2015 kassel reichel · juni 2015 postgrowth »postgrowth is an umbrella term ... for a way of...

Vorsicht, Postwachstum!Postwachstumstag | gradZ Uni Kassel | 2. Juni 2015

Prof. Dr. André Reichel | Critical Management & Sustainable Development | www.andrereichel.de

Postwachstumstag | gradZ Uni Kassel | 2. Juni 2015

Décroissance


Postgrowth

»Postgrowth is an umbrella term ... for a way of seeing andbeing in the world that comes after the growth story. Just asthere are many ways of living now in a growth-oriented society, a multitude of post growth futures are possible and many ways ofliving post growth already exist today.

What these futures hold in common is a desire to separate goodgrowth from bad, and to develop human potential andhappiness within, and in relation to, a physically finite earth.

A postgrowth economy puts life and everything needed tomaintain it at the center of economic and social activity asopposed to the never-ending accumulation of money, and thepursuit of growth of all kinds without regard for its consequences.«

http://postgrowth.org/learn/about-post-growth/


A Word on Growth


Short History of Economic Growth


Economic Limits: Productivity & Innovation


Economic Limits: Inequality


Economic Limits: Demographics


Ecological Limits: Energy

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Ecological Limits: Climate


The Illusion of Green Growth

Economic Activity (GDP)»Growth«

Resource Use:Relative Decoupling

Resource Use:Absolute Decoupling

Resource Use:Sufficient Absolute Decoupling

GDPResource Use

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Reduction Target


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Limits to growth 1972


Ecological Limits to Growth


A Word from Robert Solow

»Robert Solow, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1987 forinnovations in growth theory, now calls himself “agnostic” as towhether growth can continue, and is cheerfully willing tocontemplate a zero-growth economy. As Solow said to me, “There isno reason at all why capitalism could not survive without slow oreven no growth. I think it’s perfectly possible that economic growthcannot go on at its current rate forever.”«

Harper‘s Magazine, March 2008


Postgrowth Macroeconomics

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The SERI project on “Implications of a persistent low growth path”Dealing with the question how the Austrian economy and society could cope with long-lasting low economic growth, measured in GDP.

Low growth policiesAnalyzed whether and how policy measures are able to cope with the negative consequences of persistent low growth by simulating four measures from expert discussions, that were designed | not to create additional costs for national finances| not to stimulate economic growth

The model usedStandard macroeconometric model (e3.at), a set of stochastic equations with definitional and institutional relationships denoting the behavior of economic agents (general equilibrium model).


Postgrowth Macroeconomics

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Low growth policy measures| Reduction of working hours by 10%

This measure was designed cost-neutral, i.e. wages increase by the degree of induced productivity effects.

| Introduction of a cost-neutral eco-social tax reform of leviesPetroleum tax was increased and social security contributions reduced with the reduction being equally shared between employees and employers.

| Reduction of environmentally harmful subsidiesAbout 1bn EUR annually until 2025.

| Promotion of private demand for servicesDemand for labor-intensive services of private consumption was assumed to increase at a standard rate of about 3% until 2025 while at the same time private households reduce their consumption expenditures for environmental harmful goods.


Commons Economy

| Commons are not a resource but a social relationship

| Commons are not goods (commodities) but a social practice that generates, uses and preserves shared resources and products

| There is no commons without commoning (and commoners)

| Commons (relations, practices) as anti-markets: the fundamental principle of the commons is that the people who create the commons also create the rules for themselves

| Markets: monetary inclusion | Commons: structural inclusion

| Economy of plenty: resources can either be shared or are abundant. In both cases there are always enough resources

| Tragedy of the anti-commons: wasteful underuse

| Anti-Atomism: social cohesion based on interdependencies

| Focus: collaborative satisfaction of human needs with reference to the common good

| Cooperative economic action

» based on reciprocity and/or redistribution» democratic governance (cooperative culture)» self-sustaining, autonomous from markets

| Local orientation: sufficiency, subsistency, civic empowerment

| Societal orientation: civic democracy before markets, anti-consumerism


Collaborative Peer to Peer Production

| Product users collaboratively co-create products: active prosumers and produsers

| Organizational hierarchies are substituted and/or replaced by heterarchic networks

| The end product (the value co-created) is depending on the voluntary interaction of multiple value contributers

| Beyond economics: value propositions and motivational offers as main drivers of collaboration

| Social enterprise and social crafts: provision of end product as important as co-creation process itself

| New mode of production: dispersed means of production are organized around social values and individual motivations in order to provide solutions (end products) and community (social capital) thus strengthening the ability to collaborate in the future


