Esperar que o progresso tecnológico torne a economia mais verde seria tão ingénuo como pensar que comprar livros de dietética bastaria para perder peso.

excerto de Abrandar ou morrer - A economia do decrescimento, de Timothée Parrique (Zigurate)

Christmas is a time of seasonal cheer, family get-togethers, holiday parties, and … gift giving. Lots and lots—and lots—of gift giving. It’s hard to imagine any Christmas without this time-honored custom. But let’s stop to consider the gifts we receive—the rooster sweater from Grandma or the singing fish from Uncle Mike. How many of us get gifts we like? How many of us give gifts not knowing what recipients want? Did your cousin really look excited about that jumping alarm clock? Lively and informed, Scroogenomics illustrates how our consumer spending generates vast amounts of economic waste - to the shocking tune of eighty-five billion dollars each winter. Economist Joel Waldfogel provides solid explanations to show us why it’s time to stop the madness and think twice before buying gifts for the holidays.

When we buy for ourselves, every dollar we spend produces at least a dollar in satisfaction, because we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, max out on credit to buy gifts worth less than the money spent, and leave recipients less than satisfied, creating what Waldfogel calls “deadweight loss.” Waldfogel indicates that this waste isn’t confined to Americans - most major economies share in this orgy of wealth destruction. While recognizing the difficulties of altering current trends, Waldfogel offers viable gift-giving alternatives.

By reprioritizing our gift-giving habits, Scroogenomics* proves that we can still maintain the economy without gouging our wallets, and reclaim the true spirit of the holiday season.

Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays, by Joel Waldfogel (Princeton University Press)

For thousands of years, history has alternated between long stretches of rising or high and stable inequality interspersed with violent compressions. For six or seven decades from 1914 to the 1970s and 1980s, both the world's rich economies and those countries that had fallen to communist regimes experienced some of most intense leveling in recorded history. Since then, much of the world has entered what could become the nexte long stretch - a return to persistent capital accumulation and income concentration. If history is anything to go by, peaceful policy reform may well prove unequal to the growing challanges ahead. But what of the alternatives? All of us who prize greater economic equality would do well to remember that with the rarest of exceptions, it was only ever brought forth in sorrow. Be careful with what you wish for.

excerpt from The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press)

MISSIONARY: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that.

SAMOAN: Why? What do you think I should be doing?

MISSIONARY: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it?

SAMOAN: And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine, and dry copra faster, and make even more money.

SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: Well, you’d be rich. You could buy land, plant more trees, expand operations. At that point, you wouldn’t even have to do the physical work anymore, you could just hire a bunch of other people to do it for you.

SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: Well, eventually, with all that copra, land, machines, employees, with all that money—you could retire a very rich man. And then you wouldn’t have to do anything. You could just lie on the beach all day.

excerpt from Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber

Combating offshoring requires a powerful social force. A global low carbon civil society needs to be developed so as to bring about reshoring in and across many different societies. The aim of this civil society must be to ensure that much that has been offshored should "go back onshore, reattached to the body of society, in league with nature, where freedom must move people together, not push them apart".

excerpt from Offshoring, by John Urry (Polity Books)

A short must see video about the book: