In this paper we critically assess common perceptions of work to inform current debates on work in ecological economics. Work is usually conceived as (1) a productive activity (2) that satisfies ...consumer demand, (3) is conducive to health and well-being, and (4) ensures social inclusion and personal development. Drawing on the burgeoning literature of postwork or critiques of work, we argue that work may rather be understood as a biophysically intense, consumption-causing, heteronomous institution with ambivalent health impacts that stabilises societies in environmentally and socially unsustainable ways. Therefore, work should be radically reduced and organised differently so that it is no longer the main mechanism for livelihood provisioning and social inclusion. Based on our fourfold critique of work developed in this paper, we sketch out a postwork research agenda for ecological economics.
The sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) have successfully raised awareness and built momentum for taking collective action, while also remaining uncritical of the central causes of the environmental ...crises – economic growth, inequality, and overconsumption in the Global North. We analyse SDG 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” from the perspective of strong sustainability – as phenomena, institutions and ideologies – and find that it does not fit the criteria of strong sustainability. Based on this observation, we propose a novel framework for SDG8 in line with strong sustainability and the latest scientific research, “Sustainable Work and Economic Degrowth”, including a first proposal for new sub-goals, targets and indicators. This encompasses an integrated systems approach to achieving the SDGs’ overalls goals – a sustainable future for present and future generations. The key novel contributions of the paper include new indicators to measure societies’ dependence on economic growth, to ensure the provisioning of welfare independent of economic growth.
Biodiversity conservation interventions often aim to benefit both nature and people; however, the social impacts of these interventions remain poorly understood. We reviewed recent literature on the ...social impacts of four marine conservation interventions to understand the synergies, tradeoffs, and equity (STE) of these impacts, focusing on the direction, magnitude, and distribution of impacts across domains of human wellbeing and across spatial, temporal, and social scales. STE literature has increased dramatically since 2000, particularly for marine protected areas (MPAs), but remains limited. Few studies use rigorous counterfactual study designs, and significant research gaps remain regarding specific wellbeing domains (culture, education), social groups (gender, age, ethnic groups), and impacts over time. Practitioners and researchers should recognize the role of shifting property rights, power asymmetries, individual capabilities, and resource dependency in shaping STE in conservation outcomes, and utilize multi-consequential frameworks to support the wellbeing of vulnerable and marginalized groups.
Die Klimakrise betrifft uns alle - Doch wie kann ein klimafreundliches Leben für alle erreicht werden? Zahlreiche wissenschaftliche Sachstandsberichte bestätigen schon lange den umfassenden ...Handlungsbedarf, um die Klimaziele zu erreichen. Dieser betrifft alle Lebensbereiche: von Arbeit und Pflege über Wohnen bis zu Mobilität, Ernährung und Freizeit. Doch wie verwirklicht man solch eine Transformation? Der Bericht unterstreicht, dass die Möglichkeiten, klimafreundlich zu leben, wesentlich durch Strukturen vorgegeben ist. Die vorherrschenden Appelle an das verantwortungsbewusste individuelle Verhalten Einzelner und Aufrufe zu nachhaltigem Konsum werden in ihren Wirkungen überschätzt. Entsprechend ist die Kernbotschaft des Berichts, die gemeinsame Gestaltung von Strukturen für ein klimafreundliches Leben ins Zentrum der Klimapolitik zu stellen. Daher gibt das Buch Antworten auf folgende Fragen: Wie können Rahmenbedingungen so gestaltet werden, dass ein klimafreundliches Leben für jeden selbstverständlich oder zumindest erleichtert wird? Welchen Beitrag können die verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen Akteure leisten? Was bedeutet dies für Recht und Governance, die Wirtschaft, Globalisierung und das Finanzsystem? Können Medien einen Beitrag dazu leisten? Welche Rolle haben Ungleichheit, soziale Sicherung und Raumplanung und welche Infrastrukturen sind notwendig? Dieses Open Access Buch ist das Ergebnis eines umfassenden wissenschaftlichen Erstellungsprozesses, der sich an der Arbeitsweise des Weltklimarates IPCC orientierte: mehr als 80 Autor_innen analysierten die aktuelle wissenschaftliche Literatur zur Gestaltung von Strukturen für ein klimafreundliches Leben. Dazu wurden über 2000 Literaturquellen ausgewertet. Zur Absicherung der Qualität wurden die Ergebnisse der Autor_innen von in etwa 180 Expert_innen und circa 100 Stakeholdern in mehreren Runden begutachtet. Der innovative Zugang und die bisher wenig aufgegriffenen Themenfelder machen das Buch zu einem Standardwerk für die Klimaforschung im deutschsprachigen Raum.
