Learning from degrowth ideas
of work and income:
empowering alternatives in the transition
towards sustainability
Degrowth Conference, Budapest 2016
Tuuli Hirvilammi, Ingo Stamm, Aila-Leena Matthies & Kati Närhi
University of Jyväskylä/Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius, Finland
Research project
ECOSOS - Contribution of social work and systems of
income security to the ecosocial transformation of
society
Funded by the Finnish Academy, 2015 – 2019
Research team consists of two social work professors
and two post-doc researchers
General aims:
To search for different understandings and more
sustainable forms of work and wellbeing
To understand how present social work and systems of
income security either support or prevent these new
forms and to see how they could contribute to a
transition towards sustainability
Background: Unsustainable
employment systems and welfare states
Part of the ecological crisis
Dependent on growth-driven economy
Based on the idea of full-time work
Activation policy humiliating human rights for minimum
income and meaningful activities
Alternatives needed
Research on transitions
Transitions = fundamental system changes
Focus on large-scale socio-technical transitions to
sustainable society
Many perspectives:
◦ multi-level perspective
◦ technological innovation systems
◦ transition management
Multi-level perspective on transitions
Landscape
Regime
Niché
See Geels & Schot 2007
Research questions
What changes in work and income systems wouldsupport sustainability transition?
What alternatives can be found in the literature?
◦ (on ecosocial social policy & social work, sustainabledevelopment, sustainable work, degrowth)
How are these alternatives related to the multi-levelperspective of transition?
To describe alternatives and changes presented in theliterature and categorize them on the basis of the multi-level perspective
To combine degrowth ideas with transition theory
Degrowth and ”new economy” literature Suggestions mentioned
Serge Latouche: Farewell to Growth
(2009)
Work time reduction and increase in leisure time, basic
income, redefining what is ‘work’
Tim Jackson: Prosperity without Growth (2009) Reorganising work time, redefining what is ’work’
Marko Ulvila & Jarna Pasanen: Vihreä Uusjako.
Fossiilikapitalismista vapauteen (2010)
Work time reduction, basic income or citizenship wage
Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen: Subsistence: Perspective
for a Society Based on Commons (2010)
Broad understanding of income, subsistence based on
commons
New economics foundation: 21 hours. Why a shorter
working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st
century? (2010)
Work time reduction
Rob Dietz & Dan O’Neill: Enough is Enough. Building a
Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources
(2013)
Basic income, work time reduction, job guarantee
Miklós Antal: Green goals and full employment: Are they
compatible? (2014)
Systemic changes, work time reduction
Johanna Perkiö ja Jouko Kajanoja: Perustulo ja uusi
työllisyyspolitiikka (2015)
Basic income, job guarantee, work time reduction
Tuomo Alhojärvi ym.: Solidaarisuustalous (2015) Timebanks and other community currencies, local economies
Giorgos Kallis, Michael Kalush, Hugh O. Flynn, Jack
Rossiter & Nicholas Ashford: “Friday off”: Reducing
Working Hours in Europe (2013)
Work time reduction
Samuel Alexander: Basic and maximum income (2015) Basic income, maximum income
Kristofer Dittmer: Community currencies (2015) Community currencies
B. J. Unti: Job guarantee (2015) Job guarantee
Juliet B. Schor: Work Sharing (2015) Work sharing, work time reduction
Paavo Järvensivu: Rajattomasti rahaa niukkuudessa
(2016)
Basic income, job guarantee
Maria Joutsenvirta ym.: Talous kasvun jälkeen (2016) Redefining what is work, work time reduction, basic income,
work guarantee, timebanks and local currencies
Landscape level:
Broader definition of work
“work itself is one of the ways in which humans participate meaningfully
in society” (Jackson 2009, 133)
“De-growth…implies…the qualitative transformation of work”
(Latouche 2009, 83)
Inspired by the discussion of ”mixed work”
E.g. Hildebrandt 2003: four segments of work
◦ Employment (gainful work)
◦ Care work
◦ Community work
◦ Self-related work
Regime level:
