Lately I have been looking into a new (for me) school of economic thought: Degrowth. And I feel like I am learning so much and gaining a glimmer of hope for the future of our battered planet.
The basics are simple. And once you know them they feel like barely more than pure common sense. If you were to sum it up in one line it would probably be something like: “It is impossible to have infinite growth in a finite planet”.
Yet, they way we have structured our economies, growth is an inescapable imperative. Every year, GDP must grow in relationship with the previous year. Too low a growth is a concern, stagnation is a crisis, diminishing GDP is a depression. The ultimate failure for capitalism.
So we always need to produce more, consume more, buy more, build more, work more and waste more. We need to be faster to fit more work in a single day. We need to raise the numbers, always. There is no goal where we will say “Enough, we are done”. Our society always needs more growth.
It is a mantra for politicians and businesses “Grow the economy”, “Create growth”. The planet that sustains us be damned. Never mind fisheries are running out, soils are exhausted and depleted, rivers are polluted and our own lives are unhealthy and miserable. We need more. Always more.
What if we just wanted “Enough”? That is the question that the Degrowth economists dare to ask.
What if the priority wasn’t perpetual wealth accumulation, but a good life (Buen Vivir), understanding this as a life where everyone’s needs are met. Where poverty and disease are minimized or eliminated. Where education is freely available. Where we have plenty of time for leisure, art, culture, bonding and community. A life that yes, may lack some of the bling that our lifestyles today take for granted: luxury cars, fast fashion, unnecessary travel, advertisement and goods that travel around the world several times.
But it would also be a lifestyle that gives the ecosystems that sustain our own lifestyles a chance to flourish and survive. It would be a slower, gentler life where we would not burn out as easily. It would have a space and value for joy. And we desperately need joy.
My favourite book on the subject so far is Kohei Saito’s Slow Down.
In it, Saito presents his case for a re-imagining of our productive relations. He is a renowned Marxist scholar, and says that the later and unpublished journals of Karl Marx reveal the evolution of his thought beyond a productivist framework and his concern for sustainability and the impact the economies of growth (both communist or capitalist) would have in the environment and the planet itself.
He goes on to provide a list of steps to set us on our way to a Degrowth Communist economy. A by no means comprehensive list includes:
- Banning private jets.
- Institute 4-Day working weeks.
- Massively reduce advertisement.
- Restore and value the commons.
- Reduce production of unnecessary goods.
- Legislate against Planned Obsolescence and for the Right to Repair.
- Reduce private car ownership and boost Public Transport and Active modes of mobility.
- Encourage co-operative modes for production and businesses.
- Build micro grids for local, communal solar energy supply in all neighbourhoods.
Here’s an interview with Mr Saito by Salon.
I am inspired by the ideas and the people already undertaking work on this field. Those already spreading the word and moving their own communities towards a future where profit is not the ultimate priority for our lives.
In New Zealand there is a collective already putting this ideas out there, and I have started to make contact with them.
But there is a LOT of information just a search away.
I am excited by the promise of a better world for us, our descendants and our fellow non-human living beings.
I look forward to learning more about degrowth.
Update: Here is a downloadable graphic novel called Who is afraid of Degrowth
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