Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This means that there are a number of ecological economic needs for a change in the structure of the Nottingham economy which will have to happen – above all relocalisation of economic relationships, particularly in food production.
Degrowth carries within its own name an unmistakable message about its content (stop growing) that gets to the heart of our civilizational problem: the obsession with perpetual growth.
So, let us reach a truce and build a mass movement to take on the real enemies of environmental justice. The stakes are too high to do anything else.
Like a toolbox to unpack and understand the complexity of the socio-ecological crises we live in, political ecology is dedicated to a more just and inclusive world.
In Europe, “degrowth” is actually a movement, while in the US it is barely mentionable in polite society. To question “growth” would be the death knell for any serious politician.
No one would deny that it is possible to make capitalism greener, nor that it should be urgently done. Yet the proposal of eco-productivism remains short-sighted.
We cannot let ourselves be dragged into framing our aspirations for a better world in the language of growth, for it immediately traps us within the logic of capital; and on that terrain we will lose.
In sum, it is irrational to hope, against the evidence, that our existing economic system will deliver the development outcomes we want while at the same time reversing ecological breakdown. We need to be smarter than that.
Here is a proposition: think of the economy as made of Lego. All rules to organise extraction, production, allocation, consumption, and disposal are social institutions. I
Degrowth resonated with many people in our community. That is the remarkable result of DegrowthFest, for me. I am thrilled but not surprised that so many friends and neighbors were keen on this movement and idea that is so dear to me.
My appeal to McAfee: let’s try to get beyond this sort of thing and engage more honestly with the empirical and theoretical work that has been done, so we can have more meaningful conversations. If we are going to realise our shared goals, we can and must do better.
Unless you read a book like The Case for Degrowth it is not obvious that some people are using the word to propose a radical policy package – qualitative, structural changes in ecological, social and economic relations as a necessary alternative to the economy growing quantitatively bigger.
