Realist utopias? Green alternatives to capitalism
While environmental economists have argued that environmental problems can be measured and added to production costs to neatly ‘internalise’ otherwise hidden externalities, green economists are sceptical. Even Jonathon Porritt (2005) in a recent book which seems superficially to defend capitalism notes that our existing economic system is unsustainable and we need a rather different form of capitalism. Markets seem to have a built-in growth imperative; while markets evolve and the system becomes more ornate with finance capital including shares and hedge funds, a basic principle remains. In a market, access to goods and service is via money. To get money one has to sell a commodity; for most of us this is our labour. There is a tendency to monetise ever more areas of life: a rainforest can be sold to farmers to grow soya or made to make money through various forms of intensive cultivation. The principle of producing and consuming more and more for ever and ever seems economically vital yet ecologically suspect. One approach to dealing with this dilemma has been to invoke natural capitalism, looking at ways of producing more while using fewer resources. This approach may be aided by an economy which trades increasingly in knowledge. However the principle of an economy that can only survive with constant accumulation tends to build in an anti-ecological trend. If we can cut down a forest, sell the timber and then use the land cleared as a parking lot, this creates economic growth; if we leave it to the birds this does not facilitate accumulation. The growth imperative of capitalism has led to the search for alternative forms of economic regulation. Anti-capitalism from Marx and before has a lengthy history. To some state intervention seems a way of achieving an alternative economic system. I was intrigued to read in Andrew Simm’s interesting Ecological Debt (2005) book that while capitalism was unsustainable and needed to be transcended, the fact that the UK economy Environmental Politics, Vol. 16, No. 3, 518 – 522, June 2007
Paradigms and paradoxes: the futures of growth and degrowth

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce three storylines that address the relation between economic growth, technical innovation and environmental impact. The paper assesses if and how these storylines as guiding visions increase our range of future orientations.


Design/methodology/approach
The paper first explains its general outline and then explores different strands of literature to arrive at its analytical conclusions.


Findings
Pursuing the three storylines in a paradigmatic articulation creates paradoxes. The growth paradigm focuses on economic growth as its main goal. To overcome environmental degradation, products have to be substituted by environmentally friendly alternatives, but the continuous substitution of finite resources seems unlikely possible. The storyline of innovation sees technological development as a driver of economic progress, and holds that innovations allow the decoupling of economic growth from environmental impact, a claim that is compromised by the occurrence of rebound effects. The degrowth storyline holds that economic growth has to be stopped altogether, but is unclear how this can be done.


Originality/value
By articulating paradigmatic perspectives as storylines, a new understanding on how these perspectives can be figured as a constructive repertoire of guiding visions and not as mere theory-based descriptions.

Money Laundering Control in the Caribbean
Money Laundering-Methods, Risks, and Consequences Offshore Financial Havens and Money Laundering The Evolution of Money Laundering Control - A Historical Examination of Regional and International Initiatives Making Crime a Non-Profit Activity - Confiscation and Forfeiture Criminal Liability for Money Laundering The Civil Law Dimension The Prevention and Detection of Money Laundering International Co-operation The Long Arm of American Anti-Money Laundering Laws The Impact of "Name-Calling" on the Future of Caribbean Money Laundering Control.