What does growth mean today?
Maybe the root of the problem is a vision that for too many years now seems to be related to a single-dimensional conception of the term, that ends up coinciding with old economic indicators, incapable of representing the reality. In a world in which technological development and the latest research allow man to start to understand the biologic complexity in which we live, it is crucial to rethink the reductionist paradigms that keep our economy anchored to the past.
In this context, the reflections of Hazel Henderson and Fritjof Capra are important in the search for a new conceptual landscape for growth that can be simultaneously economically valid, ecologically sustainable and socially equal.
The first step towards change is the awareness that an alternative exists, there is a different road that is capable of understanding the complexity in which we move and of enhancing its multi-dimensionality. Just as in Aboca's research laboratories we study nature's complexity, looking for answers to emerging multi-factor diseases that cannot be fought with the reductionist weapons of an outdated pharmacology, so with this short book we intend to stimulate research with the purpose of overcoming current beliefs.
To strengthen a different conception of value on which we can found a new great vision of the future. To grow again, in the widest sense of this term.
Crescita Qualitativa - Per un'economia ecologicamente sostenibile e socialmente equa is part of the collection International Lectures on Nature and Human Ecology. A series of editions that offer the possibility of focusing, with the help of scientists, naturalists and philosophers, on the system of relationships that links man and nature. It is, in fact, increasingly obvious that evolution is not possible without nature, and it is exactly in the context of the new science, qualitative and probabilistic, that the undeniable value of natural as opposed to synthetic production and genetic modification is strengthened. The purpose of this collection is to give voice to the avant-garde lines of thought that deal with these subjects in an international perspective. It intends to help us understand a little more of the relationship between our species and the environment in which we live and therefore to help blaze the trail towards a future different from what we now glimpse in the horizon.
The authors
Fritjof Capra, a renowned physicist and scholar of the systems theory, is the co-founder and director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. With a degree in Theoretical Physics in Vienna, he has done research in the field of atom physics and systems theory, publishing worldwide famous books on the philosophical implications of modern science. His fundamental text is The Tao of Physics (published in Italy by Adelphi in 1982), where he shows how physics and metaphysics inexorably lead to the same results. From here he developed new scientific approaches which led to the living systems theory, currently at the base of modern ecology. Some of his other works, fundamental for modern science, are: The Turning Point (Feltrinelli, 1984), The Science of Life (Rizzoli, 2002) and The Web of Life (2001), Belonging to the Universe (Rizzoli, 2007), The Science of Leonardo (Rizzoli, 2012).
For Aboca Edizioni he also wrote La Botanica di Leonardo - Un discorso sulla scienza delle qualità (2008), Vita e Natura - Una visione sistemica (2014), Agricoltura e cambiamento climatico (2016).
Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006) and co-founder, with Calvert Group, of the Calvert-Henderson life quality indicators, she was a member of the committee that organised the "Beyond GDP" conference that addressed the European Parliament in 2007.
What does growth mean today?
Maybe the root of the problem is a vision that for too many years now seems to be related to a single-dimensional conception of the term, that ends up coinciding with old economic indicators, incapable of representing the reality. In a world in which technological development and the latest research allow man to start to understand the biologic complexity in which we live, it is crucial to rethink the reductionist paradigms that keep our economy anchored to the past.
In this context, the reflections of Hazel Henderson and Fritjof Capra are important in the search for a new conceptual landscape for growth that can be simultaneously economically valid, ecologically sustainable and socially equal.
The first step towards change is the awareness that an alternative exists, there is a different road that is capable of understanding the complexity in which we move and of enhancing its multi-dimensionality. Just as in Aboca's research laboratories we study nature's complexity, looking for answers to emerging multi-factor diseases that cannot be fought with the reductionist weapons of an outdated pharmacology, so with this short book we intend to stimulate research with the purpose of overcoming current beliefs.
To strengthen a different conception of value on which we can found a new great vision of the future. To grow again, in the widest sense of this term.
Crescita Qualitativa - Per un'economia ecologicamente sostenibile e socialmente equa is part of the collection International Lectures on Nature and Human Ecology. A series of editions that offer the possibility of focusing, with the help of scientists, naturalists and philosophers, on the system of relationships that links man and nature. It is, in fact, increasingly obvious that evolution is not possible without nature, and it is exactly in the context of the new science, qualitative and probabilistic, that the undeniable value of natural as opposed to synthetic production and genetic modification is strengthened. The purpose of this collection is to give voice to the avant-garde lines of thought that deal with these subjects in an international perspective. It intends to help us understand a little more of the relationship between our species and the environment in which we live and therefore to help blaze the trail towards a future different from what we now glimpse in the horizon.
The authors
Fritjof Capra, a renowned physicist and scholar of the systems theory, is the co-founder and director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. With a degree in Theoretical Physics in Vienna, he has done research in the field of atom physics and systems theory, publishing worldwide famous books on the philosophical implications of modern science. His fundamental text is The Tao of Physics (published in Italy by Adelphi in 1982), where he shows how physics and metaphysics inexorably lead to the same results. From here he developed new scientific approaches which led to the living systems theory, currently at the base of modern ecology. Some of his other works, fundamental for modern science, are: The Turning Point (Feltrinelli, 1984), The Science of Life (Rizzoli, 2002) and The Web of Life (2001), Belonging to the Universe (Rizzoli, 2007), The Science of Leonardo (Rizzoli, 2012).
For Aboca Edizioni he also wrote La Botanica di Leonardo - Un discorso sulla scienza delle qualità (2008), Vita e Natura - Una visione sistemica (2014), Agricoltura e cambiamento climatico (2016).
Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006) and co-founder, with Calvert Group, of the Calvert-Henderson life quality indicators, she was a member of the committee that organised the "Beyond GDP" conference that addressed the European Parliament in 2007.
