UF Center for Latin American Studies
July 28, 2020
Dr. Susan Paulson published two articles that discuss degrowth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Degrowth and Feminisms Ally to Forge Care-full Paths Beyond Pandemic
Abstract
This article describes four initiatives in which degrowth and feminist activists mobilize collaborative analysis and communication in efforts to influence paths through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The efforts work together to identify and advance actions that help our societies to address and emerge from this global disaster in more humane, just, and sustainable ways. We join other social movements in asking: How can we seize opportunities to build healthier values, social arrangements, and policies? To slow down the rush toward future disasters? Highlight is on caring and commoning as features of desired worlds ahead, and as means and methods in our own organization and activism.
The Case for Degrowth in a Time of Pandemic
The pandemic has laid bare the fragility of existing economic systems.
Wealthy nations have more than enough resources to cover public health and basic needs during a crisis, and could weather declines in non-essential parts of the economy by reallocating work and resources to essential ones.
Yet the way current economic systems are organized around constant circulation, any decline in market activity threatens systemic collapse, provoking generalized unemployment and impoverishment.
