Radical sustainability transitions: a new economics is needed

Beskrivelse

As the activities of the degrowth community emphasize, radical sustainability transitions require both a
clash with business-as-usual and the development of experiments that can demonstrate better ways of
living and organizing the society. In these endeavours, both practical and conceptual activities are needed,
including the development of a new economics. Mainstream economics constitutes a serious barrier to
sustainability transitions in many ways: by analysing economic conditions in misleading ways, by providing
ideological support for inequality, and by promoting insufficient or even counterproductive measures. Since
ideas from mainstream economics permeate media debate and influence policies heavily, there is a strong
need for a new economics that is supportive of socially just sustainability transitions. Ecological economics is
well positioned to ensure that a biophysical perspective becomes foundational in the development of such a
new economics, but it has to be combined with contributions from other streams of so-called heterodox
economics (institutional, evolutionary, marxist, feminist, post-keynesian, etc.) to constitute a strong critical
alternative to mainstream. As these communities tend to focus on their particular difference with
mainstream, the integration of key elements from these approaches into a new economics should be a high
priority.

Periode	23 aug. 2018
Begivenhedstitel	The 6th International Degrowth Conference for ecological sustainability and social equity
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Malmö, SverigeVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International