![]() Over the last couple of decades, the face of the triumph of a single-thought ideology of growth has been no other than that embodied by the seemingly consensual “ sustainable development” slogan, a nice oxymoron. Finally, degrowth implies an equitable redistribution of wealth within and across the Global North and South, as well as between present and future generations. It is also a call for deeper democracy, applied to issues which lie outside the mainstream democratic domain, such as technology. On the other hand, degrowth is an attempt to challenge the omnipresence of market-based relations in society and the growth-based roots of the social imaginary, replacing them with the idea of frugal abundance. On the one hand, degrowth implies the reduction of social metabolism (the energy and material throughput of the economy), in order to face existing biophysical constraints (of natural resources and the ecosystem’s assimilative capacity). “Sharing,” “simplicity,” “conviviality,” “care,” and the “commons” are primary significations of what this society might look like.Īlthough it integrates ecological economics, degrowth is a non-economic concept. In other words, from the outset it is not an economic project, but a societal project that implies escaping from the economy as reality and as imperialist discourse. The degrowth project does not aim for another growth, nor for another kind of development (sustainable, social, fair, etc.), but for the construction of another society, a society of frugal abundance (Serge Latouche), a post-growth society (Niko Paech), or one of prosperity without growth (Tim Jackson). Such a rupture is therefore related to both words and things, to symbolic and material practices, to the decolonization of the imaginary and the implementation of other possible worlds. The point of degrowth is to escape from a society absorbed by the fetishism of growth. In a degrowth society everything will be different: activities, forms and uses of energy, relations, gender roles, allocations of time between paid and non-paid work, relations with the non-human world. However, the emphasis should not only be on less, but also on different. Degrowth is usually associated with the idea that smaller can be beautiful. Generally, degrowth challenges the hegemony of economic growth and calls for a democratically led, redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialized countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice, and well-being. Protect the Climate!’ campaign Ende Gelände in Germany), to the building of alternatives such as commons, solidarity economies, and co-housing. Important grassroots initiatives are taking place, from the opposition to environmentally destructive projects (with over 2,000 of them mapped in the Environmental Justice Atlas, e.g. ![]() Our book Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era was translated into more than ten languages. The debate has been lively for at least two decades, as seen from the over 200 academic articles, ten special issues, biennial international conferences with thousands of participants, summer schools, and even a master’s degree at our university in Barcelona. For instance, in September 2018, at the Post-Growth Conference at the European Parliament, over 200 scientists together with almost 100,000 citizens urged European institutions to act in their open letter titled “Europe, It’s Time to End the Growth Dependency.” This did not happen out of the blue. This question is gaining legitimacy in different arenas, from science to politics. The central question then becomes: how can we manage an economy without growth? Moreover, beyond a certain threshold, it isn’t socially necessary. However, an uncomfortable scientific truth has to be faced: economic growth is environmentally unsustainable. Left-wing and right-wing policies differ only on how to achieve it. Economic growth is presented as the panacea to all the world’s problems: poverty, inequality, sustainability, you name it. “Growth for the sake of growth” remains the credo of all governments and international institutions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |