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De-growth
Degrowth is an academic and social movement critical of the concept of growth in gross domestic product as a measure of human and economic development. The idea of degrowth is based on ideas and research from economic anthropology, ecological economics, environmental sciences, and development studies. It argues that modern capitalism's unitary focus on growth causes widespread ecological damage and is unnecessary for the further increase of human living standards. Degrowth theory has been met with both academic acclaim and considerable criticism. Degrowth's main argument is that an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to the finiteness of material resources on Earth. It argues that economic growth measured by GDP should be abandoned as a policy objective. Policy should instead focus on economic and social metrics such as life expectancy, health, education, housing, and ecologically sustainable work as indicators of both ecosystems and human well- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academic Research
Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error. These activities are characterized by accounting and controlling for biases. A research project may be an expansion of past work in the field. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, and the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Work (human Activity)
Work, labor (labour in Commonwealth English), occupation or job is the intentional activity people perform to support the needs and desires of themselves, other people, or organizations. In the context of economics, work can be seen as the human activity that contributes (along with other factors of production) towards the goods and service (economics), services within an economy. Work has existed in all human societies, either as Payment, paid or unpaid work, from hunting and gathering, gathering natural resources by hand in hunter-gatherer groups to operating complex technology, technologies that mechanization, substitute for physical or automation, even mental effort within an Agriculture, agricultural, Industry (economics), industrial, or post-industrial society. All but the simplest tasks in any work require specific skills, tools, and other resources, such as material for manufacturing goods. Humanity has developed a variety of institutions for group coordination of work, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth. Capitalist economies tend to experience a business cycle of economic growth followed by recessions. Economists, historians, political economists, and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include '' laissez-faire'' or free-market capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social poli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consumerism
Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the purchase and the consumption of products have evolved beyond the mere satisfaction of basic human needs, Stearns, Peter (2006). ''Consumerism in World History''. 2nd ed. Routledge. p. vii–viii. transforming into an activity that is not only economic but also cultural, social, and even identity-forming. It emerged in Western Europe and the United States during the Industrial Revolution and became widespread around the 20th century. In economics, consumerism refers to policies that emphasize consumption. It is the consideration that the free choice of consumers should strongly inform the choice by manufacturers of what is produced and how, and therefore influence the economic organization of a society. Consumerism has been criticized b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Productivism
Productivism or growthism is the belief that measurable productivity and growth are the purpose of human organization (e.g., work), and that "more production is necessarily good". Critiques of productivism center primarily on the limits to growth posed by a finite planet and extend into discussions of human procreation, the work ethic, and even alternative energy production. Arguments for productivism Although productivism is often meant pejoratively as a general problem in politics and economics, most countries and economies are productivist in nature. While critics of productivism and its political-economic variants, notably capitalism and socialism, challenge the notions of conventional political economy and argue for an economic policy more compatible with humanity, these views are often dismissed as utopian by economists and political scientists, who hold that there is no conflict between the roles of the worker and the citizen. That is, that conventional economics, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecological Overshoot
Ecological overshoot is the phenomenon which occurs when the demands made on a natural ecosystem exceed its regenerative capacity. Global ecological overshoot occurs when the demands made by humanity exceed what the biosphere of Earth can provide through its capacity for renewal. Scientific use of the term in the context of the global ecological impact of humanity is attributed to a 1980 book by William R. Catton, Jr. titled ''Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change''. Record of global ecological overshoot To determine whether ecological overshoot is happening requires the collection of global and nation-specific data regarding the availability of natural resources, the capability of the ecosystems to renew any natural resources that were consumed, and the rate at which the resources are being consumed, usually assessed for each calendar year. This data collection, and analysis is typically done by scientific and conservation organisations, such as the Global ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Capitalism
Eco-capitalism, also known as environmental capitalism or (sometimes) green capitalism, is the view that capital exists in nature as "natural capital" (ecosystems that have ecological yield) on which all wealth depends. Therefore, governments should use market-based policy-instruments (such as a carbon tax) to resolve environmental problems. The term "Blue Greens" is often applied to those who espouse eco-capitalism. Eco-capitalism can be thought of as the right-wing equivalent to Red Greens. Critics of eco-capitalism, such as eco-socialists, view continued economic growth and commodification of nature as an inevitability in capitalism, and thus criticize bright-green environmentalism. History The roots of eco-capitalism can be traced back to the late 1960s. The "Tragedy of the Commons", an essay published in 1968 in ''Science'' by Garrett Hardin, claimed the inevitability of malthusian catastrophe due to liberal or democratic government's policies to leave family si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Work Sharing
Job sharing or work sharing is an employment arrangement where two people, or sometimes more, are retained on a part-time or reduced-time basis to perform a job normally fulfilled by one person working full-time. This leads to a net reduction in per-employee income. The people sharing the job work as a team to complete the job task and are jointly responsible for the job workload. Pay, holidays and working hours are apportioned between the workers. In some countries, systems such as ''pay as you go'' and PAYE help make deductions for national insurance, and superannuations are made as a straightforward percentage. History in the United States The news media began reporting in earnest on job sharing in the 1970s and 1980s. The practice was most often described as a solution tailored for women, as one Associated Press article summarized, "a compromise between fulltime housework and full-time employment". 1970s In 1972 the New Ways to Work Foundation was funded, it is a non-pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community
A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to people's identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, TV network, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large-group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. In terms of sociological categories, a community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity. In developmental views, a community can emerge out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relational Goods
Relational goods are non-material goods that can only be produced and consumed within groups, and which are intrinsically linked to relationships and interaction. Popular examples include the enjoyment of a football game in a stadium, where the collective enjoyment of the game adds a relational good in terms of excitement and enjoyment to all in the stadium. This constitutes an experience that cannot be had when watching alone. Other examples include group charity work, friendship or reciprocal love. Relational goods can be necessary for the optimization of an activity like the football game example. On the other hand, a relational good may be the relationship in itself, with the good being dependent on the existence of the relationship. Friendships is an example of a relationship in which the value that comes from the relationship is tied up in the existence and maintenance of the relationship. The essential point tends to consider relational goods as goods that are produced and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism. Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates. Definition and modern use The Digital Library of the Commons defines "commons" as "a general term for shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest". The term "commons" derives from the traditional English legal term for common land, which are also known as "commons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random Statistical fluctuations, fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, :wikt:distribute, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically Robustness, robust and able to survive or self-healing material, self-repair substantial perturbation theory, perturbation. Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. Self-organization occurs in many physics, physical, chemistry, chemical, biology, biological, robotics, robotic, and cognitive systems. Examples of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
