Tag: economics

In reply to Presentation on Content Strategy for Degrowth by Heinz Wittenbrink

Das sieht sehr interessant aus, Heinz. Die Verbindung zwischen Degrowth-denken und Contentstrategien; ich glaube wir brauchen mehr solche Beispiele wie man abstrakte Vorhaben umsetzt oder übersetzt in kleinere, mehr alltäglichen Kontexten, ohne dabei in die Falle des ‘toten Urgrossvater Prinzips*’ zu tappen.

Vielleicht ist auch dieses Event am 11.11. in Brüssel etwas für dich (ich habe vor dabei zu sein, hoffentlich klappt das auch): SciFi Economics Lab, von Edgeryders organisiert. Im Orga-Team ist Alberto Cottica, die du vielleicht im letzten Jahr bei Elmine’s Geburtstags-unconference gesprochen hast.

Ich habe aber auch eine ganz praktische Frage, über den Formfaktor deiner Präsentation: mir gefallen immer die HTML Folien, weil es ja leicht teilbar und in einem offenen Standard ist. Aber bist du während deines Vortrags von Internetzugang abhängig, oder hast du einen Weg das auch lokal auf der eigenen Maschine zu zeigen?

Preparing an English version of my presentation on Content Strategy for Degrowth for our #coscamp today

Heinz Wittenbrink

* Mein toter Urgrossvater ist Weltmeister in Energie, Wasser, seltene Erdmetalle, und CO2 usw. sparen. Seit er gestorben ist spart er 100% bis in aller Ewigkeit. Leben heist Verbrauch, und daher ist ‘sparen’ als Ziel an sich keine Lösung, ‘smartes’ denken über sparen im Kontext (neuer) Ziele aber schon (wie LED). Frei nach Bruce Sterling bei Reboot 2009.

The Guardian writes about how left wing economics seems to be landing on their own economic narrative and proposition. Mostly until now leftwing economic policies aim(ed) at shaving off some of the rough edges of the rightwing ones. Making them rear-guard skirmishes almost by definition.

Last Monday in a conversation on government and markets, I remarked it baffles me that most discussions seem to pretend there’s only government task / public ownership on one end, and (unregulated) free market on the other end. As if there isn’t an entire spectrum in between of structures, legal entities and tools that deal with ownership, control, (immoral) externalising of costs, and influence in very different ways. Aral Balkan’s recent proposal is an example of such alternatives. That false dichotomy is a ruse it seems to put any suggestion of change into a default defensive position. Which is where left wing economic politics has been for decades.

Our economic structures, as any structure humans come up with, are tools, not a force of nature, and as such can be done away with when we find we want different tools. Now definitely seems to be such a time, in the light of global challenges and many people feeling disempowered in the face of those challenges. A search for novel agency is on.

The Guardian posits that this emerging leftwing economic approach is new. The article quotes Joe Guinan and Martin O’Neill saying “If we want to live in democratic societies, then we need to … allow communities to shape their local economies …. It is no longer good enough to see the economy as some kind of separate technocratic domain in which the central values of a democratic society somehow do not apply.”

This is hardly new as economics, maybe as leftwing position. Karl Polanyi (died 1964) posited much the same thing, that economic structures need to serve communities, and warned that for most of the 20th century “Instead of the economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in the economic system.” Leading an article in Renewable Matters from a year before this Guardian article to ask “What if Karl Polanyi was right?”

Sometime last year I had a conversation with a friend who told me he was starting a new company together with his wife. I thought it was an inspiring and intriguing step, and also a logical extension of thinking of the household as an economic unit (after all, economics, after Aristotle(‘s student)’s work titled Οἰκονομικά, oikonimika, means household management).

We’re in a similar situation, both of us working as independent professionals. Regularly there are things where one of us might support the other with something, so both of us can be more effective in our work.

Today we sat down for a first scheduled and real conversation about how to augment each other’s efforts, and what steps to take. It is in part also a result of our sessions with our financial planner, which showed us the importance of more closely looking at our household as an economic unit, and less as two separate working individuals.

Some first actions have been formulated, and I hope we can keep up these conversations and sparring sessions.