Rethinking work for sustainability and justice

By Erik Gomez-Baggethun

Work time reduction is one of the central policy proposals brought forward by ecological economists and degrowth scholars to reduce environmental pressure and unemployment and enhance human well-being. In its broader meaning, work is defined as an activity involving mental or physical effort done to achieve a purpose or result. In economic and policy debates, however, the dominant notion of ‘work’ has acquired a much narrower meaning. It does not extend to cover the activities required for the reproduction of life such as caring and housekeeping, neither the broader set of things we do on our own initiative without expecting remuneration. The dominant conception of work remains confined to the set of activities formally recognized by society as worthy of remuneration. For most people in Western capitalist countries, work is still understood as wage labour, and weekly working times of around 40 hours have come to be perceived as an almost natural configuration of time.

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The global lab: political and technological experiments in the Global South

By Adam Moe Fejerskov

From pandemics to climate change to ever-growing humanitarian needs, humanity is making limited progress in tackling the structural causes of contemporary global crises. The result is a future of growing unknowns. Here, politics become increasingly experimental, as we struggle with unprecedented challenges and changes, leaving the fate of both planet and people to unproven technologies and uncertain policies. In a new book, The Global Lab, I explore the question of a future of experimental politics that too often becomes one of both inequality and exclusion for vulnerable groups across the world.

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