Degrowth
Chapter 2 - Society
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Welcome to the Degrowth page
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Key take aways
Post-growth is a broad, umbrella-term approach that rejects the assumption that endless economic expansion is desirable or sustainable. It fundamentally shifts focus away from GDP growth as the primary economic objective, redirecting it toward societal well-being within planetary boundaries. Post-growth is an analytical framework or approach, it does not yet prescribe a specific strategy or agenda for implementation.
Characteristics of post-growth:
- Ecological stability and social well-being as primary goals instead of relentless accumulation
- Selective contraction and growth where resource-intensive industries shrink while care services, renewable energy, and ecological restoration expand
- Localized, resilient economies that reduce dependence on global supply chains and strengthen community self-sufficiency
Degrowth is a more specific, narrower agenda nested within post-growth thinking. It is a planned and deliberate reduction of economic production and consumption to achieve equity and sustainability. Degrowth differs from recession in a critical way: recession is a failure within a growth-orientedsystem, whereas degrowth is an intentional democratic choice to downscale the economy. The concept combines critiques of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and extractivism while envisioning more equitable, cooperative, and convivial societies.
Characteristics of degrowth:
- Radical redistribution of wealth, power, and resources to address inequality
- Reduction of material throughput and consumption , particularly in wealthy nations
- Cooperation over competition as the primary economic mechanism
- Environmental justice and ensuring good living standards for all within planetary boundaries
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Core ideas
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| J. Hickel - Degrowth: a new logic for the global economy - The British Medical Journal - 2024 - http://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2781 |
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| Degrowth proposes a new logic for the global economy: greater democratic control over our productive capacities, so that production can be centred around needs satisfaction and human wellbeing in harmony with ecology. A planned reconfiguration of our system of production is needed, beginning with the equitable reduction in global use of materials and energy. Under this logic, less-necessary activities (private jets, fast fashion, cruise ships, advertising, planned obsolescence, weapons, etc) are curtailed through a democratic process, and necessary production occurs in alignment with the health of people and ecosystems. This leads to a truly sustainable society focused directly on meeting human needs (using health outcomes, housing access, food access and other social indicators as policy guides) rather than doing so only partially (and non-inclusively) as an epiphenomenon of economic growth.
Degrowth contrasts with “green growth”—the idea that high income economies can continue to increase production and consumption indefinitely while also decarbonising by 2050. As a concept, green growth re-commits the error of conflating GDP growth with progress but also demands extraordinary leaps of faith in the face of contrary reality. At existing rates of climate mitigation, even the best performing countries will take, on average, more than 200 years to decarbonise. The idea also suffers from “carbon tunnel vision,” where all mitigation efforts are focused on greenhouse gas emissions while other planetary boundaries are neglected.In short, green growth lacks empirical support and cannot resolve the ecological crisis. |
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| J. Engler - 15 years of degrowth research: A systematic review - Ecological Economics - 2024 |
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Therefore, the degrowth literature organizes around two direct criticisms of central tenets of green growth.
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What science can tell you
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| Hubert Buch-Hansen - Deep transformations - A theory of degrowth |
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| Deep Transformations develops a theory of degrowth transformations drawing on insights from multiple fields of knowledge, such as political economy, sociology and philosophy. |
| https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526173287/9781526173287.xml |
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Do you want to know more?
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| Jason Hickel |
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| Jason Hickel is Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA-UAB) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Distinguished Researcher at the Department of Political Science & Public Law. |
| https://www.jasonhickel.org/ |
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| Tim Jackson |
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| What can prosperity possibly mean in a world of environmental and social limits?—This question has guided Tim Jackson’s research for over thirty years. Rejecting the simplistic idea that more is always better, and that economic growth is an infallible route to the ‘good life’, Tim has always been fascinated by a much broader vision of a shared and lasting prosperity, in which people have the potential to flourish as human beings, without increasingly damaging the finite planet we share with other species, and on which we depend for a home. |
| https://timjackson.org.uk/ |
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| Degrowth Info |
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| Degrowth.info is an independent media platform driven by an international political collective dedicated to amplifying degrowth perspectives. |
| https://degrowth.info/en |
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