Designing the Green Economy: The Postindustrial Alternative to Corporate Globalization

Front Cover
Rowman & Littlefield, 2000 - Business & Economics - 235 pages
Designing the Green Economy explores realistically, and in detail, the worldOs enormous potential for human and ecological regeneration. It also explains why this potential has been suppressed or distorted by industrial institutions_thus creating economic crisis, growing inequality, and environmental destruction. The first half of the book looks at the challenge ecological change has represented to capitalism, as well as capitalismOs repressive response: the waste economy, as expressed in postwar Fordist capitalism and current trends toward a globalized economy. But today Othe great divideO between waste and green economies can be narrowed by emerging legal, institutional, and market approaches to production and environmentalism. In Part II, Milani explores the practical and theoretical implications of fully unleashing these new productive forces to create community-based ecological economies. Milani argues that neither sustainability, social justice nor economic stability can be secured without comprehensive redesign of the economy along ecological principles. It looks at key sectors of the economy_including manufacturing, energy, and money and finance_to illustrate how this redesign can, and is, taking place through both incremental grassroots initiatives and transformative politics.
 

Contents

Beyond Materialism The Postindustrial Redefinition of Wealth
xxiii
Industrialism and Quantitative Development
1
Crisis and Waste Fordism and the Effluent Society
17
FORDIST CAPITALISM AND THE REINTEGRATION OF POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
19
KEYNESIANISM DEBT AND THE PAPER ECONOMY
21
THE WASTE ECONOMY
24
THE MILITARYINDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
25
THE AUTOSUBURB COMPLEX
26
POWER MONEY AND BUILTFORM
108
STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES IN THE BUILTENVIRONMENT
110
Transformative Energy The SoftEnergy Path
113
DECENTRALIZATION INTEGRATION AND THE LANDSCAPE
117
RENEWABLE ENERGY AND DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
119
ENDUSE AND DEMATERIALIZATION
122
COMPETITION FOR WHAT?
124
THE GREEN MUNICIPAL UTILITY
126

OIL AND MATERIALS
27
FORDISM AND ALIENATED LABOR
28
PostFordism Casino Capitalism and the Production of Illth
31
THE DECLINE OF MASS CONSUMPTION
32
FROM INFLATION TO AUSTERITY
34
BUILDING THE CASINO
37
TECHNOLOGY AND MEGABYTE MONEY
40
DEBT ILLTH AND POWER
42
THE GEOGRAPHY OF DISEMPOWERMENT
44
MCWORK IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
47
THE CANCER STAGE OF CAPITALISM
52
New Productive Forces and Emerging Human Potentials
55
PROGRESS AGAINST NATURE
58
INDIVIDUATION DEVELOPMENT AND GENDER
59
RATIONALISM AND ALIENATION
61
POSTINDUSTRIAL PERCEPTION
64
MASS CONSUMPTION AS PEOPLEPRODUCTION
66
PROSUMPTION AND THE RESURGENCE OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY
67
ECOLOGY AS A PRODUCTIVE FORCE
70
DEMATERIALIZATION AND LABOR
72
The New Ecology of Politics
75
WORKINGCLASS AUTONOMY AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION
76
POLITICS AND THE WITHERING AWAY OF THE LEFT
78
NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE REDEFINITION OF WEALTH
80
THREE MOVEMENTS
82
THE ECOLOGICAL SERVICE ECONOMY
84
Designing the Green Economy
87
EcoDesign Principles of the Green Economy
89
The Ecological Space of Flows The BuiltEnvironment
95
THE CENTRALITY OF THE LANDSCAPE
100
ECOLOGICAL INFILL AND PATTERNS OF ECODEVELOPMENT
105
GREEN BUILDING
106
ELEMENTS OF GREEN ENERGY STRATEGY
128
Living in DeMaterial World Manufacturing Resource Use and Media
131
SCALE CRAFT AND COMMUNITY
134
THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ECOSTRUCTURE
136
THE CLOSEDLOOP ECONOMY
139
PRODUCT DESIGN AND PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP
143
BENIGN MATERIALS AND THE CARBOHYDRATE ECONOMY
146
COMMUNITY CONSUMERISM AND SHARING
149
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AND THE INFORMATION ECONOMY
152
GAIAS NERVOUS SYSTEM
154
TrueValue Software Regenerative Money and Finance
159
GOING LOCAL
162
MONEY AS INFORMATION
164
STORING VALUE IN COMMUNITY
165
MONEY VALUE AND PRODUCTION
168
VITAL SIGNS OF REAL WEALTH
170
REGENERATIVE FINANCE AND COMMUNITY SELFREGULATION
174
The State and Beyond Postindustrial Forms of Regulation
181
GREEN COMMUNITY SELFREGULATION
183
SCALE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
184
PARTICIPATORY PLANNING AND GREEN MUNICIPALISM
186
NEW RULES AND REGULATION
189
DESIGNING MARKETS FOR REGENERATIVE EXCHANGE
191
ECOLOGICAL TAX REFORM
193
KNOWLEDGE AND SELFREGULATION
196
PLANETARY TRANSFORMATION
198
BUSINESS LABOR AND THE STATE
200
ECONOMIC CONVERSION AND REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY
203
Works Cited
207
Index
221
About the Author
233
Copyright

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About the author (2000)

Brian Milani is research coordinator for Eco-Materials Project in Toronto, Canada.