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, 1870-1973
Working Hours in Selected Countries, 1973-2007
Household data show 40 years of rising hours
The flip side of overwork: underwork
• Long term rise in involuntary part-timers
• Weekly hours: 2001 3.3 m 2011 8.6 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 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
2009-2011 graduates16 % employed full time33% unemployed 15% working part time. 17% out of the labor force
2006-2008 graduates37% 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 timeSolve the unemployment crisisBe fair: improve the distributions of assets and incomeCreate wealth and well-being (enhance productivity)Avoid top-down, inefficient or elitist solutions: i.e., meet people’s needsCreate 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 systemEco-knowledge: open source transmission and ecological skill diffusionReduce hours in BAU jobs, build time wealthA growing green sector of small scale enterprises; new property formsInvest in social capital and common propertyRevamp the consumer sector
Rising Output &Consumption
EcologicalImpact
From Productivity Growth to Ecological Impact: when hours do
not fall SCALE EFFECT
Productivity Growth
TechnologyChange
Less Growth in Output
EcologicalImpact
Reducing Ecological Impact: achieve sustainability in ways that
enhance well-being
Productivity Growth
TechnologyChange
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 distributionenhances 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-
knowledgeSmall scale
Low financial barriers to entryInsurance against adverse events (climate or financial
disruption)Can build social capital
Factor e Farm: a self-sufficient, high-tech, replicable, open source
communityPlenitude in action
Eco-restorationPermacultureAll 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
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 1991-2004
Source: UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database
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 consumption
•
9.1 million items a year on freecycle
http://clrn.dmlhub.net/
http://www.newdream.org/resources/2011-07-new-dream-mini-views-visualizing-a-plenitude-economy