Daniel Wortel-London Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Introducing a Different Type of 32-Hour Workweek Act

July 18, 2024/0 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Policy, Jobs and Employment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Working long hours? You aren’t alone. Forty-one percent of U.S. workers reported working more than 45 hours a week in 2021. Sixteen percent said they spent more than 60 hours per week at work. Working long hours has been shown to degrade quality of life and productivity. But there’s a bigger problem with full-time employment: It isn’t environmentally sustainable.

Additional economic growth is the only way to generate full-time employment.

Introducing the Sustainable Missions Act

June 13, 2024/2 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Governance, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

What’s your mission? While few can answer this question quickly, most of us recognize the importance of a mission to an individual or an organization. A mission provides direction, a framework of goals, and a basis for developing the strategies we need to reach them. In the USA, every cabinet-level department must develop a mission as part of its broader strategic planning process.

Unfortunately, most federal mission statements tend to promote planet-destroying economic growth or attempt—in vain—to reconcile growth with conservation goals.

Introducing the Commission on Economic Sustainability Act

April 25, 2024/2 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

What U.S. federal agency is responsible for identifying and reducing the environmental and social costs of economic growth? None, really. The government has plenty of agencies and programs devoted to conservation, natural capital accounting, “green” industrial policy, and just transitions. But none address the elephant in the room: economic growth. Growth is what causes a nation’s ecological footprint to exceed its biocapacity.

Introducing the Mileage Fee Act

April 4, 2024/5 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Economies that operate within planetary boundaries are likely to be heavily localized compared to economies today. Planners will need to shift modes of transportation and redesign cities. Businesses will need to shorten supply chains. This is because freight and passenger travel impact the environment extensively. Respecting planetary boundaries requires that we create economies that do not rely heavily on long-distance travel.

To help accomplish this goal,

Introducing the Salary Cap Act

March 7, 2024/12 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Policy, Environment, Inequality, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

The daily news regularly features commentary about the outrageous and growing income inequality in the USA. The data support the outrage:

In 1965, the CEO-to-worker salary ratio at the average U.S. company was 21-to-1. Today that ratio is 344-to-1.
In 2022, CEO pay at 100 S&P 500 companies averaged $15.3 million, while median worker pay averaged only $31, 672, according to an Institute of Policy Studies analysis.

Introducing the Luxury Cap Act

February 1, 2024/8 Comments/in Consumption, Daniel Wortel-London, Governance, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Even as nearly a billion people go hungry every day, the wealthiest one percent of the world’s population is purchasing ever-more expensive toys. Yacht sales grew by an average of 22 percent per year between 2014 and 2022. Private jet sales have boomed since the start of the COVID pandemic. The global luxury jewelry market, already huge at $56.5 billion,

Redesigning Business for Sustainability

January 18, 2024/8 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Growth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Can businesses become sustainable? Certainly—at least in theory. In recent years, new business models have emerged that attempt to place business on an ecologically healthy footing. The doughnut economy, the regenerative economy, sufficiency enterprises, and postgrowth and degrowth businesses: These and other experiments represent ways of doing business that not only create customer and firm value, but address social and environmental needs as well.

It’s Time to Ban Earth-Damaging Ads

December 28, 2023/6 Comments/in Consumption, Daniel Wortel-London, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Advertising works. A recent study by the Advertising Association finds that every dollar of ad spending drives up sales by $21. Ads get us to recognize brands and hum jingles even if we are annoyed by pop-ups. They are particularly effective in driving the kind of unsustainable consumption that is destroying our planet.

This begs a question: Should advertising be limited for the sake of the environment?

Learning from Las Vegas: The Costs of Growth

December 1, 2023/2 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Growth, Governance, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Water /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Since 1998, the City of Las Vegas and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have been gambling with nature. By auctioning off public land from the BLM for development and using the proceeds to preserve natural areas, policymakers and federal officials have bet that development and conservation can go hand-in-hand.

But it hasn’t worked out that way.

As the Las Vegas region has grown from 1.3 to 2.7 million people since 1998,

The Crisis in the Middle East is a Crisis of Growth

October 19, 2023/11 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Growth, Energy, Peace, Steady State Herald, Water /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

The catastrophe unfolding in Israel and the Gaza Strip is the product of many factors, including colonialism and religious fanaticism. But another impulse driving this disaster deserves discussion: competition over growth and the natural capital—particularly energy, water, and land—that ensures it. These resources provide the basis for economic and population expansion in the Middle East and elsewhere. As nations continue to recklessly pursue this expansion in a finite world we will see more and more struggles over fewer and fewer resources.