Pope Francis still advocates for Degrowth
There is a somewhat tired saying, which holds that “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”. The claim is probably not…
Degrowth
Beyond Growth: The promise of a wellbeing economy
In this article, econometrician and sustainability researcher Gaya Herrington considers whether a transition to a Wellbeing Economy is possible and what that would mean for our society and how we…
Economic Growth Is the World’s Most Dangerous Game
In Richard Connell’s popular short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” hunter Sanger Rainsford goes overboard while sailing to the Amazon, washing up on an island owned by deceivingly charismatic General Zaroff.…
12 economic growth myths and how to counter them
It’s essential that we stabilise the global economy. More people understand this every year, but corporations and governments don’t, and so we continue to destroy nature for profit. They’ve built up…
Beyond Growth: A Journey through the Landscape of Sustainable Economics
Growth is a story of success—until it isn’t. In most people’s minds, “growth” is inevitably associated with biological development: food crops and babies grow. In those instances, growth is understood…
“Post Growth”—Why and How?
People against destroying our planetary home often favor “No Growth”—“steady as she goes”—or even the rhetorically catchier “DeGrowth”—“shrink baby shrink.” Their pro-growth opponents sometimes say, “grow baby grow,” or more…
Degrowth aims to achieve ‘frugal abundance’
Degrowth is about building societies in which everyone is rich – without much material. It is a desirable project to strive for. For critics, degrowth is not very appealing. According…
A Trophic Perspective on Fossil Fuels
Like the economy of nature, the human economy has a “trophic” structure. In nature, nutrition and energy flow from plants to herbivores to carnivores, with each of these comprising a trophic…
From growth fetish to post-growth
My family and I spent 25 years in Washington DC. They were good years, and every morning I began with coffee and The Washington Post. The newspaper was a wonderful companion—and reliably…
Jason Hickel’s Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
Kim Scipes reviews Jason Hickel’s Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. Looking through the lens of climate change, Jason Hickel’s 2020 book is a powerful indictment of capitalism. …
A Decolonisation & Degrowth Alliance- A Powerful Agenda for the Global South
Neo-colonialism and increasing Inequality in the Global South- Focus on India “The Billionaire Raj is now more unequal than the British colonial Raj,” read a tweet by the World Inequality…
Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming
Degrowth Is the Only Sane Survival Plan Something must be up. Otherwise, why would scientists keep sending us those scary warnings? There has been a steady stream of them in…
Degrowth – How Anti-Worker Would It Be?
The year 2023 saw the hottest Summer on record in the northern hemisphere while those in the southern hemisphere felt the hottest winter on record. It was followed by a…
Review: “The Future Is Degrowth” – How to Stop And Replace Terracidal Capitalism
Mindless, blind growth driven by neoliberal capitalism is destroying the Biosphere and the very basis of Humanity’s existence. “The Future is Degrowth. A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism” summarizes…
Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development—An Introduction
A sustainable relation to the earth is an absolute requirement without which there can be no human future. All of this necessitates going against the logic of capitalist accumulation in…
Needed: Either Degrowth or Two Earths
In a May 30 essay for the New York Times titled “The New Climate Law Is Working. Clean Energy Investments Are Soaring,” one of the architects of last year’s Inflation…
Linking Climate Action to Decolonization and Degrowth
Billion-dollar disaster was the term used to describe the climate breakdown that rocked our world last year. Floods in Pakistan droughts in China and Europe and tropical cyclones in…
Debunking the Eternal Economic Growth Model
Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late? Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and ecologists have…
On Degrowth
What is degrowth? Degrowth is an ambiguous label used by different currents that have emerged or have been reconsidered as such since the 1960s when the contemporary environmentalist movement got underway. The…
The Growth Of Fascism Or The Fascism Of Growth?
Bear with me, scrupulous historians, as I try to run through some questions and parallels between centuries that I hope will enrich the essential debate on how to confront the…
Degrowing for peace? Tackling structural violence and climate resilience
The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda sets out global priorities, calling on countries to take “transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path”. The Agenda…
Growing Small: The Nihilism of Degrowth
‘Is it possible for machines made from industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization?’- Planet of the Humans General complaints against ‘industrial civilization’ in its various forms have…
Degrowth And Transformation: A Reflection
This article is part of a series on degrowth.info discussing strategy in the degrowth movement. The introduction to the series and an ongoing list of contributions can be found here. In…
In Defense of Degrowth
The economist Branko Milanovic recently wrote a blog post titled “The illusion of degrowth in a poor and unequal world.” He penned it, he says, following a conversation he…
From Growth To Degrowth: A Brief History
The notion of economic growth as a regular, ongoing, self-sustained process no longer holds up to critical analysis. Even during what’s been called “The Glorious Thirty” – the years between…
Degrowth: The Case For A New Economic Paradigm
In the 1970s, the emphasis was on resource limits. The French term décroissance (later translated into English as degrowth) was used for the first time by French intellectual André Gorz.…
How Do You Degrow An Economy, Without Causing Chaos?
‘Houston, we have a problem’. On the one hand, there is growing acceptance among environmentally conscious people that rich nations and affluent regions of the global economy must dramatically reduce…
De-[Constructing] Growth: Decoupling Profits From Unsustainable Production
Degrowth has been described as a “movement” rather than an ideology1, and as such it presents several variations. For some of its proponents, degrowth is a proxy for sustainable consumption,…
Is Being “Punk as F*ck” Really Where It’s At?
Sam Bliss (author of the wonderfully-named blog ‘The Bliss Point‘) and Aaron Vansintjan recently wrote a blog called Degrowth is Punk as F*ck which defended the term “degrowth” as “a…
Degrowth Is Punk as F*ck
"Very serious people often tell us that the word “degrowth” is too negative. People like happy, positive, nice things. Sure, the economy is systematically destroying life on earth. But nobody…
Growthism
A week or so ago, it hardly matters when, I heard an NPR business update announce that economists were predicting “a healthy holiday shopping season.” Such reports are a near-daily…
The Fallacy Of Economic Growth
We are being told that we need still more economic growth in order to overcome the present multi-layer crises. Actually we have been hearing this for quite some time now.…
Degrowth And The Global Ecovillage Network
One of the most controversially discussed key tracks during the 5th International Degrowth Conference 2016 in Budapest was “Degrowth and other social movements”. Can degrowth be considered a movement? Does…
Degrowth Meets Convivialism: Pathways To A Convivial Society
The concept of convivialism has attracted some attention in recent years. When giving it a closer look – even superficially – it soon reveals its proximity to the degrowth concept and movement. But…
Undoing The Ideology Of Growth
With climate change, resource limits, and secular stagnation, this make-believe “resolution of real contradictions” reveals itself as clearly “imaginary.” Consequently, in order to dismantle the hegemony of growth, degrowth has…
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