Ecological economist Robert Costanza discusses societal addiction to economic growth in 'Addicted to Growth'. The podcast explores the analogy of addiction, the stages of dealing with addiction, and the need for collective vision based on sustainable principles. It delves into behavior change, creating shared visions for a sustainable future, and alternative decision-making methods like deliberative democracy and sociocracy.
Society is addicted to economic growth due to short-term rewards, analogized to individual addictions.
Constructing a shared vision for a sustainable future involves balancing recognizing problems with envisioning positive outcomes.
Deep dives
Understanding Societal Addiction to Economic Growth and Therapy
The podcast episode delves into the concept of society's addiction to economic growth as analogous to individual addictions. Society is addicted due to powerful short-term positive reinforcements linked to economic growth. Analogies are drawn from individual addiction therapies like motivational interviewing to engage society in envisioning long-term goals and a sustainable future.
Building a Shared Vision for Sustainability
The discussion emphasizes the importance of constructing a shared vision for a sustainable future. It highlights the need to balance recognizing existing problems with envisioning a positive future. The podcast mentions various examples such as public opinion surveying in Australia and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as steps towards building a collective vision for a fair, sustainable world.
Overcoming Societal Addiction Challenges Through Positive Engagement
The podcast explores the challenges in addressing societal addiction, suggesting the role of special interest groups fueling the addiction to economic growth. Proposals like establishing an atmospheric trust and engaging therapeutic strategies at the societal level are discussed as potential solutions. The need for a positive vision and engagement of diverse societal actors like the arts community is emphasized.
Transitioning to a Well-Being Economy and Deliberative Democracy
The podcast advocates for transitioning to a well-being economy by moving beyond the GDP-focused growth rhetoric. Concepts like ecological economics being aligned with well-being economics are highlighted. The discussion extends to deliberative democracy as a mechanism to encourage informed decision-making, consensus building, and societal transition towards a sustainable future.
Today’s guest, Robert Costanza is hardly unknown to anyone who is vaguely familiar with ecological economics. While we could fill entire seasons discussing the topics he has covered in his works, in this episode we are discussing his latest book: Addicted to Growth: Societal Therapy for a Sustainable Wellbeing Future where he applies the analogy of addiction to our contemporary problems. Humanity is addicted to economic growth and like true addicts, even if we accept that it is ruining us by fuelling climate change, mass extinction and a wide range of
social crises, we don’t want to quit. With today’s guest, we discuss if and how we can find the appropriate therapy to collectively come off the substance. Hosted by Alexandra Köves. Edited by Aidan Knox.
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