Transition Towns are key to degrowth, but current movements remain too reformist

Resources are dwindling, including minerals, timber, water, and soils. Almost all ecosystems are being damaged, including the atmosphere, oceans, and forests. Species are being lost at an alarming rate. Seven of the nine major “planetary boundaries” impacts have now exceeded safe levels.

The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) “Footprint” measure shows that Australians today are using five to seven times the per capita amount of productive land that would be available to all in 2050.

Then there are the social and cultural effects. Inequality is rising, and social cohesion is decaying. There are rising rates of personal distress. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is so widespread that it is now the leading cause of poor health worldwide. Faith in democracy is declining while people are turning to authoritarian and fascist rule.

But the factor I argue is more important than all of the above is the probable imminent collapse of the global financial system. Global debt has tripled over the past three decades, is much higher than before the global financial crisis, and is now generally regarded as unpayable.

If the global population grows to the projected 10 billion by 2050 and everyone becomes as rich as Australians are now (with a steady 3% annual growth rate), the world economy would be over 10 times its current size. But the current level is grossly unsustainable: the WWF estimates that, at present, 1.7 Earths would be needed to meet global resource demand sustainably.  

These numbers show that we are far beyond sustainable levels of production and consumption. Many see these factors as inevitably leading us towards a catastrophic collapse of our current global economic and social systems. These threats cannot be eliminated unless there is a dramatic reduction in production and consumption, and the growth- and profit-driven global economic system is scrapped. And to do this, we need the Transition Towns movement.

​The most important social movement in the world today is the Transition Towns movement. While this may be a bold claim, I believe they are the answer to the seriousness of the global “polycrisis.” In their current form, however, they can still be refined to better support the kind of contribution we need.

Thriving, highly self-sufficient communities, run by cooperative, conscientious, self-governing citizens living very frugally, should be the vision the Transition Towns movement illustrates and promotes as a global solution to the polycrisis. Yet this does not seem to be the movement’s central driving motivation. Is Preston, Brixton, or Stroud working to be such a model and to tell the world? If so, say so loudly.

The same criticism can be levelled at the Ecovillage movement. Even some of its members worry that it gives the impression that it is only about providing a pleasant escape for just a small few.

Several further problems need to be addressed. First, the movement is explicitly and deliberately reformist rather than revolutionary. It advocates practices and structures that can be readily incorporated into a society still organised around market forces, profit, growth, and capitalism. For example, encouraging “anchor institutions” such as hospitals and councils to purchase locally merely relocates jobs from other places.

Second, the movement does not prioritise achieving sufficiently dramatic reductions in resource throughput. Such reductions are impossible without major systemic and cultural shifts. Although reduction is acknowledged, it is not treated as the central objective.

​In my view, the movement also falls short when it comes to taking collective control of a town’s situation, day‑to‑day functioning, and long‑term fate. Most initiatives spring from individual enthusiasts or small groups. What’s largely missing is a sense that the town as a whole is deciding what it wants to become, and then acting on that vision, instead of leaving its future to market forces and the profit motive. That doesn’t have to mean banishing markets or profit altogether, but it does mean putting them in their place.

Imagine something different: town‑wide and neighbourhood assemblies meeting regularly, deciding what needs to be done, and then organising through committees, rosters, cooperatives, and working bees. Are there homeless or unemployed people in the area? The obvious next question should be: what are we going to do, together, to end this? In Rojava, Kurdish communities already operate this way at the neighbourhood level, taking collective responsibility for education, security, policing, and other activities.

Another major fault line is politics, or rather, the effort to avoid it. The left has long criticised the Transition Towns movement for its deliberate refusal to be openly political, in its language or, more importantly, in its practice. For many on the left, this is a fatal misstep because they see the central task as confronting and ultimately overcoming capitalism itself.

From that perspective, the movement is not just strategically naïve; it actually helps defuse anger at the existing system, channelling energy into what critics see as modest, system‑friendly reforms. Ecovillage materials and many of the projects they celebrate rarely mention capitalism, let alone the need to move beyond it. In fact, most of the initiatives described could comfortably exist within the current economic order.

​Critics of the movement have a point, at least for now. In its current form, much of the Transition Towns effort can seem timid, comfortable operating within the status quo rather than challenging it. The movement could make a far bolder claim: that it is working towards a new kind of settlement, one that is essential if we are serious about tackling the global crises we face.

The alternative, simpler way of living can only be built and run by “ordinary” people at the grassroots, as they gradually transform their towns and suburbs into genuine Transition Towns. The success or failure of the degrowth movement will depend on the mentality, values, ideas, and dispositions of conscientious and responsible citizens, and on the kinds of sustainable, simpler communities they can create together. This cannot be done from the top down. That is, by the centralised state. This is why it is a mistake to focus on socialist goals and strategy at this stage. We can only achieve the required policies when a majority of people adopt the degrowth perspective. We are at best decades away from that. The immediate task is to work towards such a culture.

In practice, that means long, patient work, helping people see the appeal and necessity of the degrowth perspective. Here, the Transition Towns and ecovillage movements are uniquely placed. They can “prefigure” the alternative by putting pieces of it into practice now, and, just as importantly, by making the case that this is the only path to a sustainable and just future.

There is only one social form capable of solving the polycrisis.

A sustainable and just society that everyone can share in and that does not generate the global problems we face today would resemble communities where:

• Most people live in small, highly self-sufficient local communities, largely independent of national or global economies, devoting local resources to meeting local needs. 
• Mostly, local economies are not driven by profit, market forces, or growth, but focus on meeting the needs, rights, justice, welfare, and ecological sustainability, and on providing for all. For instance, this would mean eliminating unemployment and ensuring that everyone has a valued livelihood. Local economies would greatly reduce the need for transport, heavy industry, global trade networks, large cities, sewer systems, big dams, power stations, and extensive government and bureaucracy. Overall, we would rely on much simpler systems, infrastructures, and procedures.
• People in small communities take cooperative and participatory control over their local economies and development through voluntary committees, working bees, and town meetings. 
• Caring, cohesive communities prioritise the welfare of their ecological and social systems and the quality of life rather than accumulating wealth.
• There would be a much diminished role for the centralised state, (a few small) cities, and more socially useful high-tech and medical research than there is now, if a few of the resources now wasted on unnecessary production were reallocated to them.
• There is a willingness to live far more materially simply than at present. Life goals would include enjoying community living, a relaxed pace, security, a valued livelihood, many skilled craftspeople eager to teach, and ample time for leisure and personal development. Working for money might take only two days a week.  

The way such a society can dramatically reduce resource use is shown by our study comparing egg supply through the normal supermarket path with backyard and cooperative sources. The dollar and energy costs of the former were found to be 100 to 200 times those of the latter. In addition, local recycling of food nutrients into gardens eliminated the need for extensive transport, fertilisers, and sewers, while producing methane for cooking.