Author and lecturer Charles Eisenstein speaks to Earth Focus about transitioning to a new kind of economics that privileges sustainability and penalizes pollution. He traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism revealing how the money system contributed to alienation, competition and scarcity destroying communities and the planet through endless growth. Eisenstein says today’s conventional economic growth trends have reached their extreme. But, in the...
Leonard Gentle - President Jacob Zuma recently returned from Russia, a strange place to be for many when you’re in the middle of a crisis at home, as many a commentator here in South Africa has observed. Maybe he and Putin were swapping stories of a new series of Survivor. Putin certainly would have a lot to teach Zuma on that score. But important as those tips may be for our embattled Zuma, Putin has much bigger fish to fry and for those of us more interested in social justice than the competing...
Glenn Ashton - A remarkable thing is happening in the world of economics. Dissatisfied students from various institutions around the world insist that the dominant economics curriculum must change, as it inadequately reflects, or deals with, our current economic realities. They clearly realise that real change occurs from within. These students demand changes that not only reflect our post-2008 economic crash world, but further insist that the entire theoretical economics framework and curriculum be...
Acclaimed economist, Ha-Joon Chang, professor in the faculty of politics and economics at Cambridge University argues that economics is too important to leave to the experts. By publishing his latest book, Economics: The User's Guide, he crosses the chasm separating academic theory and regular life and produces a book that seeks to turn every one of us into an economist. Chang contends that 95% of economics is common sense. You don’t need a degree to understand it. He visited the RSA...