ABSTRACT

After the fall of the Berlin Wall there was in the ‘end of history’ debate an acceptance that Europe’s revolutionary past was over. Western political elites assumed that capitalism had triumphed over communism and that the victor was liberal democracy. This moment lent the development discourse of capitalism, economic growth, technology, and consumerism as progressive a renewed vigour on the world stage. The banking crash of 2008 alerted citizens to the globally interconnected nature of the new economy even if the obvious political winners thus far have been cheerleaders for more nationalist forms of politics. Daily life is less a matter of citizenship than it is of advertising, credit, and shopping. Yet our long-term survival on the planet depends upon us finding a different way of life beyond the high-carbon lifestyles imagined by capitalism. Such a strategy will necessarily involve relocalisation projects that develop specifically local food, democracy, policies, and trade.