Peer2Politics

This blog is the second in a series of five, each digesting and reflecting on a day at theDegrowth conference in Leipzig, 2nd – 6thSeptember. You can read about Day 1 here, and below is a summary of my experiences of Day 2 – Wednesday 2nd September – Facing the current crises: critique and resistance.

This is an uncomplete collection of commons-related events at the 4th. international degrowth conference in Leipzig, which will start on September 2. There will be an enourmous number of parallel events, sessions and workshops during the 3 main conference days. So, if you want to find commons-related events, the following might be useful for you. We gathered information in English and German for panels and workshops prepared by commoners or where commoners participate. Moreover, You are also invited to one (or two?) network meetings of commoners.

By „degrowth“ we understand a downscaling of production and consumption in the industrialized states that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. We want a society in which humans live within their ecological limits, with open, connected and localized economies. A society in which resources are more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions. Such societies will no longer have to “grow or die”. Material accumulation will no longer hold a prime position in the population’s cultural imaginary. The primacy of efficiency will be substituted by a focus on sufficiency. Innovation will no longer focus on technology for technology’s sake but will concentrate on new social and technical arrangements that will enable convivial ways of life. Degrowth does not only challenge the centrality of the Gross Domestic Product as an overarching policy objective, but proposes ways for a radical change of our economic system, to create more space for human cooperation and resilient ecosystems.