These are the CASSE blog articles on the steady state economy.
Book Review: National Accounts and Environmentally Sustainable National Income by Roefie Hueting and Bart de Boer
/0 Comments/in Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian CzechBy Gerry Greaves
When CASSE’s Executive Director, Brian Czech, asked me if I would like to review a book on national accounts, my first reaction was, “Why would I care?” I was familiar with the national accounting system, but my concentration in environmental advocacy typically focused on climate change and its effects on economic inequality. My interest was piqued, though, when he explained that this book was different, because the authors had developed a system to incorporate environmental sustainability in the national accounts.
The Silver Lining of the COVID-Caused Recession is Supra-Economic
/21 Comments/in Biodiversity, Brian Czech, Climate Change, Economic Growth, Environment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czechby Brian Czech
COVID-19 has done in a deadly way what steady-state economists would prescribe in a healthy way: putting the brakes on a runaway economy. In fact, the pandemic has slammed on the brakes and jammed the GDP gearstick into reverse. It has ushered us into a recession that will be pronounced and protracted. In a COVID-caused recession, it’s nature at bat, not the Fed.
In these dark times, any source of comfort is welcome.
Reply to Troy Vettese’s “Against Steady-State Economics” 1
/1 Comment/in Biodiversity, Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czechby Herman Daly
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,
Normalizing Outbreaks in the Anthropocene: Growth Isn’t the Cure
/4 Comments/in Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian CzechBy James Magnus-Johnston
Death rates. Infection rates. Handwashing. Handwringing.
May I re-frame the coronavirus conversation? Although the world is currently stunned by the rapid spread of this virus across the globe, we must understand that these kinds of outbreaks are simply going to happen more often in our climate-altered world, and they highlight the fragility of our growth-or-bust industrial system. But there is a silver lining: This moment requires industrial societies to emphasize wellbeing over GDP and to witness the vulnerability of global,
Beating Teflon Trump Entails a New Perspective on GDP
/8 Comments/in Brian Czech, Climate Change, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Governance, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian CzechBy 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.
Population and the Outbreak of Peace
/3 Comments/in Biodiversity, Consumption, Corruption, Governance, Politics, Poverty, Religion, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian CzechBy 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,
Meaning and Ethics in Ecological Economics
/2 Comments/in Economic Growth, Environment, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian CzechBy Haydn Washington
The True Meaning of Ecological Economics
Ecological economics has a problem: Pluralism is out of control, to the extent that “ecological economics” is starting to mean different methods, approaches, and values to different people. We need to know precisely what we mean by “ecological economics,” and to settle upon an ethical framework thereof.
The original thinkers in ecological economics, such as Herman Daly, were clear that ecological economics was an economics that operated within ecological limits.
Existential Dread: We Need to Talk About our Feelings
/1 Comment/in Biodiversity, Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Policy, Environment, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian CzechBy 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,
Degrowth Toward a Steady State Economy: Unifying Non-Growth Movements for Political Impact
/15 Comments/in Brian Czech, Degrowth, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Environment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czechby Brian Czech and Riccardo Mastini
No later than the 1960s, scholars wrote in rigorous terms of the limits to economic growth. Europeans such as E.F. Schumacher, Americans including Herman Daly, and European-born Americans (most notably Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Kenneth Boulding) set the stage for later studies in ecological economics and sustainability science. Their scholarship, supplemented by the population focus of Paul Ehrlich and the modeling approach of Donella Meadows and coauthors (for the Club of Rome),