Part of Series
The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics. Juliet Schor critiques both the free-market and Keynesian paradigms of macroeconomics. She argues that in this day and age we need to construct new economic relationships, a new economics, which take into account ecological dangers, stagnation and inequality in the global North, and global poverty. Schor insists that we need to move beyond the paradigm whereby planetary and human well-being are understood to be mutually exclusive. She proffers "an economic model for a post-growth society." This model involves a shift of labor from the formal labor market, a reduction of average work hours per employee, and the expansion of the local economy. She also draws on the new models of consumption and production that are being developed in our contemporary moment, highlighting how self-reliance today does not mean a return to 18th century practices, but 'high-tech self providing,' that is, the use of highly productive, smart machines on a household level.
Author
Juliet Schor’s research over the last ten years has focussed on issues pertaining to trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic justice. Schor's latest book is Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner 2004). She is also author of The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer. She has co-edited, The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, The Consumer Society Reader, and Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century. Earlier in her career, her research focussed on issues of wages, productivity, and profitability. She also did work on the political economy of central banking. Schor is currently is at work on a project on the commercialization of childhood, and is beginning research on environmental sustainability and its relation to Americans’ lifestyles. Schor is a board member and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization devoted to transforming North American lifestyles to make them more ecologically and socially sustainable. She also teaches periodically at Schumacher College, an International Center for Ecological Studies based in south-west England. from http://www2.bc.edu/~schorj/default.html
