Welcome to Green Social Thought’s collection of labor and economics articles. Take a deep dive into green economics and labor perspectives. As advocates for environmental responsibility and social justice, we bring you insights into a transformative economic approach that challenges the status quo, particularly degrowth and union and worker rights.
In a world grappling with the consequences of excessive consumption and environmental degradation, degrowth stands as a bold alternative. Our articles explore the the green vision of reshaping our economic landscape, with a particular focus on scaling down unnecessary and detrimental aspects, such as military expenditures and empowering workers through unionization.
Explore the economic implications of embracing degrowth policies, from redefining prosperity to creating resilient and inclusive communities. Exploration of economic alternatives that prioritize people and the planet.
The International Labour Organisation’s Employment and Social Trends 2026 report paints a stark picture of the conditions facing most of the world’s workers.
Across the world, cities are being remade in the image of global capital. Once messy, vibrant spaces of community, culture and spontaneous life are being sanitised, monitored and packaged for tourism, investment and corporate profit. From the transformation of Amsterdam’s countercultural streets to the rise of “smart cities” driven by surveillance, data extraction and digital control, urban life is increasingly enclosed within systems designed for efficiency rather than human connection. At the same time, the same logic reshapes agriculture and rural landscapes. What is being lost is not merely architecture or street culture but the sacred, reciprocal relationships that once bound communities, land and everydaylife.
The US official asserts that “Cuba needs to change” and that Cubans require “economic freedom.” However, his narrative omits key facts about the social achievements of the Revolution and Washington’s responsibility for the current difficulties.
There is nothing easier than labeling and disqualifying. It puts an end to any discussion, any nuance, any attempt to understand what we are experiencing—and what we will experience.
Mexico is facing a familiar problem—one that has shaped its history for more than a century. How do you protect your sovereignty when you live next door to a superpower that sees your country less as an equal and more as a strategic asset?
In this vision, the economy is nonexploitative and radically egalitarian. Infrastructure, resources, and goods and services related to health, education, water, and energy are treated as a commons. Production is localized. The economy is diverse, with cooperatives and nonprofits predominating and production for markets confined to a far smaller role than it had in precapitalist civilizations.”
The urban population not directly involved in cultivation would use this currency extensively, to purchase food, clothing made from local natural fabrics, etc. in local shops or agroecological markets. In other words, a highly relocalised economy could be organised based on resilient pillars such as labour, productive land and local renewable energy, driven by the needs of the local population.
As a recent survey of almost 10,000 workers by Germany’s almost two-million-member service workers’ trade union Ver.di shows, the five-day work week does not exist, for example, in care work. Yet, for them and for other workers, working time remains very important for private life and recreation.
