this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2022
0 points (NaN% liked)

Humanities & Cultures

2532 readers
1 users here now

Human society and cultural news, studies, and other things of that nature. From linguistics to philosophy to religion to anthropology, if it's an academic discipline you can most likely put it here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
remington@beehaw.org
alyaza@beehaw.org
gyrfalcon@beehaw.org
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
Gaywallet@beehaw.org
luckless@beehaw.org
0
Book Recommendation - Less is More (feddit.de)
submitted 2 years ago by hamborgr@feddit.de to c/humanities@beehaw.org
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'd like to share a book here which I've recently read that helped me development a new world view for myself. The book, written by the economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, is called:

"Less is More - How Degrowth Will Save The World"

Although the subtitle only mentions Degrowth, it's much more than that. In the first half of the book, Hickel mostly talks about the history of Capitalism, its character and why it fails in regards to true sustainability and equality. The book may focus on climate change and how we should combat it with Degrowth but the author also takes on other issues, such as the global North-South divide.

In the second half, he presents his solution which is called "Degrowth". Degrowth is fundamentally about getting rid of excessive economic growth and the profit-driven mindset of Capitalism for a more sustainable and just world.

The book is very well written, down-to-earth and easy to understand with fleshed out, rational arguments and explanations.

So, if any of you have some time to read and are interested in the topic then I highly recommend giving this book a try!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hamborgr@feddit.de 0 points 2 years ago

tbh, I don’t really want to go into nitty gritty of this discussion because it’s only a matter of moments before It will be necessary to write thousands of words

Yeah, I understand that and I agree. However, there is one thing I would like to elaborate on regarding the selected highlights.

For one thing, Degrowth is fundamentally anticapitalist and ultimately believes in more democratization (which it has in common with Socialism and Communism). And Communism is also arguably just as politically unlikely regarding established interests and power relations.

Also from the same article:

Economies can be stabilized without growth if basic monetary, fiscal, labor, and welfare institutions are transformed

However in the end, I do agree with you that combining Degrowth with Socialism and Communism is best since they can complement each other in lacking areas while also bringing multiple communities together. (e.g. Degrowth focussing on the environmental aspects and Marxism on the social and economic aspects)