#1572 Building a circular, sustainable economy for all
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Air Date 7/16/2023
Today, we take a look at the problems of overconsumption and some policy solutions for reducing waste through a circular, rather than linear, approach to the economy.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Is capitalism actually broken? - TED-Ed - Air Date 11-1-22
People have become increasingly worried that the threats we face today, like climate change and rising inequality, can’t be solved by a capitalist economic system. So, is that true? And if it is, can we fix capitalism or do we need to tear the system down
The United Nations (UN) opened its first conference on water security in almost half a century on Wednesday, with a plea to governments to better manage one of humanity's shared resources.
We have a major “stuff” problem. With everything we want just a click away, we bring new things into our homes every day just to toss them out. Excessive consumption has led to an alarming statistic: The average American produces 4.5 pounds of trash daily
Ch. 4: How do we create a better economy? - TED-Ed - Air Date 11-29-22
Can we call any economy “healthy” in the face of dwindling resources and growing inequality? What if we cut off our addiction to endless growth, and used a new compass for modern prosperity?
Ch. 5: Europe's Circular Economy Action Plan - euronews - Air Date 11-24-20
Business Planet takes a look at Europe's plans for a Circular Economy and examines what this transition might mean for both businesses and consumers.
Ch. 6: Amsterdam's "doughnut economy" puts climate ahead of GDP - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 4-24-21
Amsterdam is the first city in the world to adopt a radical economic theory that suggests economic growth shouldn’t be the ultimate measure of success. Instead, “doughnut economics” focuses on protecting the environment while meeting citizens’ basic needs
The current fashion system is broken. Every year the fashion industry misses out on hundreds of billions of dollars and contributes significantly to waste and pollution through the linear take-make-waste economy.
Ch. 8: We Need A Library Economy - Andrewism - Air Date 10-5-22
The library has been a long-standing institution in our society, but what if we applied its philosophy more broadly? Let's imagine what it would mean to realise the possibilities of this proto-socialist concept and reintroduce free access to the commons.
MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)
How do you convince work colleagues that your bright idea isn’t just another burden to their existing workload? Working with policymakers at the regional and city level in Italy, Luigi Acquaviva has had to learn a few tricks
What if there were no bad choices in your shopping basket? What if every bite of food had been designed in a way that helped to regenerate nature?
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 12: Final comments giving an update on the membership drive
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left podcast in which we shall take |
| 0:07.3 | a look at the problems of overconsumption and some policy solutions for reducing waste |
| 0:13.1 | through a circular rather than linear approach to the economy. |
| 0:17.4 | So today include Ted Ed, Global News, Good Together, Euro News, the PBS News Hour, the |
| 0:25.2 | Circular Economy Show, and Andrew Whism with additional members only clips from the Ellen |
| 0:31.4 | MacArthur Foundation and the Circular Economy Show. |
| 0:37.7 | Each one of these machines represents the economic system of a country. |
| 0:45.2 | Every machine has three inputs. |
| 0:47.7 | Labor, people's work, capital, all the stuff that a business might use including intangibles |
| 0:52.8 | like ideas and natural resources. |
| 0:56.1 | The machine converts these inputs into goods and services because we're willing to pay |
| 1:00.9 | for the things the machine produces but the machine is really creating here is value. |
| 1:06.6 | Economies turn inputs into value. |
| 1:09.5 | What determines whether the machine is capitalist, communist, socialist or something else? |
| 1:15.1 | Three dials. |
| 1:16.4 | The first dial controls who owns the capital. |
| 1:19.8 | Over here the government owns every bit of capital down to the last office paperclip. |
| 1:24.3 | North Korea is probably the closest economy to 0%. |
| 1:27.8 | On the other end of the spectrum at 100%, private citizens own all the capital. |
| 1:32.3 | The US is about here at roughly 2-thirds private ownership. |
| 1:36.2 | The second dial dictates how much control the government has over what gets produced. |
| 1:41.2 | In economies with high coordination like the old USSR, the government dictated what the |
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