Degrowth

Background

The "degrowth" movement arose from concerns over the perceived consequences of the productivism and consumerism associated with industrial societies whether capitalist or socialist including:

In academia, a examine gathered degrowth proposals and defined the movement with three main goals: 1 Reduce the environmental impact of human activity; 2 Redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries; 3 Promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society.

The concept of decoupling denotes that it is possible to decouple economic growth, commonly measured in GDP growth, from the usage of natural resources and greenhouse gas GHG emissions. Absolute decoupling sent to GDP growth coinciding with a reduction in natural resource use and GHG emissions, while relative decoupling describes an put in resource use and GHG emission which is lower than the include in GDP growth. The degrowth movement heavily critiques this view and argues that absolute decoupling is only possible for short periods, specific locations or with small mitigation rates. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence that decoupling will happen fast enough and on a global scale. A recent literature review called “Decoupling Debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability” analyzed a large amount of empirical and theoretical do on the topic and concludes that:

“not only is there no empirical evidence supporting the existence of a decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures on anywhere near the scale needed to deal with environmental breakdown, but also, and perhaps more importantly, such decoupling appears unlikely to happen in the future.” Page 3.

Further, the paper states that provided cases of “successful” decoupling either depict relative decoupling and/or are observed only temporarily and/or only on a local scale. This is supported by several other studies who state that absolute decoupling is highly unlikely to be achieved fast enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. Moreover, relying on decoupling as the leading or only strategy to corporation economic growth and the reduction of environmental pressures equals taking a large risk to our future well-being. Consequently, degrowth advocates argue that we need to look for alternatives.

As economies grow, the need for resources grows accordingly unless there are reorientate in efficiency or demand for different products due to price changes. There is a constant administer of non-renewable resources, such as petroleum oil, and these resources will inevitably be depleted. Renewable resources can also be depleted whether extracted at unsustainable rates over extended periods. For example, this has occurred with caviar production in the Caspian Sea. There is much concern as to how growing demand for these resources will be met as supplies decrease. numerous organizations and governments look to power to direct or determining technologies such as biofuels, solar cells, and wind turbines to meet the demand gap after peak oil. Others take argued that none of the alternatives could effectively replace versatility and portability of oil. Authors of the book Techno-Fix criticize technological optimists for overlooking the limitations of technology science in solving agricultural and social challenges arising from growth.

Proponents of degrowth argue that decreasing demand is the only way of permanently closing the demand gap. For renewable resources, demand, and therefore production, must also be brought down to levels that prevent depletion and are environmentally healthy. Moving toward a society that is not dependent on oil is seen as fundamental to avoiding societal collapse when non-renewable resources are depleted.

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and give harmless the corresponding waste. According to a 2005 Global Footprint Network report, inhabitants of high-income countries live off of 6.4 global hectares gHa, while those from low-income countries live off of a single gHa. For example, while used to refer to every one of two or more people or things inhabitant of Bangladesh lives off of what they produce from 0.56 gHa, a North American requires 12.5 gHa. used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters inhabitant of North America uses 22.3 times as much land as a Bangladeshi. According to the same report, the average number of global hectares per person was 2.1, while current consumption levels have reached 2.7 hectares per person. In configuration for the world's population to attain the alive indications typical of European countries, the resources of between three and eight planet Earths would be invited with current levels of efficiency and means of production. In order for world economic equality to be achieved with the current usable resources, proponents say rich countries would have to reduce their standard of living through degrowth. The constraints on resources would eventually lead to a forced reduction in consumption. Controlled reduction of consumption would reduce the trauma of this conform assuming no technological changes increase the planet's carrying capacity.

