Samuel Alexander

Broschiertes Buch

Beyond Capitalist Realism

The Politics, Energetics, and Aesthetics of Degrowth

Beschreibung

'Capitalist realism' implies that, ever since the fall of Soviet communism in 1989, capitalism has been the only realistic system of production and distribution. Everything else is generally dismissed as 'utopianism' or just naïve dreaming. This perspective points to a worrying failure of imagination, suggesting that it is now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But here is the paradox of capitalist realism: just as the dominant cultural imagination has contracted into a single vision of what is possible, the existing system shows itself to be in the process of self-destructing, serving neither people nor planet. Whether by design or disaster, the future will be post-capitalist. In his fourth book of collected essays, degrowth scholar and activist Samuel Alexander seeks to transcend capitalist realism. He shows that viable and desirable alternatives are being lived into existence today by diverse but connected social movements. Calling for a 'degrowth' transition of planned economic contraction, Alexander examines and develops this emerging paradigm from various political, energetic, and aesthetic perspectives. Readers will come away seeing plausible pathways to prosperity, sustainability, and resilience that do not rely on the capitalist growth model of progress.

Autor

Dr Samuel Alexander is a Research Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and a lecturer with the Office for Environmental Programs. He teaches a course called 'Consumerism and the Growth Economy: Critical Interdisciplinary Perspectives' as part of the Master of Environment. He is also co-director of the Simplicity Institute. His interdisciplinary research focuses on post-growth and degrowth economics, energy, voluntary simplicity, 'grassroots' theories of transition, and the relationship between culture and political economy. Alexander's books include Degrowth in the Suburbs (2019, co-authored with Brendan Gleeson), Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future (2018, co-authored with Joshua Floyd), Art Against Empire: Toward an Aesthetics of Degrowth (2017), Just Enough is Plenty: Thoreau's Alternative Economics (2016), Deface the Currency: The Lost Dialogues of Diogenes (2016), Prosperous Descent: Crisis as Opportunity in an Age of Limits (2015), Sufficiency Economy: Enough, for Everyone, Forever (2015), and Entropia: Life Beyond Industrial Civilisation (2013). He is also editor of Voluntary Simplicity: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture (2009) and co-editor of Simple Living in History: Pioneers of the Deep Future (2014). Most of his writings are available at samuelalexander.info

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simplicity Institute
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. Januar 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 18mm
• Gewicht: 405g
• ISBN-13: 9780648840534
• ISBN-10: 0648840530
• Artikelnr.: 61145883