Recovering from Growth: Solutions to Inequality and Environmental Crisis

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 19. Dissertation Proposal Roundtable

Abstract

This dissertation proposal addresses the intersection of economic inequality and environmental crisis. The one-time energy boom that lead to widely enjoyed growth and relative equality in advanced capitalist countries has left a legacy of inequality and environmental degradation. These twin problems vary across countries, with culture and institutions as important mediating variables. In the United States, initiatives are being undertaken to promote regional economic growth through institutionalized tri-partite cooperation. Insights into the mechanisms that underlie successful tri-partite systems or into how tri-partite systems are changing under globalization and the increasing expansion of capitalism are vital for these nascent efforts. Ultimately, however, mechanization, technological change, and off-shoring have irreversibly reduced the demand for labor in the United States, and we must learn to cope with fewer jobs. Green technology is an insufficient response to either underemployment or unsustainability. In addition to consuming smarter, we simply need to consume less. Inequality generates conspicuous consumption (consumption for the purpose of signaling status). Over a certain threshold, more consumption has decreasing returns and inequality threatens community wellbeing. Many are suggesting that only by reducing (and re-distributing) working hours and consuming less can we achieve greater equality and environmental sustainability. This raises innumerable questions. From this range of issues, I am working towards identifying a dissertation question. I am equally interested in the macro and the micro levels, and more or less equally qualified for quantitative and qualitative methods.

Author

• Kathryn Anderson, University of Wisconsin-Madison