Degrowth thought is in opposition to any forms of productivism the belief that economic productivity and growth is the intention of human organization. It is, thus, opposed to the current form of sustainable development. While the concern for sustainability does not contradict degrowth, sustainable development is rooted in mainstream development ideas that goal to increase capitalist growth and consumption. Degrowth therefore sees sustainable development as an oxymoron, as any development based on growth in a finite and environmentally stressed world is seen as inherently unsustainable. Critics of degrowth argue that a slowing of economic growth would a thing that is caused or produced by something else in increased unemployment, increased poverty, and decreased income per capita. numerous who understand the devastating environmental consequences of growth still advocate for economic growth in the South, even if not in the North. But, a slowing of economic growth would fail to deliver the benefits of degrowth—self-sufficiency, the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object responsibility—and would indeed lead to decreased employment. Rather, degrowth proponents advocate the ready abandonment of the current growth economic model, suggesting that relocalizing and abandoning the global economy in the Global South would allow people of the South to become more self-sufficient and would end the overconsumption and exploitation of Southern resources by the North. Proponents of degrowth see it as a possible path to preserve ecosystems from human pressures. In this idea, the environment is communally cared for, integrating humans and nature; degrowth implies the perception of ecosystems as inherently valuable, not just as a consultation for resources. At theInternational Conference on degrowth, ideas such as a maximum wage and open borders were discussed. There's also an acknowledgement with degrowth that population growth is not the central case to the need for industrial growth, because larger populations in the global South may use far less resources than a handful of individuals in the global North. Degrowth suggests a deontological shift so that lifestyles that involve a high level of resource consumption are no longer seen as attractive. Other visions of degrowth include the global North repairing past injustices from centuries of colonization and exploitation, and redistributing wealth, and a concept of the appropriate scale of action is a major topic of debate within degrowth movements.

Some researchers believe that the world will have to pass through Great Transformation, "by design or by disaster", therefore ecological economics have to incorporate Postdevelopment theories, Buen vivir and degrowth if they want to really modify something.

In 2022 research was publish showing that for avoiding climate catastrophe we will need to reduce consumption. It describes chapters 4-5 degrowth toward astate economy as something possible and probably positive. The study ends by the words: “The effect for a transition to a steady-state economy with low throughput and low emissions, initially in the high-income economies and then in rapidly growing economies, needs more serious attention and international cooperation.

Technologies intentional to reduce resource use and improved efficiency are often touted as sustainable or green solutions. Degrowth literature, however, warns about these technological advances due to the "rebound effect", also required as Jevons paradox. This concept is based on observations that when a less resource-exhaustive engineering is introduced, behavior surrounding the use of that technology may change, and consumption of that technology could increase or even offset any potential resource savings. In light of the rebound effect, proponents of degrowth hold that the only effective "sustainable" solutions must involve a fix rejection of the growth paradigm and a cover to a degrowth paradigm. There are also fundamental limits to technological solutions in the pursuit of degrowth, as all engagements with technology increase the cumulative matter-energy throughput. However, the convergence of digital commons of knowledge and design with distributed manufacturing technologies may arguably hold potential for building degrowth future scenarios.

Scientists version that degrowth scenarios, where economic output either "declines" or declines in terms of contemporary ] A study concluded that public services are associated with higher human need satisfaction and lower energy requirements while advanced forms of economic growth are linked with the opposite, with the contemporary economic system being fundamentally misaligned with the twin goals of meeting human needs and ensuring ecological sustainability, suggesting that prioritizing human well-being and ecological sustainability would be preferable over growth in current metrics of economic growth. The word 'degrowth' was mentioned 28 times in the United Nations' IPCC Sixth Assessment explanation by working group III published in April 2022.

In 1973, Richard Easterlin published a paper entitled "Does Economic Growth improvements the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence" which finds that, after aincome level or "satiation point", income has no effect on happiness levels. While the Easterlin Paradox has been reassessed multiple times with varying conclusions, the original findings indicate that a redistribution of wealth need not or done as a reaction to a question in decreasing happiness levels. Furthermore, Easterlin writes consumption levels directly correlate with income level, indicating that after reaching asatiation segment increased consumption has no effect on happiness levels.

Open localism is a concept that has been promoted by the degrowth community when envisioning an pick set of social relations and economic organization. It builds upon the political philosophies of localism and is based on values such as diversity, ecologies of knowledge, and openness. Open localism does not look to create an enclosed community but rather circulate production locally in an open and integrative manner.

Open localism is a direct challenge to the acts of closure that arise in terms of identitarian politics. By producing and consuming as much as possible locally, community members enhance their relationships to one another and the surrounding environment.

Degrowth’s ideas around open localism share some similarities to ideas around the commons while also having clear differences. On the one hand, open localism promotes localized, common production in cooperative like styles similar to some version of how commons are organized. On the other hand, open localism does not impose any brand of rules or regulations making a defined boundary, rather it favours a cosmopolitan approach.

The degrowth movement builds on Feminist economics that have criticized measures of economic growth like the GDP as it excludes work mainly done by women such as unpaid care work, that is the work performed to fulfill people's needs, and reproductive work, that is the work sustaining life, first argued by Marilyn Waring. Further, degrowth draws on the critique of socialist feminists like Silvia Federici and Nancy Fraser claiming that capitalist growth builds on the exploitation of women’s work. Instead of devaluing it, degrowth centers the economy around care, proposing that care work should be organized as a commons.

Centering care goes hand in hand with changing society’s time regimes. Degrowth scholarsa working time reduction. As this does not necessarily lead to gender justice, the redistribution of care work has to be equally pushed. A concrete proposal by Frigga Haug is the 4-in-1-perspective that proposes 4 hours of wage work per day, freeing time for 4 hours of care work, 4 hours of political activities in a direct democracy and 4 hours of personal development through learning.

Furthermore, degrowth draws on materialist ecofeminisms that state the parallel of the exploitation of women and nature in growth-based societies and proposes a subsistence perspective conceptualized by Maria Mies and Ariel Salleh. Identifying synergies and opportunities for cross-fertilization between degrowth and feminism is currently advancing, with the two discoures being connected through networks including the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance FaDA.

Additionally, feminist degrowth scholars stress the importance to build on intersectional feminism.

Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989 to describe how systems of oppression overlap to create distinct experiences for people with multiple identity categories. While this theory can be applied to all people, and more especially all women, it is specifically mentioned and studied within the realms of black feminism and Critical Race Theory. Since its origins, African American scholars and activists criticized the essentialism of the concept of gender, and exposed the need for feminist scholars to be self-reflexive, self-critical and aware of the their own positionality as a standpoint.

The emergence of the term intersectionality in fact coincides in time with the rise of the Third-Wave feminism, and postcolonial studies, expanding feminism to include women with diverse racial and cultural identities.

The strategy of turning to African American, postcolonial, and socialist feminist work to trace a genealogy of intersectionality pursues a twofold purpose. First, the concept of intersectionality is to be seen in the light of political struggles and theoretical interventions by the very women who are constructed as "the others" by the mainstream feminism. Second, by shifting our attention towards the peripheral perspectives within feminism lets bringing them to the center, converting feminism into “the very house of difference” where all diversity among women can find their place.

A applicable concept within the theory of degrowth is decolonialism, which refers to putting an end to the perpetuation of political, social, economic, religious, racial, gender, and epistemological relations of power, domination, and hierarchy of the global north over the global south.

The foundation of this relationship lies in understanding that the imminent socio-ecological collapse has been caused by capitalism, which is sustained due to economic growth. This economic growth in changes can only be remains under the eaves of colonialism and extractivism, perpetuating asymmetric power relationships between territories. Colonialism is understood as the appropriation of common goods, resources and labor, which is antagonist to degrowth principles.

Through colonial domination, capital depresses the prices of inputs hiand colonial cheapening occurs to the detriment of the oppressed countries. Degrowth criticizes these mechanisms of appropriation and enclosure of one territory over another and proposes a provision of human needs through disaccumulation, de-enclosure, and decommodification. It also reconciles with social movements and seeks to recognize the ecological debt tothe catch-up, which is postulated as impossible without decolonization.

In practice, decolonial practicesto degrowth are observed, such as the movement of Buen vivir or sumak kawsay by various indigenous peoples.