Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Degrowth has been described even by its proponents as a ‘missile word’ – an idea so shocking and provocative that it is difficult to co-opt (though there are many who try). With the release of yet another poor critique of degrowth, this time authored by Eoin McLaughlin in The Conversation, it is clear that the knee-jerk hostility which faces degrowth is also a problem of understanding amidst uncertainty.
What is the “rational kernel” of the romantic world-view? It is a social and cultural protest against the modern industrial capitalist civilisation, in the name of past, pre-capitalist, pre-modern values.
Cosmolocal production, utilizing digital communication networks, connects local communities to minimize material and energy footprints.
While the dominant U.S. economic system operates on this principle of persistent financial coercion, there is (and always have been) an alternative way to organize individuals into collectives providing essential services, without the need for coercion: mutual aid networks.
This thrusting of tens of millions of Americans out of the national healthcare system at a moment when healthcare outfits, pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance corporations are making record profits has been termed “the great unwinding.” And it couldn’t be more cruelly ironic.
The time has never been riper to reach the heights of Mount Sustainability, and once there, plant trees under whose shade we can take wonder at the wide view in front of us. Perhaps then we’ll cease to behave as masters and start living as guests, treading lightly in a world that has been here long before us—one that’s certainly not of our own making.
Working within the limits of Earth and people, and celebrating the potential of both, they envisage a substantive democracy, direct action by people, with power distributed on the basis of subsidiarity and exercised in ways highly respectful of Earth, the source of human being.
The stakes of this academic debate are high: If decoupling is a mirage, then addressing the climate crisis may require letting go of the pursuit of economic growth altogether and instead embracing a radically different vision of a thriving society
A key lesson from the projects is that a community can control its means of exchange to advance its own interests without relying on banks, the mainstream economy, or the national currency.
Either we democratically plan a downscaling of production and consumption to reduce ecological footprints while securing wellbeing for everyone, or we keep pushing planetary boundaries until nature imposes sufficiency upon us through a lethal mix of resource shortages and climate catastrophes. Degrowth might be a hard sell but it’s still sexier than collapse.
Local communities need more than ever to safeguard their own life-support systems by taming growth and retrofitting existing dwellings and neighborhoods to respect limits. This requires reality-based community planning, typically reflected in a fundamental document: the comprehensive plan.
A short film and narratives project “Stories for Life” seeks to bring about the shift in culture that humanity needs to survive.
