Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Brian Czech once likened modern economic growth to a runaway train. This metaphor drives home the point that to save nature and humanity from an ecological train wreck, the most important thing is to decelerate the global economy.
Sustainability means living as nature lives. It means no depletion of the elements of the ecosystem humans have been treating as economic resources, and no waste. What we pursue is up that tree.
When I go in search of figures, numbers, data, about energy in relation to ecology and economy, I’m often brought to the website of the very same EPA whose lead scientist studying sewage sludge faked his science and unleashed a toxic torrent upon the world.
Understand having “anything and everything-all of the time” is no longer an option in a world on fire. Halve your cake so that maybe together we can continue eating it.
Besides strengthening the call for degrowth in the global North, MMT can serve as a powerful tool to achieve full decolonization of the global South.
Imagine a society where bottom-up, community initiatives and actions based on people coming together to reflect and practice their visions are promoted more compared to individualistic, self-absorbed behaviors of success
Degrowth leads to a sexy place where we all want to live. Neoliberalism forces us all to exist in solitary confinement until we die…
The question asked by serious political economy now is not ‘how do we perpetuate growth’, but rather, if it will be degrowth by design, or by disaster.
We don’t need to change the name ‘degrowth’. What we need is for more of us in wealthy nations to intuitively associate the term ‘economic growth’ with ‘collapse’.
The Future Is Degrowth invites us to envision a much deeper societal transition than simply swapping energy sources to maintain the status quo.
It is clear that degrowth neither represents a return to the stone age, nor can it fetishize technological solutions to the climate crisis.
We think Degrowth & Strategy provides a good first reflection on the need, the meaning of and various approaches to strategizing for degrowth. We hope that it sparks further engagement on the topic, both amongst academics and practitioners.
