Degrowth

Degrowth is an academic and social movement, predominantly in Europe, aimed at the planned and democratic reduction of production and consumption as a solution to social-ecological crises. Commonly cited policy goals of degrowth include reducing the environmental impact of human activities, redistributing income and wealth within and between countries, and encouraging a shift from materialistic values to a convivial and participatory society. According to degrowth theorists, degrowth is a multi-layered concept that combines critiques of capitalism, colonialism, productivism, and utilitarianism, while envisioning more caring, just, convivial, happy, and democratic societies. Degrowth is critical of the concept of growth in gross domestic product as a measure of human and economic development. It argues that modern capitalism's unitary focus on growth causes widespread ecological damage and is unnecessary for the further increase of human living standards. Degrowth theorists posit that degrowth would increase human living standards and ecological preservation even as GDP growth slows or reverses. Degrowth, an unorthodox school of thought, occupies a niche in academic literature and faces substantial criticism. Critics describe it as a vague concept that fails to offer an effective strategy for reducing environmental harm, ignores rebound effects, and has little social or political support, whereas price incentives through environmental taxes or tradable permits are much more effective. Critics also note that far-reaching degrowth scenarios are projected to increase extreme poverty, with no historical precedent of the poorest benefiting in a shrinking economy. Systematic reviews describe degrowth research as largely normative opinions rather than analysis, with most proposals lacking precision, depth, and concrete policy design, and rarely using quantitative or qualitative data, formal modelling, or representative samples, while empirical and system-wide analyses remain scarce. Degrowth is closely associated with eco-socialism and eco-anarchism. Alternatives to degrowth include green growth (economic growth and sustainability are deemed compatible) and agrowth (agnostic on growth, focusing on reducing environmental harm through effective instruments, regardless of whether the economy is growing, stagnant, or contracting).

Background

The "degrowth" movement arose from concerns over the consequences of the productivism and consumerism associated with industrial societies (whether capitalist or socialist) including: The reduced availability of energy sources (see peak oil); The destabilization of Earth's ecosystems upon which all life on Earth depends (see Holocene Extinction, Anthropocene, global warming, pollution, current biodiversity loss, planetary boundaries); The rise of negative societal side-effects (unsustainable development, poorer health, poverty, social inequality); and The ever-expanding use of resources by Global North countries to satisfy lifestyles that consume more food and energy, and produce greater waste, at the expense of the Global South (see neocolonialism). A 2025 review of research literature on degrowth concluded that degrowth scholars are skeptical of the feasibility of achieving an equitable economic slowdown within a capitalist framework. This skepticism stems from the structural reliance of capitalism on continuous growth driven by competition. As a result, degrowth advocates argue for a deliberate and democratically guided overhaul of the economic system. Such a transformation aims to significantly reduce environmental harm, address inequality, and enhance overall well-being.

Resource depletion

Degrowth proponents argue that economic expansion must be met with a corresponding increase in resource consumption. Degrowth can be interpreted as a plea for resource reallocation, aiming to halt unsustainable practices of transforming certain entities into resources, such as non-renewable natural resources. Instead, the focus shifts towards identifying and utilizing alternative resources, such as renewable human capabilities.

"Rebound effect"

Technologies designed to reduce resource use and improve efficiency are often touted as sustainable or green solutions. Degrowth literature, however, warns about these technological advances due to the "rebound effect", also known as Jevons paradox. This concept is based on observations that when a less resource-exhaustive technology 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 complete rejection of the growth paradigm and a move 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.

Mitigation of climate change and determinants of 'growth'

Scientists report that degrowth scenarios, where economic output either "declines" or declines in terms of contemporary economic metrics such as current GDP, have been neglected in considerations of 1.5 °C scenarios reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finding that investigated degrowth scenarios "minimize many key risks for feasibility and sustainability compared to technology-driven pathways" with a core problem of such being feasibility in the context of contemporary decision-making of politics and globalized rebound- and relocation-effects. A study concluded that public services are associated with higher human need satisfaction and lower energy requirements while contemporary 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 to overgrowth in current metrics of economic growth.

Decolonialism

According to Jason Hickel, economic growth in the Global North is colonial in character, and "green growth" visions likewise presuppose the continuation of colonial arrangements. Hickel argues that economic expansion in the North relies on the appropriation of atmospheric common goods as well as resources and labor from the Global South. He describes capitalism, which is organized around perpetual economic growth, as sustaining this dynamic by extracting surplus through processes of enclosure, commodification, and the cheapening of labour and nature. According to Hickel, degrowth critiques these mechanisms and instead proposes to organize economies around provisioning for human needs, through de-accumulation, de-enclosure and de-commodification, while recognizing ecological debt. He further maintains that catch-up development for the South is impossible without decolonization.

