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

Introducing the Sustainable Taxes Act

March 20, 2025/5 Comments/in Economic Policy, Inequality, Money and Investments, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Wealth /by Alix Underwood

by David Shreve

In a world where GDP exceeds our planet’s biocapacity, we badly need new economic policy. In particular, we need to halt the process of unsustainable growth and move toward a steady state economy. The critical question is how to do this while ensuring sufficient economic opportunities, employment, and income for all.

Technological changes are insufficient, despite holding some promise. Neither the agricultural “Green Revolution” nor energy use efficiencies have markedly changed the ongoing overshoot.

The Costs of Compounding: Exploitation and Collapse

January 23, 2025/12 Comments/in Banking, Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Money and Investments, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Alix Underwood

by Koenraad Priels

The global financial system operates like a cancer, metastasizing throughout our economy and society. Its malignant core is a simple yet devastating formula: PL – PR + I, principal loaned – principal repaid + interest = an escalating debt trap that necessitates economic growth. This equation is familiar to anyone who has taken out a loan. It demonstrates the fatal flaw in our financial architecture,

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.

The Economic Priority of the Seven Wealthiest Countries: More Wealth

November 14, 2024/5 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, GDP, Governance, Inequality, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

Almost half of humanity lives below $6.85 per day. This population does not consume goods and services at a rate exceeding Earth’s capacity. Yet here we sit, on the wrong side of six of the nine planetary boundaries identified by the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

How did we get here? Via the economic activity of the other half of humanity. The planet, and all its inhabitants,

Whose Behavior Needs to Change? The Other Side of the International Development Coin

October 10, 2024/10 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Economic Policy, Governance, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Postgrowth, Poverty, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Wealth, Wellbeing /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The Western-led international development sector, born in the aftermath of World War II, has evolved according to this (ironically) Chinese proverb. To better reflect the status of international development, I would append the following sentences to the worn-out proverb: “Use advanced extractive technology to harvest all the fish from the man’s ocean,

San Jose: An Information Economy Giant with Whopping Footprints

September 19, 2024/9 Comments/in Alix Underwood, GDP, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Materials use, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Technology, Trophic Theory of Money, Wealth /by Helene Langlamet

by Alix Underwood

What is your reaction when you hear the tagline “city with the highest GDP per capita in the United States”? Perhaps you would like to live in that city. Perhaps you think it sets a positive example for other cities. If so, you are not alone. Corporate and political leaders have been prioritizing economic growth for decades, and this mindset has trickled down until it has saturated the public.

The problem is that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.

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,

Limits to Wealth = Limits to Growth

June 8, 2023/8 Comments/in Daniel Wortel-London, Economic Policy, Environment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Gary Gardner

by Daniel Wortel-London

Inequality threatens people and planet alike. Billions struggle to make ends meet while a tiny minority grows fabulously wealthy. At the same time, the conspicuous consumption of the wealthy and the waste they generate takes an enormous environmental toll. The intertwining of social and environmental damage suggests that standard fixes for inequality are inadequate.

Herman Daly thought that waste from the wealthy could not be ended through redistributive taxation alone.

A Steady State Sustains All Boats

April 13, 2023/4 Comments/in Economic Growth, Inequality, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Gary Gardner

by Gregory M. Mikkelson

An important recent article on resource use and its environmental impacts starts from the premise that “the planet’s resources and ecosystems are a commons, and… all people are entitled to an equal, sustainable share.” Alas, the world today deviates wildly from this norm. Indeed, inequality—of resource use, but also of income and wealth—is extremely high today and is actually worsened by economic growth. What’s more, it is bad for our politics,