just transition

Redistribution of wealth to deal with climate change

2023-12-04

The classical economic concept of profit on transfer helps to explain why the redistribution of wealth that has occurred because of imperialism is rather difficult to address via the protocols constructed to deal with climate change. International agreements are going to have to go beyond simply supporting direct foreign investment as a solution to developing country energy transition to lower carbon energy solutions. A process that does this fairly is near impossible under the current economic model.

Energy transformation/just transition is an economics problem

Graham Cox

2023-11-24

Economics, Climate Change

In the war against climate change, the main issue continue to be resource allocation. It is not so much that we do not know how to solve the problems we have created for ourselves, it is that we cannot agree on how to spend the money or even if we have the money to spend. These questions are political, but the facts are rooted in our understanding of the economy and the processes that drive value creation. The politics tend to come out of how you answer the economic question of resource allocation and how you think those resources are created in the first place.

Industrial strategy, development, and the need for public production

Graham Cox

2021-02-14

Just Transition, Economics

We are told that Capitalism, at its core, is a crisis-driven economic system. Crises are at the heart of its innovation, transformation of the economy, and are the reason creative destruction is the defining point raised by proponents of this economy-first, anti-social system. However, any reader of history knows that it is only through the leverage and investment of the state that capitalism can find the path around the economic crises it creates. Capital needs to be held-up and protected or -- like most short-sighted adventures -- it runs aground. The alternative is not to hold capitalism up, but to replace it and the response to COVID-19 shows a way forward.

Technological change and automation in the workplace

Graham Cox

2019-12-07

Economics, Just Transition

Working people have been dealing with changes in the application of technology in their workplaces since the beginning of capitalism. The recent interest in the subject has largely been driven by the tech industry's promises of automated production and job-destroying robots, which will still somehow deliver a type of techno-Utopia. It is time for workers to take back the discussion and drive an agenda for the future based on clear analysis and the broader community's interests. In this full-length article, we revisit some of the issues and concepts around automation and its affects on workers.