Solutions to the crisis? an ecofeminist economics perspective

In addition to mainstream approaches this blog is always interested in alternative approaches.  The role of ecofeminist economics as a solution to the global economic crisis may offer an interesting solution.  This is from the most recent issue of  Ecological Economics.

Solutions to the crisis? The Green New Deal, Degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy: Alternatives to the capitalist growth economy from an ecofeminist economics perspective

Christine Bauhardt

(Humboldt University)

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Abstract

This article deals with three approaches conceived as alternative approaches to the capitalist growth economy: the Green New Deal, Degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy. Ecofeminist economics has much to offer to each of these approaches, but these contributions remain, as of yet, unrealized. The Green New Deal largely represents the green economy, which holds economic success as contingent upon the ecological restructuring of industrial production. The degrowth approach more fundamentally raises questions concerning the relationship between material prosperity and individual and social well-being. The principles of the solidarity economy involve the immediate implementation of the principles of self-determination and cooperation. None of these approaches takes into account the claims of ecofeminist economics; and none of them clearly view gender equity as essential to economic change. The three approaches are, however, deeply gendered in the sense that they are implicitly based on assumptions concerning women's labor in the sphere of social reproduction. This article demonstrates how each approach can be improved upon by the integration of ecofeminist economic principles in order to achieve economic change that also meets claims for gender equity.

Keywords

• Ecofeminist ecological economics;
• Degrowth;
• Care economy;
• Gender equity;
• Social reproduction