Radical Abundance How to Win a Green Democratic Future

About this book

Capitalism has created a world of bullshit abundance, where we have too much of what we don't need and too little of what we truly do. This hollow pursuit, achieved at the expense of both people and the planet, has forced us to confront ecological limits we can no longer ignore.

Radical abundance is the antithesis of bullshit abundance. It is producing more of what we need and less of what we don't; more free time, more biodiversity, more services owned by those who use them. Understanding that we cannot wait for political change under liberal democracies, we have the chance to experiment with exciting communal ways of creating radical abundance now, before it is too late.

Packed with fascinating research and real-life examples showing how we can sustain over 8 billion lives without destroying our planet, reading Radical Abundance will convince you that a better future is possible, if we want it.

Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: From Bullshit Abundance to Radical Abundance

Part I
2. The Necessity of Transition
3. Instituting Popular Protagonism
4. Denial and Derisking

Part II
5. Public-Common Partnerships
6. Urban Development
7. Pharmaceuticals
8. Food Systems
9. Conclusion: Futures

Notes
Bibliography

Customer Reviews

Biography

Kai Heron is a political organiser, trade unionist, and Lecturer in Political Ecology at Lancaster University's Environment Centre. He is the co-editor of the De Gruyter Degrowth Handbook (2024) and has published widely on the politics of green transitions, political theory, and political economy in academic journals and in popular outlets including The New Statesman, Sidecar, Jacobin Magazine, the Verso blog, e-flux, Rupture Magazine, and Spectre Journal.

Keir Milburn is a writer, researcher, and activist. He has a background as an academic in political economy and organisational theory. His book Generation Left provoked debate across several countries on generational political divides driven, in part, by generational imbalances in asset ownership. The book was reviewed in venues such as the London Review of Books and the New Left Review. He is an internationally recognised expert on economic democracy, the commons and Public-Common Partnerships, and is co-director of the think tank Abundance.

Bertie Russell is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is an activist-researcher with a doctorate in critical geography from the University of Leeds. He specialises in urban commons, economic democracy, co-production and radical municipalism. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book Radical Municipalism: The Politics of the Common and the Democratization of Public Services.