Version 3.2
Community passage to the degrowth society
Community passage to the degrowth society
The systemic crisis of the Planet makes important the temporal dimension within which to make a radical transition of the dominant socioeconomic paradigm, in which the social and political spheres have been subjected to the imperative of infinite market growth.
Degrowth has so far been the only viable alternative horizon.
To begin with, it is necessary to establish a priori which institutional framework and actors should be able to facilitate this colossal process of change, taking into account the time constraint mentioned above.
The hypothesis we intend to advance is based on the promotion of a local-global institutional framework of a federal type through the support of all policies, techniques and cultures that move toward a right territorial scale . The fundamental elements of this institutional framework are represented by the Communities of Citizens who, inhabiting the same territory, realize the democratic political principle of self-government and, at the same time, build their own horizontal federation capable of interconnecting the different territorial scales, according to the ethical-political principles of subsidiarity and mutuality.
Choosing this path means being convinced that the transition to a degrowth society passes through the ability of each person living in his or her living area to relate to other co-citizens, to form a network of relationships of the "primary" type. This is apart from that motivation that Weber calls instrumental rationality (individual interest as the foundational element of relationship). In short, a feeling that we find: in the concept of gift (Mauss et al.) and in that of conviviality (Illch). In this type of relationship established between individuals and between federated Communities, the territory of common life (local and global) plays the function of medium, of "attractor" (as Bruno Latour explains), of subject of law (M. Serres). Territory and community become the authentically human level contexts that enable the distancing from the Megamachine that Latouche taught us to fear.
In the light of these theoretical coordinates, we present the first results of a research project, currently being carried out in Italy, aimed at measuring the degree of coherence of the enormous and varied number of good practices of citizens who, in different social, economic, territorial and institutional contexts are experimenting community-type nodes and networks.
Six co-authors of the Degrowth Association (associazione per la decrescita - Italia)
Ferruccio Nilia
Paolo Ladetto
Lucia Piani
Toni Peratoner
Paolo Tomasin
Alberto Castagnola
Info
Day:
2023-08-30
Start time:
10:30
Duration:
00:15
Room:
ZV-8-2
Type:
Paper Presentation
Theme:
Degrowth as a political project?
