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Five - Transitioning towards low carbon solidarity economies?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2022

Peter North
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Summary

Introduction

We can perhaps now more easily imagine the end of the world through climate catastrophe than we can envisage the end of capitalism (Žižek, 2011). After 200 years of capitalist exploitation, we have ignored the depletion of the Earth's resources for too long. Not only is capitalism exploitative and unequal, but as a species we are consuming more than we are replenishing, not sharing the wealth we have with future generations and distant others, and destroying other species (Klein, 2014). We need to turn things around. We now, according to some theorists, need an ‘economic ethics for the Anthropocene’ – that geological period in which human activity is changing the physical nature of the planet in ways that will remain in the geological record (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2010). Through this economic ethics, we need to think about ways in which we can meet the needs of all for a dignified life in a climate- and resource-constrained world. We will need to create an economy that enables all of us to make decisions on how we produce what we need, distribute surpluses and maintain a commons in ways that respect the rights of other humans and nonhumans. In doing this, Gibson-Graham and Roelvink (2010) argue that we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

  • • How do we live well?

  • • How shall we produce what we need?

  • • What shall we do with any surplus?

  • • How shall we share with others?

  • • What should we consume?

  • • How do we create a world worth living in, and invest in the future?

This chapter discusses the contribution of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) sector to building sustainable, liveable economies though which millions can meet their needs in ways that are embedded in, rather than exploitative of, the wider planetary ecosystem. It examines the extent to which the SSE generates a vision of a just and sustainable economy and enables it to be performed. Is there dignity, selfmanagement and a lack of hierarchy in the everyday experience of life in the SSE sector?

Type
Chapter
Information
Towards Just and Sustainable Economies
The Social and Solidarity Economy North and South
, pp. 73 - 96
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2017

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