Economic Alternatives to Extractive Growth

Sor Juana critiqued worldly vanity and the corrupting pursuit of infinite accumulation, advocating instead for intellectual and spiritual richness. This philosophical stance illuminates climate economics: our extractive growth model—endlessly pulling resources from Earth, converting them to commodities, generating waste—is fundamentally incompatible with planetary boundaries and climate stability. True global responsibility requires economic alternatives: circular economies minimizing waste, degrowth in wealthy nations reducing consumption, regenerative agriculture restoring ecosystems, and wellbeing economics measuring success through human flourishing rather than GDP. These frameworks prioritize equity—meeting everyone's genuine needs while limiting excess. They recognize that infinite growth on a finite planet is not ambition but delusion. Indigenous and traditional economies operated within these principles for millennia. Contemporary alternatives exist: cooperative enterprises, gift economies, commons management, and local resilience strategies. Transitioning to these systems requires political courage against entrenched interests, but also intellectual coherence—recognizing that the current economy is not inevitable but constructed, and therefore reconstructible toward justice and sustainability.