Degrowth is both a social movement and a field of scientific research, which questions and criticises economic growth as an ideology. Degrowth is thus a call away from the almost religious pursuit of unquestioned growth just for the sake of growth, which characterises our capitalist system. Moreover, degrowth proposes a diversity of post-growth and post-capitalist alternative systems and ways of life that ensure human and planetary well-being within the boundaries of the biosphere. Essentially, the main message of degrowth is that a prosperous world is not only very much possible without economic growth, but it actually requires us to abandon the endless pursuit of growth as it is essentially incompatible with societal well-being and the ecological boundaries of the Earth [1].
The current capitalist economic model is all about 'faster, higher, further, more and better'. To achieve this, it incites competition, exploitation, and pressure on all inhabitants of our planet. Thus, it cannot come as a surprise that this obsession with economic growth on a finite planet is not only making us eternally stressed and unsatisfied but is also deeply unsustainable and will sooner or later inevitably implode. We can see this ‘implosion’ play out before our eyes at this very moment, as our economic system is destroying the natural basis of life. Scientific research has warned us of the impact of economic growth on the biosphere for over 50 years and we are now witnessing, in real time, the logical consequences of striving for infinite growth on a finite planet. We thus suffer from stronger and more frequent climate catastrophes, food system failures, and resource shortages, causing human suffering, poverty, and forced migration.
By understanding degrowth as a radical alternative, we seek for a holistic transformation to a society that strives for social and planetary well-being for present and future generations. Contrary to a competitive and binary ‘growth’ mindset, care for people and planet can go hand in hand; they even complement each other. Some of the shared values of a degrowth society are care, well-being, sufficiency, solidarity, democracy, decoloniality, and cooperation. To achieve degrowth, we need a fundamental transformation of our socio-economic systems and the way we live. This can happen in many ways; from energy communities, ecovillages and housing cooperatives on the ground to structural changes that radically democratise our political and economic institutions such as citizen assemblies replacing hierarchical governance systems, and non-profit worker-owned cooperatives replacing privately owned corporations. Humanity is but one part of the earth's ecological system. We can operate in harmony with the biosphere if we create a system based on care and well-being rather than economic growth. Degrowth activists and scholars have been pursuing this goal for the past 50 years.
Essential to degrowth is:
- Striving for the good life for all. This means slowing down with a focus on well-being, care, and conviviality.
- A reduction of production and consumption in the Global North and a liberation from the one-sided Western growth paradigm that is universally imposed on the rest of the world as “modernity” and “development”. This can make room for an autonomous path of social organisation both in the Global South and North.
- An expansion of democratic decision-making to enable genuine political participation through citizen assemblies of randomly selected citizens, participatory budgeting systems, referendums, and bottom-up democratic structures.
- An orientation towards sufficiency and societal transformation rather than focusing on purely technological change and efficiency improvements to solve our socio-ecological problems.
- Ensuring social justice and solidarity through social innovations and policies such as universal basic services (including health, education, energy, water, internet, transport, and housing), job guarantees, and a universal basic income.
- Reducing inequalities by ending fiscal havens and instoring minimum and maximum income levels as well as working to end all forms of discrimination and exploitation due to race, ethnicity, education, class, gender, disability, age, profession, etc.
Sources
[1] (Latouche, 2010). Farewell to Growth. Polity.