For a recent issue of Paradigm Explorer, Liliana Doganova’s Discounting the Future: The Ascendancy of a Political Technology is discussed. Click here to learn more about the book. See below to read the review:

“The title indicates the theme of this important study of discounting, an economic tool that has been embedded in market and policy practices, with a significant impact on government decisions. The emphasis is on valuing things through future flows of costs and benefits to drive policy in the present. The author explains its capitalist origins in forestry and how it has become so prevalent as an analytical tool. The current context relates to environment and climate in the present and future – with both temporal and political implications. It is tempting to kick the ball down the road into a future ministerial in-tray. The key question is one of framing, especially in relation to the current strategy of using biosecurity and climate as drivers towards centralised world government. At a deeper level, discounting stems from a way of thinking and an implicit relationship with nature, which is what we really need to address.”