From The Simplicity Institute ... Sam Alexander speaks in Castlemaine

What is Degrowth? Envisioning a Prosperous Descent

This is a transcript of my keynote address presented at the ‘Local Lives, Global Matters’ conference in Castlemaine, Victoria, 16-18 October 2015.Other keynote speakers included Rob Hopkins, David Holmgren, and Helena Norberg-Hodge.

Introduction

Thank you for that introduction, Jacinta, good morning everyone. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this land and to recognise that these have always been spaces of teaching, learning, sharing, and conversation. It is a real honour to be part of this conversation today.

When I was a boy, if ever I were amongst a group of people congregating at 9am on a Sunday morning it was because I was at Church. For better or for worse, I am now a lapsed, or rather, I should say, a collapsed Catholic, although I remain a seeker. But as I look around the world today, especially from my Western perspective, it seems clear enough that God, if he is not yet dead, as Friedrich Nietzsche declared, is, at least, increasingly absent. There seems to be a tension between our spiritual sensibilities and the cultures and systems within which we live. As the poet-musician, Tom Waits, would shout in the voice of a husky wolf: ‘God’s away on business.’

But the absence of God should not imply an absence of religious thinking in our culture or cultures. In fact, I would argue quite the opposite; that our Western religiosity has become ever more intense in recent decades, and what has happened is that we simply switched idols, no longer worshipping the God of Christianity, and instead worshipping at the alter of growth, singing praises to the God of GDP, our saviour, for only in growth will we find redemption. Our high priests now take the peculiar form of neoclassical economists, bankers, and national treasurers. Daniel Bell once wrote in his landmark text, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism: ‘Economic growth is the secular religion of advancing industrial nations.’

 The above is from the transcript of Sam Alexander's speech recently given in Castlemaine. 

Sam is the founder of The Simplicity Insitute.  You can read Sam's speech in its entirety here.

An apostasy abroad in the world : double-mindedness and the despising of the poor

When Christians Despise the Poor | Liz Boltz Ranfeld by Steve ... it’s too hard for me to start this blog post with the sentence that I feel should start this blog, which is this: I cried tonight when I saw this image pop up in my Facebook feed: “Don’t forget to pay your taxes this year so the government can give it to people who don’t work as hard as you.” The vitriol I see spewed at the poor finally got to me tonight, and here I am, sitting in my living room with tears on my cheeks because I just don’t know how to keep excusing people for these kinds of statements. It’s in my nature to see the good in people, even when they have views that conflict with mine, but how much of this am I supposed to take?I see angry, hateful images that target the poor on a daily basis. Even though I try to hide people from my Facebook feed who post offensive stuff frequently, it still pops up in unexpected places. And it’s not just Facebook. I hear stuff like this in the waiting room at the dentist, in the lobby of a hotel where I’m spending the night before a family wedding, in my classroom coming from my students, walking through the streets of my city or another, in editorials in my local newspaper, on blogs, in church services. I can hide problematic people on Facebook, but I can’t hide ideas like this from showing up in the real world. Source: When Christians Despise the Poor | Liz Boltz Ranfeld St Paul says be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2), but it is all too easy to be conformed to this world. because we are bombarded by the world's values everywhere we go, as Liz Boltz Ranfeld shows in her blog post. In web sites like Facebook we find the world's values distilled into neat little epigrams, but we have them drummed into us all the time, by advertisers, politicians, celebrities and all the rest. And it's hard to resist. As another neat little epigram puts it, "go with the flow". But St Paul reminds us that as Christians we are called to go against the flow, to be countercultural, to march to a different drummer. Since the Reagan/Thatcher years especially, this despising of the poor has been particularly strong. But when these values appear among Christians it is really a mark of apostasy, or at the very least what Russian theologians calleddvoeverie -- double-mindedness. To paraphrase Elijah: How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if the Market, then follow him (I Kings 18:21). Baal was the god of prosperity, of commercial success. And some Christians have contextualised their theology in a form of syncretism, to justify worshiping God and Mammon. It is called Prosperity Theology. But even if we don't try to justify it in that manner, we are still influenced by it at every turn. One can't escape it. Nowadays, one can say that the dominant religion of Western civilization is the Market. Ayn Rand's ideology of "Objectivism" has been around for a long time, and though it has its vociferous admirers, not everyone is prepared to acknowledge it openly. But since the Reagan/Thatcher years it has been widely accepted in diluted form. Its values are regarded by its devotees as axioms, needing no justification, brooking no contradiction. But Elijah says "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." And the people answered him not a word. Steve | 17 October 2015 at 8:26 am | Tags: Christian values, Objectivism, poverty,syncretism, the poor, theology | Categories: economics, idolatry, theology,Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p3gtp-2rM

ACOSS says that only 20% of Australia's community services are able to fully meet the demand they have.

