Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to modelling by University of Sydney and ETH Zürich, scaling back total production and placing a cap on maximum wealth would not only save the planet, it would also allow us all to enjoy shorter working weeks and the financial security of a generous universal basic income.
Climate Change Modeling of “Degrowth” Scenarios – Reduction in GDP, Energy and Material Use
By UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY MAY 11, 2021
Well-being can be maintained in a degrowth transition.
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Degrowth focuses on the global North and is defined as an equitable, democratic reduction in energy and material use while maintaining wellbeing. A decline in GDP is accepted as a likely outcome of this transition.
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“We can still satisfy peoples’ needs, maintain employment and reduce inequality with degrowth, which is what distinguishes this pathway from recession,” Mr Keyßer says.
“However, a just, democratic and orderly degrowth transition would involve reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots, with more equitable distribution from affluent nations to nations where human needs are still unmet — something that is yet to be fully explored.”
A ‘degrowth’ society could include:
- A shorter working week, resulting in reduced unemployment alongside increasing productivity and stable economic output.
- Universal basic services independent of income, for necessities i.e. food, health care, transport.
- Limits on maximum income and wealth, enabling a universal basic income to be increased and reducing inequality, rather than increasing inequality as is the current global trend.
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I think it is only fair to give the professors an opportunity to showcase their degrowth theories, by slashing their university funding, so they can demonstrate by example how much happier we would be if we all embraced a permanent reduction in income.
Labour utopia.
And then gone is the incentive to actually get an education to do anything, right? Would we be assigned a profession then, and then be required to get the appropriate training?
They will respond by making a university degree mandatory in order to get a job.
thats pretty much what we have now
useless uni grads in jobs non uni staff would do far better
“by slashing their university funding”
It doesn’t apply to future party elite and budding members of the coming committees for public safety. They’ll be the ones to supply rope and pavers, and holding cloaks.
Exactly. Time to roll back on the pomp and circumstance of “advanced education,” more correctly referred to these days as “advanced indoctrination” anyway. Cut those budgets and educational institution staff salaries, close some of those grandiose buildings, cut the “sports programs” that have nothing to do with education, reduce the tuition massively to more correctly reflect the lack of value in their “product,” and reduce the number of students that won’t learn anything of use to allow them to succeed in life at such “institutions” anyway.
But of course, they didn’t men THAT. As usual, it will be “rules for thee, but none for me.”
Will they start with the top 100 companies and those owning/running them who have an inordinate amount of wealth and power? Will they then move on to those with a turnover of $1 billion? If many who are working very hard in the private sector are earning less than government employees should the latter not be the next target? Let’s see how this works out before extending this.
Only one proviso to ensure equality: no work no food for those fit and healthy.
i grew up poor-you dont work? you dont eat was basic
Go for it. Let’s “degrow”every academic institution that feels this is a great strategy and not just a pathetic attempt to hide their plan to turn the western world into the old Soviet Union, or, even better, the world of George Orwell’s 1984.
Good grub at the municipal feeding trough I bet.
The universities pushing this agenda should give away their fat endowments to the poor to show their commitment. The agenda is just some sort of odd signaling, some thing not connected to reality. It could be group think insanity. It could be brain damage from hyper ventilation and excessive jaw flapping due to lecturing.
“a just, democratic and orderly degrowth transition would involve reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots”
I’m not voting to give these guys a free ride and create mass poverty for the rest of society in the process. When you read these kind of statements you wonder what part of this process would actually be democratic. I’m thinking that their version of democracy is one where the elites get together at a luxury resort and vote on the level of poverty for which the other 99% should live. Thanks but no thanks.
I guarantee you that, just like Obamacare, the public won’t be allowed to vote on it.
The unstated assumption here is that there is a fixed amount of money in the world, and by limiting how much some people may acquire, there will be more left over for everyone else. This ignores the possibility of wealth creation (and destruction), particularly by creative people that find new ways of doing things and bring new products to market, like computers and smart phones. During the Great Depression there was destruction of wealth, and people were poor because of a shift in the economy, not because of a lack of workers or resources.
