Capitalism cannot function without growth, as Smith (2010) argues. Either more efficient production or quantitative expansion can satisfy the pressure of increasing profit. Efficiency is not always more sustainable, due to the rebound effect. Pigosso (2024) lays out rules for design how to prevent this while Circular Economy promises to enable profits to decouple from resource consumption. Though, both concepts are limited to small scale or theory so far.
\nThe growth paradigm is not only part of capitalism, it is part our social structure as well. Not only does it secure employment, it is also used to avoid social conflicts. By giving more to everyone no one needs to loose. At the same time, international markets shift the (environmental) cost to weaker states and economies. Thus, capitalism relies on inequalities from the classes, colonialism and between genders and races (Brand 2021).
\nShahrier et. al. (2016) conducted a study how values change with economic development towards capitalism. They surveyed people from different regions in Bangladesh representing pre-capitalist, capitalist and transitioning societies. The most capitalistic developed region had higher number of competitive and individualistic people, which interacted less with their neighbors.
\nOne a more conceptual level, Streek (2010) argues that capitalism incentivizes illegal action to make profit, creates dissatisfaction to keep people consuming and is in conflict with democratic values since market justice differs from social justice.
\nGiven that none of the technological fixes are uncontested and if already the indigenous Americans saw money and property rights \u2013 the basis of capitalism \u2013 as the reason why the French people in the 18th century were in a state of \u201awar of all against all\u2018 (as cited in Graeber &Wengrow 2021), is it worth it to pursue a sustainable form of capitalism?<\/p>\n
Brand, U., Muraca, B., Pineault, \u00c9., Sahakian, M., Schaffartzik, A., Novy, A., Streissler, C., Haberl, H., Asara, V., Dietz, K., Lang, M., Kothari, A., Smith, T., Spash, C., Brad, A., Pichler, M., Plank, C., Velegrakis, G., Jahn, T., \u2026 G\u00f6rg, C. (2021). From planetary to societal boundaries: an argument for collectively defined self-limitation. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 17(1), 264\u2013291. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/15487733.2021.1940754<\/span><\/p>\n Pigosso, D. C. A. (2024). Reboundless design: towards the prevention of rebound effects by design. Design Science, 10. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/dsj.2024.32<\/span><\/p>\n Shahrier S, Kotani K, Kakinaka M (2016) Social Value Orientation and Capitalism in Societies. PLoS ONE 11(10): e0165067. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0165067<\/p>\n Smith, <\/span>R. (2010)<\/span>, \u201cBeyond Growth or Beyond Capitalism?\u201d, real-world economics review, issue no. 53, pp. 28-42, http:\/\/www.paecon.net\/PAEReview\/issue53\/Smith53.pdf<\/span><\/p>\n Streeck, W. (2012). How to Study Contemporary Capitalism? European Journal of Sociology, 53(1), 1\u201328. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/s000397561200001x<\/p>\n Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything the dawn of everything: A new history of humanity<\/i>. Allen Lane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Capitalism cannot function without growth, as Smith (2010) argues. Either more efficient production or quantitative expansion can satisfy the pressure of increasing profit. Efficiency is not always more sustainable, due to the rebound effect. Pigosso (2024) lays out rules for design how to prevent this while Circular Economy promises to enable profits to decouple fromContinue reading “Can we make capitalism sustainable, just and supportive of human flourishing?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts-2025"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3917,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3916\/revisions\/3917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}