Development & Prosperity in the 21st Century

Global political and economic life is governed by the paradigm of economic growth. Further enlargement, however, is nowadays both impracticable and undesirable. The logic of enlargement collides, first of all, with inexorable ecological limits that intercept the expansionary tendencies of the economic sphere and stop some of the economic activity. Second, to the extent that economic growth takes place, it creates high ecological costs and increasingly lower economic returns. Third, the paradigm of aggrandizement perpetuates the monopolization of the moral and philosophical sphere by economic logic and, fourth, it perpetuates vast inequalities and works against social goods and social cohesion. Under the weight of these negative ecological, economic, political and social consequences, a change of paradigm is necessary with the aim of maintaining the acquired standard of living and improving human living within the given biophysical limits, and with an emphasis on better state organization and social justice. In this context, the deconstruction of the dominant paradigm is the first necessary step towards entrenching a new alternative paradigm, that of ecological economics, which proposes a holistic framework for action by harmonizing the organization of the social world with the inescapable laws of nature. Such an approach leads to radical policy proposals in the energy, economic and political sectors both at the global level and at the local and state level. A parallel goal of the book, thus, is to prescribe a new plan of action that will make Greece sustainable ecologically, financially, energetically and economically. Such a thing presupposes the unmooring from previous ideological positions and anchorages and a new consideration of social life and the goals it must serve.