The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability
This paper argues that a sustainable industrial system depends not only on good environmental and public health outcomes, but also on sustainable employment and earning capacity in a sustainable economic system. These concerns are likely to dominate future national political debates, requiring respo...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | en_US |
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Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
2021
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131050 |
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author | Ashford, Nicholas A. Hall, Ralph Ashford, Robert |
author_facet | Ashford, Nicholas A. Hall, Ralph Ashford, Robert |
author_sort | Ashford, Nicholas A. |
collection | MIT |
description | This paper argues that a sustainable industrial system depends not only on good environmental and public health outcomes, but also on sustainable employment and earning capacity in a sustainable economic system. These concerns are likely to dominate future national political debates, requiring responses that increase the earning capacity of individuals through changes in the nature of work and employment, and in the ownership of productive capital. Making the economy greener, while certainly necessary for long-term economic and societal survival, does not necessarily mean more and better paying jobs on a large enough scale to make serious progress to reducing unemployment and underemployment. At present, national and global reforms are focused on improving the financial system, which is not synonymous with reforming the economic system or improving the economic status of individual citizens. This paper discusses specific policies and initiatives that need to be considered to ensure sustainable employment and livelihoods. |
first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:00:52Z |
format | Article |
id | mit-1721.1/131050 |
institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
language | en_US |
last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:00:52Z |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions |
record_format | dspace |
spelling | mit-1721.1/1310502021-06-25T03:34:29Z The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability Ashford, Nicholas A. Hall, Ralph Ashford, Robert This paper argues that a sustainable industrial system depends not only on good environmental and public health outcomes, but also on sustainable employment and earning capacity in a sustainable economic system. These concerns are likely to dominate future national political debates, requiring responses that increase the earning capacity of individuals through changes in the nature of work and employment, and in the ownership of productive capital. Making the economy greener, while certainly necessary for long-term economic and societal survival, does not necessarily mean more and better paying jobs on a large enough scale to make serious progress to reducing unemployment and underemployment. At present, national and global reforms are focused on improving the financial system, which is not synonymous with reforming the economic system or improving the economic status of individual citizens. This paper discusses specific policies and initiatives that need to be considered to ensure sustainable employment and livelihoods. 2021-06-24T21:49:31Z 2021-06-24T21:49:31Z 2012 Article https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131050 en_US Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions |
spellingShingle | Ashford, Nicholas A. Hall, Ralph Ashford, Robert The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title | The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title_full | The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title_fullStr | The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title_full_unstemmed | The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title_short | The Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand: Reconciliation with Environmental Sustainability |
title_sort | crisis in employment and consumer demand reconciliation with environmental sustainability |
url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131050 |
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