Exceeding planetary boundaries

Job seekers per opening

Nominal wage growth in decline

Green growth? failure to decouple

the importance of working hours for the new economics

WORKING HOURS IN SELECTED COUNTRIES,

Working Hours in Selected Countries,

Household data show 40 years of rising hours

The flip side of overwork: underwork Long term rise in involuntary part-timers Weekly hours: m m average hours of invol PT: 22.5 per week low hours are a cause of poverty and exacerbate inequality

Working hours and theories of the labor market

THE MARXIAN LABOR MARKET wage Level of employmentLevel of employment

The US labor market: 25 million still lack adequate work

Major declines in employment

Youth unemployment rate, US

June 2012 study of H.S. grads who did not go to college graduates 16 % employed full time 33% unemployed 15% working part time. 17% out of the labor force graduates 37% employed full time. Source: June 2012 study by John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

Unemployment rate for college grads

How can we respond to this deterioration? Group exercise: what are “new economics” approaches related to the labor market that can address the growing oversupply of labor and worsening condition of workers in the labor market?

De-commodifying Labor The goals of new economics (democracy, equity, and ecological limits) require de-commodification of labor Threat of job loss has been key to reproduction of the economic system and to the growth imperative worker coops other publically owned assets hours reductions expansion of low/no cost access to goods and services/HTSP public provisioning—“hyper-efficient public goods” (energy, transport, food, other?) income streams from new assets (cap and dividend)

The challenges ahead Drastically reduce ecological impact in a short period of time Solve the unemployment crisis Be fair: improve the distributions of assets and income Create wealth and well-being (enhance productivity) Avoid top-down, inefficient or elitist solutions: i.e., meet people’s needs Create a politics to make this happen PLENITUDE: an integrated approach working on all these fronts

Plenitude: the economic model Green tech shift: to a closed loop/clean production and consumption system Eco-knowledge: open source transmission and ecological skill diffusion Reduce hours in BAU jobs, build time wealth A growing green sector of small scale enterprises; new property forms Invest in social capital and common property Revamp the consumer sector

Fixed Hours of Work Rising Output & Consumption Ecological Impact From Productivity Growth to Ecological Impact: when hours do not fall SCALE EFFECT Productivity Growth Technology Change

Less Growth in Output Ecological Impact Reducing Ecological Impact: achieve sustainability in ways that enhance well-being Productivity Growth Technology Change Reduced Hours of Work

Changes in Household Behavior: Composition Effect Households have both time and income budgets. If low-impact activities are more time consuming, reductions in working hours can lead to reduced household impacts

The multiple dividend of shorter hours Benefit #1: shorter hours lead to lower unemployment and more job creation; they partially de-commodify labor Benefit #2: shorter hours reduce ecological and carbon footprints Benefit #3: shorter hours give people more free time, reduce stress, enhance family life and community, enable political activity, and enable self-provisioning and lower cost lifestyles

HIGH TECH SELF PROVIDING & GREEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP Hours released from the BAU economy get deployed to “self-providing” and green entrepreneurship reduces market dependence and reliance on large corporations builds a small-scale, low-impact sector of enterprises builds self-reliance and local resilience helps individuals acquire skills, thereby improving the wage distribution enhances community

Permaculture and urban agriculture: green production and self-reliance

Micro-generation of energy

DIY home building

: fabrication technology

Why self-provisioning is savvy economics High-productivity: high-tech, high in knowledge, esp eco-knowledge Small scale Low financial barriers to entry Insurance against adverse events (climate or financial disruption) Can build social capital

Factor e Farm: a self-sufficient, high-tech, replicable, open source community Plenitude in action Eco-restoration Permaculture All DIY

Post industrial peasant economics

Transitional policies and pathways Vision: Frithjof Bergman’s New Work System; nef’s 21 hours New hires at 80% Work Sharing as part of UI system Voluntary time/income tradeoffs for high income workers Income and consumption provision for low hours workers Short hours for new businesses

BAU

Session 2. new consumer regimes

Interrogating growth by thinking materially

Unsustainable Consumption: Apparel Accumulation in the USA

Apparel Discard: Used apparel exports from US to Rest of World Source: UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database

In this figure, resource consumption per capita and day is illustrated, for the year 2000 using the indicator “Raw Material Consumption”. Resource consumption equals domestic resource extraction plus imports (and the indirect resource flows of imports) minus exports (and the indirect resource flows of exports). One full rucksack equals 15 kilograms of resource consumption. The numbers only include economically used materials and thus exclude unused materials, such as overburden from mining. Material consumption per capita and day

Reducing the costs of reproduction through sharing

thredUP: the Netflix of Clothing

Consumers at the cutting edge: innovations in sustainable consumptio n 9.1 million items a year on freecycle

rces/ new-dream-mini- views-visualizing-a-plenitude- economy