Beyond Poverty and Affluence : : Toward a Canadian Economy of Care / / Bob Goudzwaard, Harry de Lange.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Goudzwaard, Bob,; de Lange, Harry,
• MitwirkendeR: Strong, Maurice F.,
• TeilnehmendeR: Vennen, Mark Vander.
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©1995
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (174 p.)

Beyond Poverty and Affluence argues that, like a virus which has developed an immunity to the cure, the problems of poverty, environmental degeneration, and unemployment today successfully resist the remedy of growth in industrial production. Bob Goudzwaard and Harry de Lange demonstrate that over the last several decades the solutions used by industrialized nations either have not helped or have dramatically exacerbated these problems. Instead, these predicaments have become structural features of today's economic practice. The authors formulate an alternative, which they call the economics of care, and propose a twelve-step program for economic recovery in Canada.Goudzwaard and de Lange contend that poverty, environmental damage, and unemployment have a common origin: they emerge from structural flaws in classical and contemporary neoclassical economic thought, including that of Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Drawing on thinkers as diverse as RenT Girard and Hannah Arendt, on numerous Canadian sources, and on their own Christian tradition, the authors propose a `pre-care' economy, which places care needs first on its list of priorities and only then addresses the scope of production, rather than a 'post-care' economy, which pursues maximum consumption and production above all else. They also describe in detail structural changes the Canadian economy will need to undergo to become an economy of pre-care. Included in their discussion is an assessment of the progress of `sustainable development' in Canada, including the work of the federal and provincial roundtables on environment and economy, and a proposed framework for setting Canadian government finances on a durable foundation. The twelve economic proposals the authors put forward deal with such issues as international currency creation, the environment, the foundation of labour/management relations, the funding of social programs, wage and salary development, the scope of production and technological development, the structure of economic decision-making, the direction of government funding, and the dropping of trade barriers in North America and Europe.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- FOREWORD -- PREFACE -- Introduction -- Part One. Why Economic Renewal? -- 1. Poverty, Environmental Degradation, and Unemployment -- Part Two. Finding a Solution -- 2. Risky Calculations -- 3. Reclaiming People and Their Needs -- 4. Renewing the Economic Order -- 5. Revitalizing Our Outmoded Economic Order -- 6. Sustainable Development -- 7. 'But That's Impossible -- Part Three. A Program for Recovery -- 8. A Twelve-Step Program for Economic Recovery -- NOTES -- INDEX