Inside Story runs an annual feature in which contributors nominated new and interesting books that may have been overlooked in 2018. I picked Fictions of Sustainability: The Politics of Growth and Post-Capitalist Futures by Boris Frankel.
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John Quiggin 
Fromthe blurb in the link:
“How feasible or utopian are ‘post-work’ or post-capitalist societies based on full automation and a universal basic income?”
….Wait…..what? No!
Full automation and a ubi is only one vision of post capitalism and is coming under heavy criticism from a lot of the left and viewed with well founded suspision or outright rejection by most socislists. Reduced consumption and the decentralisation of production are a must and if done well will provide a vialble way forward without a loss of basic living standards.
I want to buy this book but I hope it offers a wider perspective of post capalist thought than this stunted characterisation.
Seems interesting and I will order this for myself as a Xmas present. The blurb makes it seem to be a bit like Tim Jackson’s, Prosperity Without Growth, which was one of the more interesting environmental economics/ethics books I have come across in the past decade. Economists need to stop thinking about the environment as a factor of production or a consumption good and treat it for what it is, an intrinsically important asset that we and other sentient beings use as a home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_Without_Growth
I can understand that the following may be considered digressive:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/20/land-clearing-figures-show-314000-hectares-felled-in-great-barrier-reef-catchment?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR303gs_GTK4F6HBCmASoeKP0r-xZVqaGAjrlVo4YPO00E0G8NIb6oLTSdk
But does the example the absurdity and complexity involved in ecology and politics and perceptions thereof, the politics of development over quite some time?
Interesting to read this post in the context of MP Mr Birmingham’s resignation from the NSW Greens and Michelle Gratton’s comments on Federal Green prospects in the May election. Both were on RN
this morning.
Birmingham let loose on the Marxist Socialist dominance in NSW and their post-capitalist drive which
resulted in his going along with demands from a ‘weak’ federal leadership over ‘me-too’ accusations.
Gratton sees the Greens in real decline after failing to win Batman in Vic election.
It is not Birmingham. It is Buckingham, like the palace.
I’ve found a site where one can download the whole .pdf for free. Is this intended by the author? It seems to be the author’s site. I downloaded the text to pc memory for perusal. I’ve held off saving it to hard drive for later reading. Would it be okay to do so?
Of course, I think everything like this should be in the commons, but given the way this economy works I accept that people need to make a living. It places me in a slight quandary.
I just ordered it for $30. Oh well, more convenient than the PDF.
Economic development is such a long run concept that many miss the significance of a established savings pool. Be they big or small, countries wishing to promote economically sustainable development must first organize their household/government savings habits. The best at this in the last fifty years have been Japan, Singapore, South Korea and China.
Is money really necessary? Maybe what we need to question is the existence of money. At the very least, we need to question the form of money, how it is created, how it is destroyed and the relations it has, or should have, to the real economy.
Even more fundamentally, we need to question the issue of ownership. The ways that we construct ownership and money then in turn construct our society and its relations to the natural world. We aren’t getting the results we want in the social, democratic and environmental senses. Logic tells us we have enough resources to get these results (1) but the resources are not being marshaled correctly. The fault lies in our construction of ownership, finance and capital which we then permit to construct our society at a second remove from direct control.
Note 1. – For example, homelessness and near homelessness near in Australia could be as high as 125,000 to 250,000 people. Estimates differ. Other data show that over 10% of all homes in Australia, about one million homes, are vacant at any one time. Even allowing for new homes yet to be occupied, homes for sale or under offer, properties being renovated or awaiting demolition, deceased estates and owners away or on vacation, this is an astonishingly high number. It points to an enormous frictional inefficiency in how we house people when we consider we would need only 1/8th of these homes to house the homeless.
This frictional inefficiency is not merely tolerated, it is embraced. It is embraced because it makes a small number of people very rich. These very rich people get the rules and laws they want because they donate to political parties. The extant rules and laws exist to make a few rich, not to house all the people. This is just one example of many which could be raised.
As long as you stick to your restriction and don’t drop control, it is possible to enjoy the ride.
Good old John Besemeres there with you, I see. Him and the wonderful, demonstrably truthful “journalist” Like Harding and his “Collusion.” – Still, if the critical faculties still want some work, here is the wonderful Mr Harding making his wonderful sense!
https://therealnews.com/stories/wheres-the-collusion-2