Corruption Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Hacking the Business Growth Imperative

April 25, 2025/3 Comments/in Corporate Reform, Corruption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Money and Investments, Postgrowth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Kali Young

“Despite its immensity, the Earth’s resources are not infinite, and it’s clear we’ve exceeded its limits. But it’s also resilient. We can save our planet if we commit to it.” – Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

In 2022, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard took a bold step to make the Earth, in essence, the company’s only shareholder. Chouinard explained that he doesn’t respect the stock market and believes that companies become irresponsible after going public.

Will the Steady State Economy Be Funded?

December 12, 2024/4 Comments/in Corporate Reform, Corruption, Degrowth, Economic Growth, Environment, Money and Investments, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Wealth /by Alix Underwood

by Kali Young

The U.S. nonprofit sector is a $1.4 trillion industry. If it were a country, it would be one of the world’s largest economies. Wealthy individual donors, foundations, and corporations are the three largest sources of nonprofit funding. As such, these entities have tremendous influence over what kind of social, economic, and political change thrives or dies. Many large foundations and major donors have amassed wealth thanks to the very economic system that is pushing the world toward ecological collapse.

A “Final Warning” on Climate

March 30, 2023/6 Comments/in Climate Change, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Environment, Gary Gardner, Politics, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Gary Gardner

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued what Greenpeace International called the “final warning” in the global effort to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. After three decades of increasingly insistent wake-up calls, the Panel laid out the sobering reality: Meeting the temperature goal set by the global community in 2015 is impossible without an immediate response, “a quantum leap in climate action,” in the words of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The Environmental Consequences of Putin’s War

August 4, 2022/1 Comment/in Animal Welfare, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Corruption, Economic Growth, Endangered Species, Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

by Connor Moynihan

Steady-state advocates know that peace is required for a stable and prosperous world. Herman Daly said, “It is hard to imagine a steady state economy without peace; it is hard to imagine peace in a full world without a steady state economy.” Brian Czech emphasized succinctly, “Peace is a steady state economy.” And peace campaigners have long connected their goals to the environment.

West Virginia v. EPA: A Setback for the Steady State Economy

July 14, 2022/8 Comments/in Climate Change, Corruption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Energy, Environment, Governance, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

by Sydney Lyman

Throughout the month of June, many Americans frantically refreshed the Supreme Court’s website each morning, as immensely important cases appeared on the docket in rapid succession. It turned out to be a disorienting month. The freedom to get an abortion was stripped from 40 million people of reproductive age, gun control efforts were stymied, and the separation of church and state in public schools was weakened.

Ukraine: Putin’s Lebensraum

February 25, 2022/27 Comments/in Brian Czech, Consumption, Corruption, Economic Growth, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Governance, Inflation, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

People tend to think of Russia as a wide-open country with plenty of space for economic growth. While it may take days to ride the trans-Siberian railway, any notion of an empty Russia is as antiquated as Dr. Zhivago. European Russia, especially, has been cultivated, harvested, logged, mined, fished, and “developed” to the gills with roads, bridges, railways, power lines, pipelines, grids, towers, cables, dams, and canals connecting every industry under the sun to thousands of towns and cities plus tens of thousands of villages.

Facebook and Its Religion of Growth

October 22, 2021/5 Comments/in Consumption, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Economic Policy, Governance, Politics, Religion, Steady State Herald, Technology /by Brian Czech

by Taylor Lange

There was a time when I dreamt of working at Facebook. I was less intrigued by the software development side than with studying the exchange of information and the cultural evolution occurring through online social networks. One of my research interests is how individuals learn to act cooperatively and acquire new preferences. What better place is there to do that than at the largest online social media platform?

Since joining Facebook in 2009,

The Kid and the Modern American Growth Scam

July 23, 2020/3 Comments/in Consumption, Corruption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

By Mark Cramer

Modified from the original published in Welcome to Fakeville! (medium.com/@WTFakeville) on May 14, 2020.

In Charles Chaplin’s classic film, The Kid, the Kid runs around town throwing rocks into windows, setting the stage for his dad, the Tramp, to show up (by chance) with window-repair equipment. The family business is based on destruction.

Between the lines, this film introduces the God of the modern era: economic growth,

Population and the Outbreak of Peace

February 26, 2020/3 Comments/in Biodiversity, Consumption, Corruption, Governance, Politics, Poverty, Religion, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

By Max Kummerow

Adelyne More’s 1917 feminist pamphlet Fecundity and Civilization stated flatly that population stabilization “is the most effective way of ensuring the cessation of war.”[1] All species’ potential rates of reproduction enable exponential population growth. Population numbers are kept within environmental capacity by rising mortality as populations increase. Ecologists call this process “density-dependent mortality.” Many “group-selected” social species fight territorial wars as populations grow, such as chimpanzees,

Conflict of Interest at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? A Deal Some Couldn’t Refuse

March 20, 2018/4 Comments/in Climate Change, Corruption, Endangered Species, Energy, Environment, Governance, Money and Investments, Sustainability, Technology, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

By Richard McCorkle, Guest Author

As a fish and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I’ve been concerned about global warming and climate change for more than a quarter century. In the late 1990s, when I finally had the means to do so, I began privately investing in socially and environmentally screened mutual funds. I felt it was the right thing to do; I was putting my money where my mouth was.