In a technological world, wealth is more a reflection of the availability and application of energy than it is anything else. Looking at ‘money’ as being a fixed quantity, and creating social policies based on that view, could do serious damage to the well being of the world.
They assume that income inequality in and of itself, is a bad thing.
If one person’s salary doubles, while another person’s salary goes up by 50%, how has either suffered?
While there is a distribution of ‘poverty’ or of ‘wealth’ (negative poverty) there will be a left-tail and a right-tail where I will be. The poor will always be with us.
” the gap between the haves and have-nots, “
People are not divided into the “haves and have-nots”. By and large people “have” what they “earn”. Therefore, the world is actually divided into the “earners and non-earners”. This is why spending public money on the poor and homeless doesn’t solve their problems. They are still non-earners.
Back in the 80’s, some wag calculated that if we stopped every welfare program and just gave the money directly to the current recipients, poverty would be instantly eliminated.
Welfare has only grown since the 80’s.
That’s because liberals make the mistake of thinking poverty is the condition of not “having” enough money, when it is really the condition of not “earning” enough money.
Governor Newslum just announced a $2 billion plan to “end homelessness” in California. Any bets on how much homelessness grows in the next 5 years?
And most of them would be back in poverty within weeks.
Only a socialist is innumerate enough to believe that limiting someone else’s income, will make you richer.
Capitalism already provides an excellent way to decrease the income gap.
Get off your lazy butt and get to work!!!
Do I see the beginnings of a new Great Famine? Thank goodness I live in a democracy where at least there’s some chance that this totalitarian socialist nonsense can be overturned.
“Bullying works in public, but people vote alone” – Joanne Nova
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” – Winston Churchill again
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” – Margaret Thatcher
The great famine caused by Mao Tse Tung is still effectively unreported in communist China.
“The Great Famine remains a taboo in China, where it is referred to euphemistically as the Three Years of Natural Disasters or the Three Years of Difficulties. Yang [Jisheng]’s monumental account, first published in Hong Kong, is banned in his homeland.” – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/china-great-famine-book-tombstone
“I was cheated and I don’t want to be cheated again.” – Yang Jisheng
I remember as a kid watching various tv shows and cartoons even, that mentioned in the future, because of robots and technology, we would all have greater ‘leisure time’ and reduced work works – they were right, in a sense, when so many got laid off when industry left North America and Europe. But of course the leisure time ended with your unemployment benefits, and one had to work several McJobs to match the decent industrial income.
Why limit the incomes and wealth of people like Musk and Bezos, who have thousands of workers grateful that they exist. Cap the wealth, hand out free money, and no one will bother working.
It’s a fact, if we didn’t get kicked out of Paradise, would we all be naked and homeless.
“... generous universal basic income“. Sounds like Mark Twain’s town where the population all made their living taking in each other’s washing.
So, do they plan to reduce all of the salaries of the professors and administrators of their universities by 50%..
I didn’t think so.
It’s been said often that if an idea, proposal or theory is asinine enough, it’s a virtual guarantee that it will be adopted, embraced or promoted by some branch of academia. This article if further proof.
Strongly support starting with impoverishing the universities first. Because so many of them have lost the plot on STEM, they have lost faith in their ability to problem solve. Lets just defund them since they are effectively admitting they have nothing to offer the peasants who re required to pay for them.
Their solution to “climate change”, universal poverty.
Agenda 21 includes a Happiness index, which is a little creepy to start with. However, they also believe that they can have people THINK they are happy when they really should not be.
My first thought is they are going to hand out drugs. Oh, wait, they are, promoting legal and illegal drugs. Then, they simply want a dumber, brainwashed people, which the public schools are doing quite nicely. Ban cholesterol for children and they will be even dumber.
Won’t that lead to under-employment? The devil makes use of idle hands.
WTF
these idiots are brainwashing your kids… your daughters go in as daddy’s little girl and, 4 yrs later, they come out as unrecognizable feminazis… the inmates are truely running the asylum… it’s revival or bust for the USA (yes, that means turn our collective eyes back to God, morality, and truth)