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Capital Sequestration: Degrowth through Investing in Community-Led Transformations of Provisioning Systems

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  • Shaun Sellers

    (McGill University, Montreal, Canada)

Abstract

Investing in different futures is an existential challenge that much research within and adjacent to Ecological Economics engages with, yet organizations that recognize this social ecological imperative have few options for funding and implementing radical transformations to the needs and well-being provisioning systems that currently exist. Ecological macroeconomic ideas and EE principles of long term well being and justice on a livable planet will be explored in the context of the housing crisis in Canada, and a rural Ontario community organization attempting to find transformative solutions to the lived, local experience of this crisis. Provisioning systems for housing, when tied to real estate markets, debt money creation, land enclosures, and financialized supply chains, contribute to capital accumulation cycles; it is hardly possible to meet our housing needs, in aggregate, without also perpetuating the form of this provisioning system. The idea presented here, that of Capital Sequestration, proposes to remove capital from markets and `invests' this capital in land trusts as an intentional transformation of financial capital into social and ecological values. Through land and housing trusts as well as non-market funding pathways, Capital Sequestration is a method of investing in the transformation of provisioning systems through the sustained and collective boundary management of financial markets and incommensurable values. This practice offers significant promise as it applies ecological macroeconomic theory work, is grounded in the normative goals of and emerges from empirical research of EE, and meets a pressing need within society for imagining alternative economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaun Sellers, 2022. "Capital Sequestration: Degrowth through Investing in Community-Led Transformations of Provisioning Systems," Challenges in Sustainability, Librello publishing house, vol. 10(1), pages 23-33.
  • Handle: RePEc:lib:000cis:v:10:y:2022:i:1:p:23-33
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    File URL: http://www.librelloph.com/challengesinsustainability/article/view/670
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leo Grebler & David M. Blank & Louis Winnick, 1956. "Capital Formation in Residential Real Estate: Trends and Prospects," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number greb56-1, January.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    affordable housing; capital sequestration; climate action; decommodification; ecological economics; ecological macroeconomics; housing; investment; land; markets; provisioning; trusts; world-building;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • F64 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Environment
    • F68 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Policy
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics
    • Y3 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Book Reviews
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

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