Sustainable Lifestyles and the Quest for Plentitude
Case Studies of the New Economy
Many of today's most troubling environmental and economic issues have come to seem insoluble: carbon emissions, overshoot, inequality, joblessness, and a dysfunctional food system. Can we change direction, move away from business-as-usual, and achieve a more sustainable, empowering and humane economy? Through a fascinating array of illuminating case studies, this hope-filled book affirms that we can. In locations across the U.S. and the globe, local participants are forging their own versions of small-scale, low-footprint, high satisfaction lifestyles and communities. From raw milk consumers and members of alternative agricultural initiatives to timebankers, artisan producers in the Aude region of France, and bicycle mechanics on the South Side of Chicago, individuals and small groups are exploring the practice of plenitude. Their efforts demonstrate how social and economic transformation happens and suggest new paths toward larger-scale change and a richer quality of life for all.
About the Author
Juliet Schor is professor of sociology, Boston College, and the author of "True Wealth" (originally published as "Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth"). She lives in Newton, MA.
Craig Thompson is Gilbert and Helen Churchill Professor of Marketing, School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He lives in Madison, WI.
Reviews
"As faith in large institutions, from the corporation to the courts, the media to finance, declines while emissions rise, it is easy to be pessimistic about the future, if not downright despairing. But what one sees depends a lot on where one looks. Here, Schor and Thompson look where mainstream observers, including the media and academics, tend not to look – those practitioners who have no patience for doom and gloom and have rolled up their sleeves to create the world they want to live in. The cases in this book show how such 'plenitude practitioners' are pointing the way to a future that is realistic because it exists" – Thomas Princen, author of "The Logic of Sufficiency" and "Treading Softly"
