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Economic policies encourage the careless use of people and the planet. Creating caring economies is the answer

Diane Elson Professor of Sociology University of Essex

Date:

Author: Diane Elson, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex

Original article: https://theconversation.com/economic-policies-encourage-the-careless-use-of-people-and-the-planet-creating-caring-economies-is-the-answer-242784

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change includes
a Gender Action Plan, adopted in 2017. The plan aims to “enhance the gender responsiveness” of climate policy and climate action. It outlines specific actions and strategies to promote gender equality and the participation of women in climate change mitigation.

This is in line with the mainstream approach to gender and climate change, which focuses on “including women” in the:

But feminist economists and social scientists are producing analyses that go beyond this. They have long been concerned to highlight the importance of care in economic and social systems. This is care which is predominantly the work of women and girls and much of which is unpaid.

I have worked, for much of my academic career, on why this broader approach is important, and what the shortcomings of the mainstream approach are.

Climate scientists and feminist social scientists all have an interest in the forces shaping care of the planet and people.

In this piece, I explore some ideas about care practices – and careless practices – for people and planet. We look at the need to go beyond adaptation and mitigation to create caring economies in which money and markets serve rather than undermine the wellbeing of people and planet.

Care for people

I see care for people as provision of assistance and support to carry out daily activities, like eating, dressing, bathing, learning, exercising and resting.

We all need such assistance and support at some periods in our lives, especially at the beginning and end. But even if we are a so-called able-bodied adult, with a paid job, we need help from family and friends to flourish.

However, most of the work of care is carried out by women and girls. This is the result of gender and other inequalities. Care is provided without pay in families and communities and also by paid employees in households, businesses and public sector facilities. Those providing care, paid or unpaid, are undervalued, and their own care needs are neglected.

Care for the planet

I understand care for the planet as supporting environmental systems as they interact with social and economic systems. It is an approach which respects the planet as a living system which is able to renew itself.

Good quality care for the planet safeguards animals, soil, water and air. It also limits climate risks. It can be embodied in:

Depletion and degradation vs replenishment and regeneration

Currently, both people and planet are subject to depletion and degradation through the ways they are used in production. The livelihoods of the majority of people depend directly or indirectly on large enterprises (private or state owned). The pressure to generate profits and revenues shapes the way people and planet are treated.

Too often people are treated as disposable, with little concern for their health and wellbeing. Much of the planet is owned by the large enterprises that use it as an instrument for extracting profits and revenues, disregarding non-financial costs.

People’s capabilities are depleted and degraded through work that is exhausting and through deprivation of essentials like food and shelter.

Similarly, environmental systems are degraded and depleted through over-extraction of resources which depletes the earth’s resources and leaves waste. The current economic system does not value the reproduction of the environment, on which we rely for our livelihoods.

Care can assist people and environmental systems to replenish and regenerate themselves. But care work is itself also subject to the forces that lead to degradation and depletion.

The current economic system promotes the careless use of both people and planet through an emphasis in minimising short run financial costs, generating maximum financial returns and placing no value on long term care and reproduction.

Creating caring economies

Underlying the degradation and depletion of people and planet is a finance driven economic system which values human capabilities and environmental systems primarily for the money to be made from them. This can be money that takes the form of private profits or revenues for the state.

To support replenishment and regeneration, humans need to create caring economies that value wellbeing rather than financial returns. In such a system all enterprises, private and public would have a duty of care.

Attempts to mobilise finance for mitigation and adaptation can only achieve limited success when the economic system itself doesn’t foster wellbeing of people and planet.

Feminist social scientists have been developing ideas about what it means to create a caring economy. For instance, a UK feminist think tank, the Women’s Budget Group, has developed a plan for a caring and green economy for the UK. It identifies four structural changes that are needed:

Next steps

The ways economies are currently organised promotes a careless use of
people and planet. This leads to depletion and degradation of human capabilities and environmental systems. In caring economies, people and the environment are constantly replenished and regenerated.

Creating caring economies will require going beyond piecemeal attempts at mitigation and adaptation to introduce system-wide change.

This article is part of a series of articles initiated through a project led by the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre and a group of feminist economists and climate scientists across the world.

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