarian food production, as well as fair agricultural employment conditions and wages.
  4. Reduce consumption and travel, with a drastic shift from luxury and wasteful consumption and travel to basic, necessary, sustainable and satisfying consumption and travel.
  5. Debt cancellation, especially for workers and small business owners and for countries in the global south (both from richer countries and international financial institutions).

No comments: