Degrowth Breaking into the Mainstream? (Nope)

Denmark’s Marcus Feldthus, with 22,000 followers on social media, some months ago claimed that “Degrowth is breaking into the mainstream” in his post, “Exploring how to align business with the planetary boundaries. Sharing what I learn along the way at Post Growth Guide“. He stated:

Covered by: UN, Harvard Business Review, NY Times, Ernst & Young, BBC, and Bloomberg Festival as something to be explored, not ridiculed. Here is a quote from each

Bloomberg Festival: Ted Talk by Gaya Herrington

“Our choice is not whether to keep growing or not. But whether the end of growth is coming by design or disaster. Either we choose limits or have them forced upon us.”

Harvard Business Review: In Defense of Degrowth

“The core of the degrowth argument is the historical fact that economic growth and emissions are inexorably connected (…) To be realistic about the fundamental challenges of growth, we must adjust our cultural assumptions and reconfigure unsustainable business models.”

UN Rapporteur, Olivier De Schutter: Eradicating poverty beyond growth

“The transition to a post-growth development trajectory, focused on the realization of human rights rather than on an increase in the aggregate levels of production and consumption, should be explicitly mentioned in A Pact for the Future”

New York Times: Shrink the Economy, Save the World?

“Less than two decades ago, an economist like Herman Daly, who argued for a “steady-state economy,” was such an outlier that his fellow economist Benjamin Friedman could declare that “practically nobody opposes economic growth per se.” Yet today there is a burgeoning “post-growth” and “degrowth” movement doing exactly that — in journals, on podcasts, at conferences.”

Ernst & Young: A new economy

“Seemingly organized under many different frameworks (e.g., Doughnut Economics, Beyond GDP, ecological economics, degrowth and regenerative economics), these concepts share the common vision of an economy founded on human and planetary flourishing. We suggest they also point to five guiding principles foundational to accelerating the transition toward this goal.”

BBC: Less is more: Can Degrowth Save The World? by Alvaro Alvarez Ricciardelli

“A group of academics and activists are questioning the possibility of endless economic growth on a finite planet. They instead advocate for a bold solution: degrowth.”

“These highlights also show that we have a long way to go,” Marcus Feldthus cautions. “For the Degrowth/Post Growth to deliver on its promises of wellbeing for all, it needs to incorporate the perspectives and insights of the Global Majority.”

He ends with a plug for his “beginner’s online course: Post Growth Business 101.” [1]

Comment

Growth is a positive sum game: more of us gain than lose. No growth is a zero-sum game: for every winner there must be a loser. Negative growth means more losers than winners. Thus ‘no growth” is fringe (who likes to lose?). But it is a Degree option at a university in Spain. Samuel Peterson noted:

Do theme parks, malls, or crowds leave you dreading overpopulation? Do you love nature but despair of our place in it? Does the widespread existence and usage of washing machines, tourism, “fast fashion,” and livestock (especially cows) bother you as these things are contributing to climate change? Don’t you wish you could do something about it? Well, now you can! Introducing the Master’s Degree in Degrowth at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain.

Worry not. The disaffected, the losers, will want to be winners in their upside-down world. For the rest of us, setting and meeting goals of progress is natural and humanistic, particularly when our self-interest advances the improvement of others “as if lead by an invisible hand.”

Still, the antigrowth movement is a totalitarian one, requiring government to force the populace to do what is unnatural. Thus it is an idea that must be intellectually defeated. The last word goes to Peterson:

Since ideas move the wheels of history … degrowth must be attacked head-on with unwavering fortitude and no compromise. All ideas have to start somewhere and all change is made on some margin. If the ideas of degrowth continue on, most importantly if they become the predominate paradigm within structures of power, the fate of humanity is on uneasy ground.

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[1] Post Growth Business 101, states Feldthus, “is an online course that teaches you to escape 16 common, misleading assumptions and make better business decisions in an economy that is bumping into planetary boundaries.”

It’s about (a) why green growth fails to deliver results fast enough and sufficiently, (b) how the inequality and ecological crises are connected, (c) cases of companies that get sustainability initiatives right and wrong, and (d) debunking arguments against post growth thinking.

It’s a beginner’s guide to post growth business, divided into 16 lessons:

1. Decoupling (is not happening fast enough)
2. Techno-optimism (ignores that hope is not a strategy)
3. Planetary Boundaries (shows problem shifting is everywhere)
4. Prices (are not stable)
5. The Rebound Effect (makes efficiencies increase emissions)
6. Recycling (has a limited potential)
7. Services (has an underestimated footprint)
8. Inequality (is rising)
9. Minimum Wages (are not living wages)
10. Heroism (is not the answer)
11. Net Zero (is a limiting lens)
12. Offsetting (is a lousy excuse for continuing business as usual)
13. The Leakage Effect (is rarely 100%)
14. Scaling Impact (can be done in other ways than growing)
15. Giantism (neglects that small is beautiful)
16. Legislation (is not something you can wait for)

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