80% of Australia’s community services unable to meet demand: ACOSS report 80% of Australia’s community services unable to meet demand: ACOSS report The largest survey of Australia's community services sector to be released today, reveals that 80% of front-line agencies are unable to meet current levels of demand with the resources they have. The biggest gaps in meeting demand are in the areas of greatest community need. The survey of almost 1,000 community service workers from around the country shows that 43% of services are simply unable to meet the needs of people coming to them for help. A further 37% can ‘almost’ meet demand.  Only 20% reported being able to meet demand fully. “From the coalface of community work, our findings are deeply concerning and should ring alarm bells for Federal Government policies that would inflict deeper pain on the people doing it toughest in our community,” said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie. “As a society we simply cannot accept policies that will further erode the living conditions of people on the lowest incomes, or reduce the social services that are their lifeline. “We are particularly perturbed about the state of our nation’s community legal and accommodation services, which have reported great difficulty meeting demand: 72% and 51% respectively are unable to meet demand. Yet, despite the urgent need for these services in our community, they have been subjected to Federal funding cuts and ongoing funding uncertainty. “Services reported they would need to increase capacity substantially to meet current demand levels in these and other vital areas of need. “We are troubled by the plight of both young and older people not in paid work and of single parents, with community service workers reporting a noticeable deterioration in their quality of life and levels of stress in the past year. 50% of on-the-ground community workers said that quality of life was ‘a lot worse’ for young unemployed people and 56% perceived that life for sole parents was more stressful. “Life for both young and older unemployed people has become more stressful over the past 12 months and community workers identified employment and affordable housing as top policy priority issues that urgently need to be addressed. “More than anything these findings highlight the need to bring to an end the current climate of uncertainty, both in funding for crucial services and for vulnerable groups in our community. “The Federal Government needs to go back to the drawing board on some of its deeply unfair Budget measures, including significant funding cuts for social and community service programmes, and proposals such as removing payments for young unemployed people for six months of each year. This was the strong recommendation of a Senate Reference Committee last week, which found that the harsh approach of the Budget will push more people into poverty and disadvantage. “The government must abandon other damaging measures which threaten to make the situation worse for people and families on low incomes, including restricting access to Newstart to over 25s; freezing family payments; lowering indexation of pensions; further targeting of people on disability support pension; and introducing a $7 GP co-payment. “Already 2.5 million people are living below the poverty line in Australia, including 603,000 children. Now is the time for us to work together as a community to turn this picture around. Australia’s community welfare sector, which contributes 5% to our nation’s GDP and employes nearly one million people, is working hard to meet this challenge. “We urge governments at all levels to work with us in the pursuit of evidence-based policies that will be effective, not ones based on short term budgetary imperatives that will cost us more as a community in the longer term,” Dr Goldie said. Media Contact: Fernando de Freitas 0419 626 155 DOWNLOAD REPORT Key Findings How people are faring Our survey finds that the lives of people living on low incomes have become increasingly difficult and stressful over the past year. 49% of sector staff reported quality of life to be ‘a lot worse’ for people on low incomes. 50% of sector staff reported quality of life to be ‘a lot worse’ for young unemployed people. 56% of sector staff reported that life for sole parents is more stressful. 54% of sector staff reported that life is more stressful for young unemployed people. 52% of sector staff reported that life is more stressful for older unemployed people. Demand for services Across the community sector, services are struggling to meet demand. Overall, 80% of sector services reported being unable to fully meet demand. 43% of sector services reported being unable to meet demand. 37% of sector services reported being able to almost fully meet demand. Only 20% of sector services reported being fully able to meet demand. Services that prioritise people on low incomes or with specific needs are least able to meet demand. 49% reported being unable to meet demand. Only 12% reported being fully able to meet demand. The largest service gaps are in areas of greatest need. The data on capacity to meet demand suggests the largest service gaps exist in areas of the greatest need: among services working most closely with those on the lowest incomes and with the highest levels of need in their communities. Community legal and accommodation services reported great difficulty meeting demand. 72% of legal services are unable to meet demand. 51% of accommodation services are unable to meet demand.  Services not able to meet demand need to increase capacity substantially to meet demand. 33% of services would need to increase capacity by 11-25% to meet demand. 30% of services would need to increase capacity by 26-50% to meet demand. 25% of services would need to increase capacity by 51-200% or more in order to meet demand. Community priorities Sector staff identified investment in affordable housing as the highest priority for benefitting the community as a whole, followed by employment, education and skills development, health and income support.  Employment was the top priority identified for young unemployed people, followed by education and skills development, affordable housing and income support. Affordable housing was the top priority identified for sole parents, followed by income support, education and skill development and employment. Affordable housing was also the top priority identified for older unemployed people, followed by income support, health and social connections and social capital. Policy priorities identified include: Reducing cost of living pressures for people on low incomes; Maintaining state and local government concessions; Increasing income support; and Expanding training programs for people experiencing long-term unemployment. Service priorities Sector staff identified increased investment in housing and homelessness services as delivering the greatest benefit to people on low incomes, followed by mental health services and services for vulnerable families and children. Australia’s Community Sector Australia's community welfare sector makes an enormous contribution to Australian society, contributing 5% to GDP and 8% to employment annually. It employs 919,000 people and a further two million volunteers.