All 11 of us found our way to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (FES) out of a shared concern for the fate of the global environment. We came from diverse backgrounds, and we are using equally diverse approaches for working towards our own understanding of sustainability. Some of us will be lawyers, some businessmen, others industrial ecologists or economists. But despite the different perspectives we represent, we all strongly feel that it is the current structure of our economy that is at the root of many of the problems we face. Inspired by our school's dean, we approached him about advising us in a project course on re-imagining capitalism.
It's clear that the challenges global society now faces extend far beyond the traditional scope of "environmentalism." Our very socio-economic systems and the "growth fetish” and consumerism they foster are some of the fundamental barriers to achieving sustainability. How do we go about transitioning from our current system? Is it even possible? What would that look like? This seminar on capitalism today and tomorrow is designed to begin addressing these questions in as rigorous and academic a manner as possible.
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