Garden Earth - From Hunter and Gatherers to Global Capitalism and Thereafter - Paperback

by Gunnar Rundgren (Author)

Our society and the capitalist market economy have failed to create well-being for many. Big parts of humanity are as poor today as they were fifty years ago, despite unprecedented growth. Gaps between the rich and poor are abnormal and growing. In addition, the economic system, supposedly managing itself through the "invisible hand", is in constant need of corrections and controls, because it doesn't work as it is supposed to. The failures of the industrial capitalist society are not booms and busts or inflation; they are mere symptoms of underlying conflicts. The real failure is that it erodes the human, natural and social capital that it needs for its operation. It lacks the regenerative properties which a successful society and a thriving human civilization need. Finally, it is also based on flawed assumptions of what motivates human enterprise and what the drivers for human progress are. Garden Earth stands out from the current flow of books on climate change, the financial crisis, globalization, the food and agriculture crisis or peak-oil. It avoids the trap of using just one lens to make sense of the world. It does, however, put these present day problems in a wide and deep perspective. The main themes examined by Garden Earth are ecology; society and its power relations; the market economy and capitalism; and, technology and energy.

Author Biography

Gunnar Rundgren is a critical thinker with vast experiences from more than 100 countries in the world. He has worked with most parts of the organic agriculture sector - from farming to policy - since 1977, starting on the pioneer organic farm, Torfolk. He is the founder and a senior consultant of Grolink AB (www.grolink.se), a consultancy company engaged in certification development, policy development, project development, marketing strategies and international training programmes - mainly targeting developing countries. He has been engaged as a consultant by NGOs, the government, private companies and intergovernmental organisations such as OECD, UNEP, UNCTAD, the World Bank and the FAO. Rundgren is the initiator of several organisations for organic agriculture in Sweden, including its main eco-label KRAV (www.krav.se) where he was the director for the first eight years. He served as the first President of the Accreditation Programme Board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) 1992-1997. He Rundgren was an IFOAM World Board member in 1998 and the IFOAM President during the period 2000-2005. In 2002 he was a founding board member of the ISEAL Alliance. He has published several books related to organic farming. In 2010, he published a book about the major social and environmental challenges of our world, Trädgården Jorden, which was translated into Japanese in 2012 and is now published in English. He also co-authored the book Jorden vi Äter, published in 2012, about the challenge of feeding the world's population in a sustainable way. Rundgren was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science at the Uganda Martyrs University 2009. The same year, he was appointed a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Gunnar blogs on http: //gardenearth.blogspot.se/ and is an fanatic gardener.