Snapshot from the Field

(Dis)Economies of Scale

Power


Goods and Bads about Business Growth

Network Effects

Competition

Employee motivation

Investor Relations


Strategies for Postgrowth

| Economic competition for ecological space

| Economic zero-sum games and material negative-sumgames

| Capacity adjustment for reducing fixed costs

| Customer diversification to ensure (lower) sales potential

| Tertiarization of products / Hybrid manufacturing


Strategies for Postgrowth

GenericPostgrowth Strategies

GenericPostgrowth Strategies

1Concentration

1Concentration

2Domination

2Domination

3Reduction

3Reduction

4Renovation

4Renovation

5Collaboration

5Collaboration

Some insights from the Degrowth Conferencein Leipzig, September 2014

leipzig.degrowth.org

| Beyond economics: blending a social orientation and the collaborative creation of social and environmental added value with entrepreneurial action.

| Cross-sectoral alliances: hybrid institutional settings between business and civil society, between local and global levels of production and governance, between producers and consumers as co-creators of economic, social and ecological value.

| Protect and survive: creating protected spaces for social experiments and connect them to ‘translation’ actors (i.e. cross-sectoral hybrids) for social upscaling.

| Collaborative creation: sharing, joining and collaborating as controlled exit strategies for a postgrowth economy.

| Transformative imaginaries: connecting common understandings about the legitimacy of practices to transformative narratives beyond economics –money talks but imaginaries sing!

Vorsicht, Postwachstum!Postwachstumstag | gradZ Uni Kassel | 2. Juni 2015

Prof. Dr. André Reichel | Critical Management & Sustainable Development | www.andrereichel.de

Literature

Alexander, S. (2014). Degrowth and the carbon budget: Powerdown strategies for climate stability. Simplicity Institute.

Bauwens, M. (2005). The political economy of peer production. CTheory, 1. http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~graebe/Texte/Bauwens-06.pdf. Accessed 16 April 2015

Dresner, S. (2008). The Principles of Sustainability (2nd ed.). London: Earthscan.

Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and theEnvironment, 11(2), 130–141. doi:10.1002/bse.323

Elkington, J. (1998). Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st-century business. Environmental Quality Management, 8(1), 37–51. doi:10.1002/tqem.3310080106

Latouche, S. (2010). Degrowth. Journal of Cleaner Production, 18(6), 519–522.

Garriga, E., & Melé, D. (2004). Corporate social responsibility theories: mapping the territory. Journal of business ethics, 53(1-2), 51–71.

Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., & Randers, J. (1972). The Limits to Growth: A Report for The Club of Rome’s Project on thePredicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books.

Meinshausen, M., Meinshausen, N., Hare, W., Raper, S. C. B., Frieler, K., Knutti, R., et al. (2009). Greenhouse-gas emissiontargets for limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature, 458(7242), 1158–1162. doi:10.1038/nature08017

Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems. The American economicreview, 641–672. Accessed 27 April 2014

Paech, N. (2009). Postwachstumsökonomie – ein Vademecum. Zeitschrift für Sozialökonomie, 46(160-161), 28–31.

Literature

Reichel, A. (2013a). Strategische Handlungsoptionen für Unternehmen in der Postwachstumsökonomie. In H., Binswanger, Hans Chrstoph, Ekardt, Felix, Grothe, Anja, Hasenclever, Wolf-Dieter, Hauchler, Ingomar, Jänicke, Martin, Kollmann, Karl, Michaelis, Nina V Rogall (Ed.), Jahrbuch Nachhaltige Ökonomie 2013/2014: Im Brennpunkt: Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement (pp. 191–219). Marburg: Metropolis.

Reichel, A. (2013b). Das Ende des Wirtschaftswachstums, wie wir es kennen: Betriebswirtschaftliche Perspektiven auf die Postwachstumsökonomie. Ökologisches Wirtschaften, 27(1), 15–18.

Reichel, A., & Seeberg, B. (2013). Ökologische Allowance: Eine Bewertung der absoluten Grenzen der Betriebswirtschaft. Ökologisches Wirtschaften, 28(2), 35–41.

Schaltegger, S., Herzig, C., Kleiber, O., Klinke, T., & Müller, J. (2007). Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement in Unternehmen: Von der Idee zur Praxis: Managementansätze zur Umsetzung von Corporate Social Responsibility und Corporate Sustainability. (BMU, Econsense, & CSM, Eds.).

Shrivastava, P. (1995). The Role of Corporations in Achieving Ecological Sustainability. Academy of Management Review, 20(4), 936–960. doi:10.5465/AMR.1995.9512280026

Steurer, R., Langer, M. E., Konrad, A., & Martinuzzi, A. (2005). Corporations, Stakeholders and Sustainable Development I: A Theoretical Exploration of Business-Society Relations. Journal of Business Ethics, 61(3), 263–281.

WCED. (1987). Our common future. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

2015 kassel reichel · juni 2015 postgrowth »postgrowth is an umbrella term ... for a way of...

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