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

Steady-State Talking Points for Democrats and Republicans

June 22, 2023/2 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Growth, Environment, Governance, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Brian Czech

Limits to growth are all around us. Global heating, resource shortages, and biodiversity collapse are linked at the hip with stagnating productivity, inflation, and crippling debt. Little by little, citizens and politicians are waking up to ecological limits and the economic linkages.

The awakening is painfully slow for those who have long lamented society’s obsession with growth. After all, economic growth entails a growing human population and ecological footprint,

What About the Other Debt Ceiling?

February 2, 2023/6 Comments/in Economic Policy, Gary Gardner, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Gary Gardner

by Gary Gardner

Official Washington is all aflutter over whether Congress should raise the ceiling on U.S. government debt. But this is not the most pressing debt question our country faces.

To see why, step back and enlarge the frame. A new question emerges: Why would Congress create an artificial and wholly unnecessary debt crisis while ignoring a far more dangerous and decidedly real debt trap? I speak of our ballooning ecological debt,

COP15: The Good, the Bad, and the Smugly

January 19, 2023/5 Comments/in Animal Welfare, Biodiversity, Brian Czech, Climate Change, Economic Policy, Environment, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

On a scale of one to ten, COP15—the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal last month—was a solid five. That may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but it represents significant progress from prior COPs, which dabbled along in the one or two range for the better part of three decades. The progress was evident from the start, when UN Secretary General António Guterres kicked off the conference by noting,

Three Senate Races for Steady Staters to Monitor

October 27, 2022/0 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Policy, Politics, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

Election Day is almost upon us. Along with the 435 House seats are thirty-five seats for grabs in the Senate. Our focus here is on the Senate races, given their high-profile candidates, substantial policy stakes, and excellent examples of growthmanship gone amuck (literally, in some agricultural cases).

Candidates fall along a spectrum—theoretically at least—from a degrowth to a pro-growth stance. It’s a “theoretical” spectrum because, at this point in the history of the USA,

A Steady-State Approach to Immigration

September 8, 2022/20 Comments/in Brian Czech, Politics, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

Steady staters live with the reality that economic growth is unsustainable. It can continue for only so long before Nature will no longer support it. Therefore, we call for stabilization—the steady state economy—rather than growth. In particular, population and per capita consumption must be stabilized. Of the two, population is the most fundamental aspect of stabilizing the economy and its ecological footprint.

The population of a country is determined by births,

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.

It’s Not Grain Putin Wants – It’s Water

February 17, 2022/15 Comments/in Consumption, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Governance, Politics, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

by Andrey Beregovskiy

For several weeks now, the world has been following the movement of troops on the Russia-Ukraine border with a question: What does Putin want? While the Kremlin cites potential Ukrainian membership in NATO as a casus belli, experts have been proposing alternative reasons for why Vladimir Putin wants to invade Ukraine. In a recent post, Brian Czech suggests that the most overlooked reason is the extremely fertile agricultural lands comprising much of Ukraine.

A Place for a Steady State in the EU Green Deal

January 6, 2022/2 Comments/in Biodiversity, Climate Change, Consumption, Degrowth, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Energy, Environment, Governance, Jobs and Employment, Politics, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

by Adel Ramdani

The European Green Deal, the EU’s flagship environmental program, aims to profoundly transform the EU’s 27 member states into low-carbon economies. The deal was rolled out in December 2019 by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. It’s supposed to be a roadmap toward a “fair and prosperous society” with an economy that is modern, resource-efficient, and competitive. So far, so good? Let’s take a deeper dive.

Old White Men: Protecting the Rim for Steady-State Diversity

July 22, 2021/18 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Policy, Environment, Governance, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

I’m an old guy. Not ancient, perhaps, but my 61-year old knees alone would put me in the lower decile of…let’s say freshness. Why, my best days are so far back, you’d need a rearview mirror from the Giant Magellan Telescope to spot one!

As if that weren’t bad enough, I’m a white guy. I might feel black and blue sometimes from fighting the forces of GDP growth,

Degrowth: A North American Vision

May 6, 2021/10 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Politics, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Brian Czech

By Brian Czech

Students and scholars of steady-state economics must have noticed, by now, that the Degrowth movement in Europe has attained far more traction than the steady-state movement has in the USA (or anywhere). Degrowth is the banner under which thousands have assembled at numerous conferences for almost two decades now, demonstrating a durable unity. Major European news outlets such as The Guardian report on Degrowth doings; even prominent American outlets including Bloomberg have taken note.

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by Gary Gardner

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by Sydney Lyman

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by Adel Ramdani

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