November 23 – 27, 2009
Jonathon Porritt, Susan George, Andrew Simms
One week course
“There’s a growing sense that the kind of debt-driven economic growth that brought the global economy to the edge of the precipice is no longer viable. But politicians are desperate to get back to that ever-so-reassuring paradigm of conventional economic growth. So what is going to resolve this chronic impasse?” Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future
Despite the astonishing events of 2008, there is little serious public discussion of alternative economic models. This course takes a hard look at the key concept of growth. Are there ways that people’s wellbeing can be improved without having ever more consumption worldwide? What kind of international financial structures could help the billions still living in poverty whilst protecting biodiversity? And how would our societies cope without growth as their prime objective?
Relevant media articles
It’s time to give up our blind faith in economic growth, The Guardian, 22nd March 2009
Perfect storm of environmental and economic collapse closer than you think, Guardian Online, 23rd March 2009
Prosperity without Growth? The transition to a sustainable economy. Report published by the Sustainable Development Commission, March 2009
Prosperity without Growth? The transition to a sustainable economy. Report published by the Sustainable Development Commission, March 2009, Summary
Note: Participants are asked to arrive on Sunday evening, and the course will start on Monday morning with introductions to the College and each other. The first teaching session will take place on Monday afternoon.
Monday (afternoon) & Tuesday:
Jonathon Porritt
Wealth, Growth and Justice: Ground Rules for the Next Economy
Jonathon will begin the course by posing some provocative questions: Is economic growth (any kind of economic growth, not just today’s idiotic kind of economic growth) compatible with a genuinely sustainable society? If not, what next? If so, then what kind of growth?
In that context, with growth of a very different kind, how are we to narrow the gaps between the rich and the poor world? Don’t we still need conventional economic growth for many years to come to help the world’s poorest people? If the economic cake isn’t growing, then how do we divide it up more fairly than we managed to do when it was growing?
And if there is an alternative, potentially sustainable variant of capitalism out there, have we still got time to evolve through to it from where we are today without widespread ecosystem failure and social collapse?
Tuesday evening
Jonathon will discuss the international and global dimensions of these questions with Susan George.
Wednesday
Susan George
The world is in the midst of a systemic and accelerating crisis which those in power approach as if it were a conventional one: on the whole, we are governed by ostriches.
The crises are:
social, with increasing inequalities within and between countries;
financial, with devastating impacts on the real economy; and
ecological, with increasingly accelerated impacts on climate and life-support systems including food, water, energy and biodiversity.
There are ways out, including the Green New Deal, but these cannot succeed in the absence of financial innovation [regulation, new sources of international finance] and social transformation [reduction of class differences internally and between North and South]. Genuine solutions are also often contrary to the short-term interests of powerful groups and therefore of the governments that act on their behalf. In what, or whom, can so-called “ordinary people” place their trust? The G-20? a strategy of de-growth [“decroissance”]? or perhaps in themselves?
Thursday (first session)
Susan George and Andrew Simms will discuss different approaches to tackling global inequity and financial reform.
Thursday (second session and afternoon)
Andrew Simms
Andrew will discuss policy options and new models which can be pursued within the UK and other countries to help develop a new economic system. These include: tackling the ‘triple crunch’ with the Green New Deal; the ‘triple bottom line’ where returns from investment are evaluated by their longer-term social, environmental and economic returns; tools for local economic renewal; and real world economics.
Note: Participants are asked to arrive on Sunday evening, and the course will start on Monday morning with introductions to the College and each other. The first teaching session will take place on Monday afternoon.
This course is intended for: those working in international/community development, local/national government, ethical business, economics students/professionals.
Jonathon Porritt is co-founder and director of Forum for the Future, and chaired the Sustainable Development Commission from its inception in 2000 to July 2009. His latest book is Capitalism as if the World Matters.
Susan George is President of the Board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam and author of many books on global political economy including How the Other Half Dies and A Fate Worse than Debt.
Andrew Simms is Policy Director and head of the Climate Change programme at nef (new economics foundation). He is author most recently of Ecological Debt and co-editor of Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? You can read Andrew’s blog on Guardian online here
For businesses: One week £1,200
For individuals, NGOs, Educational & Public Sector Organisations: One week £700
All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.
Book your place now! – click here to access our on-line booking system
Book by fax or mail! – click here to find out how
Discounts
10% for residents of South West England
20% with five or more people coming from the same organisation on the same course
(only one discount applicable per booking)
For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College
To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk
We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.
