Poverty Beyond Growth: Toward a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity

by Alexander, Samuel (2011)

Abstract

This jurisprudential thesis argues that when an economy has grown so large that it has reached or exceeded the threshold point beyond which any further growth is ‘uneconomic’ (i.e. socially or ecologically counter-productive), property relations as expressed in law should no longer be defined and defended in order to grow the economy. Instead, property relations should be reconstructed in order to achieve more specific welfare-enhancing objectives – such as eliminating poverty, lessening inequalities, and protecting the environment – and the efficient growth of GDP or lack thereof should be treated as a by-product of secondary importance. For these reasons reference will be made to a ‘post-growth’ property system, a system whose coherency, viability, and desirability will be evaluated and ultimately defended as the central project of this thesis.

Keywords

Economics, Jurisprudence, Property, Inequality, Poverty, Ecology, Environment, Gross Domestic Product, Law

Themes

Links to Reference

• https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/168579343
• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1941069

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