The notion of an 'orthodox core-heterodox periphery' structure and the extent of interdisciplinary links have been widely discussed, and partially investigated bibliometrically, within economic ...discourse. We extend this research by applying tools from social network analysis to citation data of three economics departments located in Vienna, two mainstream and one non-mainstream, to assess their relative citation patterns. We show that both mainstream economics departments follow the asserted core-periphery pattern and have a mono-disciplinary research focus, while the citation network of the non-mainstream department has a polycentric structure and is both more heterodox and interdisciplinary. These findings suggest that discussions about the future of heterodox economics should pay more attention to the organizational level and seek allies from other disciplines.
The following editorial introduces the special issue (SI) on “Work, Environment and Planetary-scale Computation in Political-Economic Evolution”. Here, however, we go beyond an outline of what each ...contribution to the SI addresses, and attempt to draw a more pronounced shared embedding of the arguments that have come to the fore. The original idea of this SI was to synthesize a range of contemporary global political-economic challenges, i.e. (1) technology (esp. digital transformation), (2) nature (esp. ecological crisis) and (3) work (esp. precarization via the evolving platform economy). The main argument developed in this editorial reflection focuses on the common ground and origin of those processes found in the complex evolution of capitalist development. We frame the latter by assigning it a new term, i.e. “planetary carambolage”.
COMMONSIM: Simulating the utopia of COMMONISM Gerdes, Lena; Aigner, Ernest; Meretz, Stefan ...
Review of Evolutionary Political Economy,
10/2023, Letnik:
4, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This research article presents an agent-based simulation hereinafter called COMMONSIM. It builds on COMMONISM, i.e. a large-scale commons-based vision for a utopian society. In this society, ...production and distribution of means are not coordinated via markets, exchange and money, or a central polity, but via bottom-up signalling and polycentric networks, i.e. ex ante coordination via needs. Heterogeneous agents care for each other in life groups and produce in different groups care, environmental as well as intermediate and final means to satisfy sensual-vital needs. Productive needs decide on the magnitude of activity in groups for a common interest, e.g. the production of means in a multi-sectoral artificial economy. Agents share cultural traits identified by different behaviours: a propensity for egoism, leisure, environmentalism and productivity. The narrative of this utopian society follows principles of critical psychology and sociology, complexity and evolution, the theory of commons and critical political economy. The article presents the utopia and an agent-based study of it, with emphasis on culture-dependent allocation mechanisms and their social and economic implications for agents and groups.
This paper scientometrically investigates concentration in economics between 1956 and 2016 using a large-scale data set. It is revealed that economics is highly concentrated
along six dimensions: ...articles, journals, regions, institutions, authors, and paradigms. North America accounts for half of all published articles and three quarters of all citations, while the top twenty academic institutions reap a share of 42 percent of all citations. The top 100 authors alone receive a share of 15 percent. Five journals account for 27.7 percent of all citations and only 8 percent of all articles, and 3 percent of all citations may be attributed to heterodox schools of thought. The overall Gini coefficient for the distribution of citations among articles is 0.72. Generally, concentration is found to increase towards the top of the discipline and to be higher and more persistent on the level of citations than on the level of articles. Concentration has increased over the last few decades, with the strongest increases occurring already until
the 1970s.
Series: Ecological Economic Papers
Pluralism has become a central issue not only in the public discourse but also in heterodox economics, as the focus on impact factors and rankings based on citations continues to increase. This ...marketization of science has been an institutional vehicle for the economic mainstream to
promote its ideas. Citations thus have become a central currency in economics as a discipline. At the same time they allow to investigate patterns in the discourse. Analyzing articles published by the two major economics departments and the more interdisciplinary Department for
Socioeconomics in Vienna, this paper is novel in applying both bibliometric techniques and citation network analysis on the department level. We find that (1) Articles in heterodox journals strongly reference the economic mainstream, while the mainstream does not cite heterodox
journals, (2) Articles written by researchers of the Department of Socioeconomics cite more heterodox journals irrespective of whether they are published in mainstream or heterodox journals, (3) The economics departments display a citation network exhibiting a clear "mainstream core - heterodox periphery" structure, as Dobusch & Kapeller (2012b) suggest the overall discourse in economics to be, while the Department of Socioeconomics could be described as a plural though not pluralistic department with many distinct modules in the network , reflecting various disciplines, topics and schools of thought. (authors' abstract)
Series: Ecological Economic Papers
The notion of an "orthodox core-heterodox periphery" structure and the extent of interdisciplinary links have been widely discussed, and partially investigated bibliometrically, within economic ...discourse. We extend this research by applying tools from social network analysis to citation data of three economics departments located in Vienna, two mainstream and one non-mainstream, to assess their relative citation patterns. We show that both mainstream economics departments follow the asserted core-periphery pattern and have a mono-disciplinary research focus, while the citation network of the non-mainstream department has a polycentric structure and is both more heterodox and interdisciplinary. These findings suggest that discussions about the future of heterodox economics should pay more attention to the organizational level and seek allies from other disciplines.
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