capitalism and sustainability

Workshop on Capitalism & Sustainability

Quand :
9 avril 2015 – 10 avril 2015 Jour entier
2015-04-09T00:00:00-04:00
2015-04-11T00:00:00-04:00
Où :
Salle C-2059 du Carrefour des Arts et des Sciences
Université de Montréal
3150 Rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal, QC H3T 1N8
Canada

Centre de recherche en éthique (CRE), Montréal, 9th-­‐10th April 2015.

Programme (.pdf)
Poster (.pdf)

Mass extinction, ocean acidification, global warming, oil spills, and many other worsening ecological problems – not to mention the latest financial crisis and subsequent downturn – have renewed the urgency of the question: Could the capitalist system become sustainable? In other words, can the current way of organising our economic affairs – with private ownership of productive assets, markets as the primary mechanism for distributing goods, and firms controlled by shareholders rather than workers – promote well-­‐being in  the long-­‐ term, or do the internal dynamics and tensions within capitalism make it incompatible with this goal?

In order to give more precise meaning to this question, both capitalism and sustainability have to be defined. For example, is a capitalist society simply one in which the means of production are privately owned, or must it include other features as well? Does sustainability include primarily environmental criteria, like the protection of renewable resources and the cleanliness of air and water, social criteria, like social mobility and equality, or both?

The goal of our workshop is to foster debate on, and understanding of, the prospects for a sustainable capitalist economy. Without getting mired in a terminological debate on how we should or should not define the two concepts, we encourage participants to present their perspectives on the tensions between the capitalist system and the ideal of sustainability, as well as, potentially, on avenues of reform that could be pursued to alleviate or mitigate these tensions. We are inviting a number of authors who have made important contributions to this debate in recent years, but we are also seeking the participation of new voices.

Here is a non-­‐exhaustive list of questions that presentations at the workshop might address:
• Can the capitalist system work without growth?
• What limits would sustainability place on economic growth?
• What is or are the best alternative(s) to capitalism?
• Can the negative environmental externalities of capitalism be contained through regulation and, if so, how?
• Does capitalism necessarily generate inequalities of the magnitude we experience today or are these contingent? If the latter, how could they be reduced?
• Are the barriers to sustainability primarily systemic, or do they lie in the preferences of economic agents? What is the influence of the former on the latter?
• Are there any promising models for governing common pool resources on a global scale?
• How might we think about the relationship between social stability and environmental sustainability?

Programme:

Thursday, 9th April

2pm Opening remarks
2.15-3.30pm Peter Victor, York University, “Can Green Growth Save Capitalism?”
coffee
3.50-4.50pm Kathleen Wallace, Hofstra University, “Individual Responsibility for Sustainability”
5-6pm Frank Muller, Concordia University, “Tensions of Neo-liberal Globalization (NLG) with Democracy and Ecological Sustainability”
dinner

Friday, 10th April

8h45-10am Cynthia Kaufman, De Anza College, “Weaning Ourselves and Our Economies From Growth, Work, and GDP”
coffee
10.30-11h30am Christina Bovinette, University of Montana, “Transformative Justice: Seeking Green Space as an Alternative to Sustainable Development”
11.35am-12.35pm Dan Hicks, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, “A Satanic Mill for Science?”
lunch
2.15-3.15pm Peter Brown, McGill, “The Mistaken Assumptions of Economic and Political Liberalism”
3.15-4.15pm Colin Duncan, Queen’s University, “The Radically Anti-Market Implications of ‘Contracting In’: A Flexible Strategy for Including Ecological and Other Issues into, and Thereby Improving, All Current Production and Distribution Practices Worldwide”
coffee
4.35-5.50pm Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), “Sustainable Capitalism and Water Governance: Can Private Supply be the Answer to Water Scarcity?”

Organizing committee:

Peter Dietsch, Philosophie, Université de Montréal
Greg Mikkelson, Philosophy & School of Environment, McGill University
Will Roberts, Political Science, McGill University

 

Source de l’image.