Learning from ‘Pre-Growth’ Economies: Gift, Sharing, and Decolonised Futures

This session is supported by NENA's Economic Literacy Hub

What can we learn from the ways humans organised societies before economies became dominated by perpetual growth, extraction, and profit maximisation?

This panel discussion explores alternative ways of understanding exchange, value, community, and prosperity by looking toward gift economies, sharing economies, and Indigenous and decolonial perspectives on economic life. Rather than seeing post-growth futures as entirely new inventions, the session asks what older and often marginalised forms of economic organisation might teach us about building more relational, resilient, and regenerative societies today.

Yin Paradies will explore what it could mean to decolonise the economy in practice, examining how dominant economic systems are tied to colonial assumptions and structures, and what alternative approaches grounded in reciprocity, relationship, and collective wellbeing might look like.

Terry Leahy will discuss the gift economy as both an ancient and future-oriented mode of exchange, drawing on his work on utopian futures, social transformation, and postcapitalist possibilities.

Anitra Nelson will explore what communities and economies could look like in futures that no longer rely on money, perpetual growth, or extractive systems—drawing on her work on nonmonetary economies, commoning, and postcapitalist alternatives.

Together, the panel will invite participants to rethink some of the deepest assumptions underpinning modern economic life and imagine how economies might function if organised around care, sufficiency, reciprocity, and community rather than endless growth.

Speakers

Yin Paradies is an Aboriginal activist, scholar, and researcher whose work focuses on racism, decolonisation, Indigenous knowledges, and social justice. Through his writing and public engagement, Yin explores what it means to decolonise systems, institutions, and ways of thinking, including the economy itself. His work challenges dominant assumptions underpinning modern economic systems and invites more relational, reciprocal, and community-centred ways of organising society.

Dr Terry Leahy is a sociologist, writer, and long-time advocate for gift economies, ecological sustainability, and postcapitalist futures. A conjoint lecturer at the University of Newcastle, his work spans environmentalism, permaculture, social theory, feminism, and utopian studies. Terry’s writing explores how gift economies and cooperative forms of living might offer viable pathways beyond capitalism, and how communities can begin building alternatives grounded in reciprocity, care, and collective wellbeing.

Anitra Nelson is a scholar, activist, and author recognised internationally for her work on nonmonetary economies, degrowth, and postcapitalist futures. She is the author of Beyond Money: A Postcapitalist Strategy (2022) and co-editor of Life Without Money (2011) and Housing for Degrowth (2018). Anitra’s work explores pathways toward collective sufficiency, commoning, and ecological wellbeing beyond monetary systems and perpetual growth. She is currently an Honorary Principal Fellow at the Informal Urbanism Research Hub at the University of Melbourne.