An economy that does not grow can nevertheless always change and even improve in the process. It can become more ecological, for example. Last year, for example, CO2 emissions fell by almost six percent - more than at any time since the Second World War.
Working hours: A four-day week (tags)
Reducing working hours is a socio-economic investment that often brings better long-term health and more time sovereignty. A three-day or four-day workweek is the only way to ensure meaningful work to the rising generation. Public employment is necessary to supplement private.
Neoliberalism and Authoritarianism - A Symbiotic Pair (tags)
Rightwing populist parties mix the conventional rightwing authoritarian political style with neoliberal economic ideas emphasizing the free unregulated market and the sleek but strong state. For Hayek, unions allegedly threaten democracy and force a just redistribution policy.
Adam Smith as Philanthropist (tags)
The market can only fulfill its technical function when its rules and mechanisms are politically fixed and governmentally monitored...Adam Smith's theory has nothing to do with neoliberals and market radicals who preach the sleek state, low taxes for businesses and low wages.
How Much State Does the Social Market Economy Need? (tags)
The use of property is only legitimate within the limits of the public interest. Whoever takes a risk must bear it and be liable for the losses. The state has the political task of laying down effective rules for risk assessment, liability and providing transparency. Distributive battles intensify.
Capitalism is the Problem (tags)
Prosperity in large part is based on the ecological and social exploitation of poor countries in Africa and Asia. Today 20% of humanity consume 80% of global resources. The poor are played off against each other while the richest hide billions in tax havens.
Homo Economicus and Dethronement of the Profit Principle (tags)
Max Frisch summarized economism int he formula: "what brings profit is rational." Economism is a business ethics conception, a justification theory for profit maximization that declares ethics superfluous. Ultimately this is an "ethic" without morality.
The Soup Kitchen State Grows (tags)
Old age poverty is the result of dismantling the social state...What is lacking for the impacted is justice. Need justice and distribution justice have always existed in the political realm. The task of the social state was to fight poverty and protect citizens.
Labor Solidarity in Neoliberal Structural Change (tags)
The self-regulating market and the invisible hand were neoliberal theories of Frederick August von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Submission to the market was described as a natural law, as natural and self-evident as the rotation of the planets. Solidarity and unions were decried as barriers.
Newspeak Rules: How Neoliberalism Explains the World (tags)
Originally positive terms were devalued in the last decades (social state became "welfare dictatorship") Social dislocations are charged to the impacted themselves. The scandal of poverty mutates to the scandal of the poor themselves.
Right to Rent and Social State as Prosperity Motor (tags)
The Scandinavian countries show that more social equality can be combined with more education and economic growth and less unemployment and poverty. Humanity is rich when wealth is shared.
The state became indebted to bailout the banks. Now the state pays them ever higher interests. The state should guarantee the deposits of small savers, not the debts of banks to other banks or hedge funds. The financial sector must be shriveled, the sector that uncoupled.
2015-The Year of the Final Crisis (tags)
"We are victims of an ideology of perpetual economic growth. This growth mania now collides with reality. Ideologies usually seem very normal. For a long time people believed they cou9ld pay ransom for their sins with litters of indulgence.."
The End of Finance Market Capitalism: Renaissance of Socialism? (tags)
The crisis offers an historical chance to civilize an unbridled capitalism with reform policy. The future relation of market and state is the focus of attention.. Financial markets are characterized by herd behavior. Risk consciousness disappears.
Obama's Mistake in Reasoning (tags)
The accumulation of capital in fewer and fewer hands first made possible the worldwide economic crisis. For Obama's economic policy to be successful, he must reverse the assets disparity and force the 10% with two-thirds of the assets to solidarity through higher taxes.
Governing against the People (tags)
The dream of 1989 that democracy and capitalism can be reconciled fades.. Elected governments orient their decisions in trans-national groups and global finance markets.
Capital Needs a Counterveiling Power (tags)
Functionless profits do not lead to more investments..The market, competition and profit are not ends in themselves. The economy exists for people, not vice versa.
The Tax State in the Globalization Trap (tags)
The middle class cannot do what corporations do..German corporations pay little corporation tax; their share amounts to 2.6% of all taxes. For decades, they even received more subsidies than the profit taxes paid in Germany. Corporate enrichment in the US leads to state deficits and social cuts.
The fianncial markets, the fifth branch, are probably the most important markets today. Many remain excluded from this time- and space compression. Most people are barred from the advantages of globalization like greater mobility and improved communication
"Unfortunately some market fundamentalists are at work in the EU who denounce every-thing the state does to protect public goods as distortion of competition.. The globalized market shatters balance of public & private.."
Disinformation as a Strategy of Power (Part II) (tags)
"Perpetual growth is not possible in nature or anywhere else..Globalization, the free market with its absolute competition protected by the WTO agreements doesn't have anything to do with fair competition...A global network of resistance is developing.."
Europe and the Power of Capital (tags)
"The economic form of neoliberalism is based on political decisions, not practical economic necessities.. Only the democratic nation state can show the economy its place entitling it to exist for people and not vice versa.."
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia was not morally justified by anything. Only peace is morally justified. Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict.." Translated German
Against Social Darwinism (tags)
"The conquest of Africa and large parts of Asia by invading European forces was not morally justified. Only peace is morally justified..Today social Darwinism appears in the guise of Anglo-Saxon capitalism..Ecology and pure market ideology are in conflict."