These are the CASSE blog articles on politics.
By Brian Snyder
It is a luxury to be able to worry about future generations, biodiversity loss, or climate change, and it is only available to me because of a great deal of privilege. I don’t have to worry about affording food for my family, or finding a safe place to live, and I’m confident that my kids will inherit much of the same bourgeois life that I did. My privilege frees me to think,
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that the Great God of GDP is a false god after all, impotent as Baal. The mighty American economy, with unprecedented GDP, has been knocked to its knees by one of the lowest conceivable life forms, a mere virus possessing not a single strand of DNA. Politicians who thought their legacies would be associated with “the greatest economy ever” now look like ridiculous priests of a sham religion.
By Gerry Greaves
Achieving sustainable societies globally is likely to be a defining challenge of the 21st century. There is a growing realization that we must act to mitigate the climate crisis. There is also a growing understanding that social and economic injustice must be solved simultaneously. There are many ideas of how to achieve this, but none seems to have caught widespread attention as much as the Green New Deal. This resolution of the U.S.
Steady staters are used to being attacked by right-wing neoliberals. Attacks from left-wing neo-Marxists are new and require a reply. To put the matter simply, Marxists hate capitalism, and they mistakenly assume that steady-state economics is inherently capitalist. Vettese is a Marxist; ergo, Vettese hates steady-state economics.
To spell this out, let’s begin by giving Marx due credit for emphasizing the reality of class exploitation under all heretofore existing economic systems,
By Brian Czech
In the earlier months of Donald Trump’s presidency, Democrats were stunned by his popularity despite his racist rhetoric, acerbic arrogance, and international insults. Trump himself had meanly boasted that he could “shoot somebody on 5th Avenue” and not lose any votes. He knew the American political system—Dems included—worshiped at the altar of GDP growth. Trump, as the quintessential growthist, had skyrocketed to the throne of Untouchable High Priest, albeit in a sharply divided church of red and blue growthists.
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,
By James Magnus-Johnston
Just as the smoke disperses from fire-ravaged parts of the world, the specter of ecological breakdown is creeping into humanity’s collective psyche. Whether that manifests as a bit of anxiety or full-on dread of mass extinction, we need to start talking about our feelings. If we don’t, we may avoid rather than confront the reforms needed for the planet to continue supporting life.
As a university instructor in Canada,
By Brian Czech
When you look out your window, do you like what you see? Would you like to keep it that way? Are you afraid the forces of growth will deface, degrade, or “develop” your favorite places? Then Keep Our Counties Great is the campaign for you! This county-level initiative has long been pondered at CASSE, and it’s time to act. This does not mean we’re forgetting about the nation as the focal point of fiscal and monetary policy. Nor are we dropping our obligations and interests in international diplomacy. Rather, Keep Our Counties Great will have synergistic effects, especially with our long-term legislative project.
Backed by an ominous sound clip and a rapidly churning GDP meter that comes out of nowhere, “Be alarmed… Be very alarmed!” are the opening phrases at CASSE’s new landing page. You’ll see what we mean shortly; please allow us an introduction to describe this new approach.
The landing page is actually a 30-second animation prefacing our “regular” website. It is designed to be three things:
Ask Americans what the Green New Deal is all about, and you’ll get two basic answers. Most often you’ll hear, “It’s about moving to renewable energy in order to fight climate change.” You’ll also hear, from a camp further right, “It’s all about socialism!”
Either way, the really green, really new feature is overlooked. What the Green New Deal is really about is the transition to a steady state economy.