Degrowth Gains Ground Jared Spears
IF YOU HAD THE OPTION OF A FOUR-DAY WORK WEEK, would you use some of your newly freed time to pitch in at a community food garden in exchange for a share of the produce? How about putting your tools in a common shed for sharing if you could occasionally borrow your neighbors’ appliances? Would you forgo summer destination flights if you knew that more public pools and nature parks would open in your region? You might describe such lifestyle choices as climate-conscious or anticonsumerist. Maybe you already practice some of them yourself—but what will it take to make such shifts, and the values that inform them, widely accepted in a country like the United States? That’s the vital concern running through The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism. Since the book’s first edition was published in Germany in 2019, the world has been reeling from continuous shocks: a global pandemic, social upheavals, heatwaves, wildfires, and war, compounded by costof-living crises, supply chain delays, and food shortages. As Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan explain in this new and expanded English-language edition, people are increasingly drawn to degrowth because they’re seeking answers about “how we got in this mess in the first place, and how we can get out.” According to the authors, the term “degrowth” is a critique of the dominant ideology of growth in capitalist societies and includes proposals for a radical reorganization of economic life in order to dramatically reduce advanced economies’ use of energy and resources. The writers assert that such a transformation is not only possible and desirable for the
world’s richer countries, but is also necessary to tackle climate change through a global, just transition from fossil fuels. The idea of an abrupt “jump off the growth treadmill” runs against the grain of standard Econ 101 courses and corporate news. Prevailing explanations for the economy in the Global North still hold that growth and a climbing GDP are unequivocally good. But degrowth positions have recently worked their way into discussion from the World Economic Forum and the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change. The 2007-08 economic crisis, the advancing effects of global warming, and the jolt of pandemic shutdowns have been steadily undermining ideological illusions about economic growth. There’s increasing acknowledgment that billionaires’ wealth doesn’t simply trickle down, that a great deal of modern work is superfluous to social necessity, and that ever-accelerating busyness isn’t getting us closer to a good life for all. On the contrary, as The Future Is Degrowth details, studies on satisfaction in various countries show that “the relationship between GDP and quality of life is only stable up to a certain level of prosperity,” after which the relationship between the two unravels. Consider that the average American’s yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
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