Why The Only Sustainable Growth Is “Degrowth”

To many economists and politicians, the idea of "degrowth" sounds absurd. We tend to measure success by the growth rate of our economy. But an increasing number of activists and academics propose a solution to many of the dilemmas the world is facing (climate change, pollution, overpopulation) that is the radical antithesis to the dogma of growth. They are arguing for an entirely new model for the global economy.

To stave off the most devastating environmental peril, we must give up the ideal of economic growth.

The Club of Rome famously published its manifesto, "The Limits to Growth", in 1972. Here we are, more than four decades later, and still haven't made friends with the basic concept that growth eventually hits its limits. But as the author lays out beautifully in this text, the "degrowthers" have assembled smart and convincing arguments why a strategy shift is necessary.

Barbara Muraca, a philosopher at Oregon State University who has been working in the degrowth movement for years, and her colleagues deploy a shared metaphor: picture our current growth-based economy as an elephant. “It’s not about putting an elephant on a diet,” they’ll say. “It’s about transforming the elephant into a snail.”

Moving rich nations toward less resource-intensive economies may necessarily mean slower, or even negative, economic growth. The project for degrowth activists is to shape the economy so that this doesn't lead to a dystopian future.