Work time reduction/work sharing”The degrowth movement aspires to expand work sharing in theGlobal North beyond its current status as a temporary policy.” (Schor2015, 195)
To ensure everyone’s right for work and decent incomewithout growth (e.g. Latouche 2009)
Work time reduction instead of boosting production (e.g. Jackson 2011: Dietz & O’Neill 2013)
Concrete policy proposals:
◦ ”Friday off?”, less working days / week
◦ Reduced working hours / day
◦ Earlier retirement, longer family leaves
Regime level:
Basic income”Advocates typically argue that a Basic Income payment should beguaranteed by the state, unconditional on the performance of any labour, and universal.” (Alexander 2015, 1476
Eliminating poverty and economic insecurity, morefreedom to employees (e.g. Latouche 2009)
Funded by environmental tax reform or publicinvestment bank (Dietz & O´Neill 2013)
Linked to the ideas of citizen wage, participation incomeand job guarantee (see Jackson 2009; Anderson 2012; Unti 2015)
Also ”maximum income” has been proposed (e.g. Alexander 2015)
Niché level:
Community currencies”CCs are unconventional monies, i.e. monies not being declared by anynational government to be a legal tender” (Dittmer 2015, 149)
Local currencies, LETS-groups, time banks…
Can help people to meet their needs in economic crisis and in a situation of monetary drought
Support the democratic governance of economies
Common motivations for community currencies
◦ Community-building
◦ Advanding alternative values
◦ Facilitation of alternative livelihoods
◦ Eco-localization (Dittmer 2013 & 2015)
Broader definition of work
Work time reduction
Basic income
Community currencies
Discussion and questions
How flexible work and digitalization will change work?
Reducing working time: an ”extremely complicatedquestion” (Kallis et al. 2013) More free-time and environmental impacts? Increasing poverty? Less cheapenergy and need to work more?
The ”right” level of basic income? (e.g. Jackson 2009)
The potential of community currencies to escape fromgrowth-driven economy?
Empirical, local and/or national experiments needed
More research on the interplay of different levels in thetransition
Literature Alexander, Samuel (2015) Basic and maximum income. In Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria & Giorgos Kallis
(Eds.) Degrowth. A Vocabulary for a new Era. New York and London: Routledge, 146–149.
Andersson, Jan Otto (2012) Degrowth with basic income – the radical combination. Essay written for the 14
BIEN congress, Munich September 2012. http://www.bien2012.de/sites/default/files/paper_237_en.pdf
Dietz, Rob & Dan O’Neill (2013) Enough is enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite
Resources. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Dittmer, Kristofer (2013). Local currencies for purposive degrowth? A quality check of some proposals for
changing money-as-usual. Journal of Cleaner Production 54, 3-13.
Dittmer, Kristofer (2015) Community currencies. In Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria & Giorgos Kallis (Eds.)
Degrowth. A Vocabulary for a new Era. New York and London: Routledge, 149–151.
Geels, Frank W. & Schot, Johan (2007) Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy 36, 399–
417.
Hildebrandt, Eckart (2003) Arbeit und Nachhaltigkeit. Wie geht das zusammen? In Gudrun Linne & Michael
Schwarz (Eds.). Handbuch Nachhaltige Entwicklung. Wie ist nachhaltiges Wirtschaften machbar? Opladen:
Leske+Budrich.
Jackson, Tim (2009) Prosperity without growth. Economics for a Finite Planet. London: Earthscan.
Kallis, Giorgos & Kalush, Michael & Flynn, Hugh O. & Rossiter, Jack & Ashford, Nicholas (2013) “Friday off”:
Reducing Working Hours in Europe. Sustainability 5, 1545–1567.
Latouche, Serge (2009) Farewell to growth. Polity Press.
Markard, Jochen & Raven, Rob & Truffer, Bernhard (2012) Sustainability transitions: An emerging field of research
and its prospects. Research Policy 41 (6), 955–967.
Schor, Juliet B. (2015) Work sharing. In Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria & Giorgos Kallis (Eds.) Degrowth. A
Vocabulary for a new Era. New York and London: Routledge, 195–197.
Unti, B. J. (2015) Job guarantee. In Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria & Giorgos Kallis (Eds.) Degrowth. A
Vocabulary for a new Era. New York and London: Routledge, 172-174.
