Buen Vivir, Degrowth and Ecological Swaraj - Alternatives to sustainable development and the Green Economy

Summary

A post-development manifesto from three continents. Ashish Kothari, Federico Demaria and Alberto Acosta call ‘sustainable development’ an oxymoron and development itself “a western cultural construct”. They set against it three worldviews – Buen Vivir, Ecological Swaraj and degrowth – which “cannot be reduced to any single one”, urging people to “continue dreaming, practicing, and promoting these alternatives”.

Rationale

Ecuador and Bolivia wrote Buen Vivir into their constitutions and kept extracting. A warning for us: relational language adopted on paper changes little while the conditions around it stay put.