energy

And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe, Austerity and the Threat to Global Stability by Yanis Varoufakis – review

This book is well worth reading if you're interested in how the Eurozone got into such a mess, although it ignores a very important source of financial instability - the relationship between money and energy - and it paints an overly rosy picture of the role that the US has played in the global economy over the past century. By Caroline Whyte.

The real lesson of the Energiewende is that the German economy uses too much energy to be sustainable and needs to degrow…

Brian Davey draws on German research to argue that the only way that industrialised countries will be able to achieve the transition to 100% renewables is through degrowth. The transition is likely to be easier in low-income countries that use relatively little energy at present.

The Corruption of Capitalism by Guy Standing: review by Brian Davey

This book is a powerful attack on rentier capitalism and, very explicitly, a call to revolt. Standing is at his best describing the features of crony capitalism that are totally different from the neo-liberal story of free markets that justifies it. While a very informative read, the analysis urgently needs to be expanded if the emerging commons movement is to be able to adapt to the limits to growth.