Origins of the movement

Ineffectiveness and better alternatives

Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh argues in the scientific journal Ecological Economics that a focus solely on reducing consumption (or consumption degrowth) may lead to rebound effects. For instance, reducing consumption of certain goods and services might result in an increase in spending on other items, as disposable income remains unchanged. Alternatively, it could lead to savings, which would provide additional funds for others to borrow and spend. He emphasizes the importance of (global) environmental policies, such as pricing externalities through environmental taxes or tradable permits, which incentivize behavior changes that reduce environmental impact and which provide essential information for consumers and help manage rebound effects. Van den Bergh argues for an agnostic attitude toward economic growth, called agrowth. According to him, environmental policy should not be aimed at pursuing or avoiding growth in the hope of reducing environmental damage, but at direct deployment of effective instruments such as pricing externalities (for example, via carbon taxes or emission rights). Whether the economy grows, stagnates or shrinks as a result is of secondary importance. A study published in Scientific Reports modelled two degrowth scenarios: one where the Global North undergoes negative growth and societal transformation, and another where degrowth is adopted globally. The former shows that such changes in the Global North are possible without severely harming long-term global socioeconomic development, though they only lead to a modest 10.5% reduction in future carbon emissions by 2100, and thus don't solve the climate crisis. In contrast, a global negative growth scenario could significantly cut future carbon emissions by 45%. However, it would also drastically hinder global development goals, particularly the elimination of poverty. Even with strong global policies aimed at supporting the poor (like increased cash transfers, improved income equality, and no military spending), this global degrowth approach is projected to increase global extreme poverty by 15 percentage points by 2100. The study also notes an absolute decoupling of long-term economic growth from human development outcomes has historically never been observed. David Schwartzman argues in the academic journal Capitalism Nature Socialism that the degrowth program falls short in analyzing the qualitative aspects of economic growth and places too much emphasis on local economies without giving sufficient attention to global, transnational political strategies. Critics also point out that the debate on economic growth should distinguish between harmful and beneficial forms of growth. For example, growth in polluting products is problematic, whereas growth in knowledge, culture, or sustainable technologies can be desirable. Economist Wim Naudé notes that Western economies are already in a state resembling degrowth, which he characterizes as a Great Stagnation. This period is marked by declining levels of entrepreneurship, innovation, scientific output, and research productivity. In a context of prolonged economic stagnation, the economy increasingly resembles a zero-sum system. In such a scenario, improvements in the well-being of one group or country may come at the expense of another, leading to conflict. Naudé refers to the analysis by Thomas Piketty (2014), arguing that low growth leads to very substantial inequality in the distribution of wealth over the long run. According to Naudé economic stagnation makes societies less innovative and less resilient, which hinders the timely development of the technological and organizational innovations needed to prevent ecological overshoot and tackle climate change. Economist Branko Milanović argues that degrowth is unrealistic in a world still marked by poverty and inequality. He estimates that freezing global GDP at its current level would leave around 15% of the world population below $1.90 per day and one quarter below $2.50. Raising all incomes to the global average (about $5,500 per year) would require a two-thirds reduction in Western consumption and production. According to Milanović, this would mean factories, trains, airports and schools operating at only one-third of their normal capacity, electricity, heating and hot water available for just eight hours a day and cars allowed on the road only one day out of three. He concludes that such scenarios are politically and socially infeasible, and instead advocates taxing emission-intensive goods and services alongside technological innovation. Major critics point out that degrowth is politically unpalatable, defaulting towards the more free market green growth orthodoxy as a set of solutions that is more politically tenable. Per Espen Stoknes, director of the Center for Green Growth at the BI Norwegian Business School, stated: "The degrowth people are living a fantasy where they assume that if you bake a smaller cake, then for some reason, the poorest will get a bigger share of it. That has never happened in history." Ezra Klein of the New York Times claims problems with the current SDG process are political rather than technical and degrowth has less plausibility than green growth as a democratic political platform.

Negative connotation

The use of the term "degrowth" is criticized for being detrimental to the degrowth movement because it could carry a negative connotation, in opposition to the positively perceived "growth". "Growth" is associated with the "up" direction and positive experiences, while "down" generates the opposite associations. Research in political psychology has shown that the initial negative association of a concept, such as of "degrowth" with the negatively perceived "down", can bias how the subsequent information on that concept is integrated at the unconscious level. At the conscious level, degrowth can be interpreted negatively as the contraction of the economy, although this is not the goal of a degrowth transition, but rather one of its expected consequences. Since "degrowth" contains the term "growth", there is also a risk of the term having a backfire effect, which would reinforce the initial positive attitude toward growth. "Degrowth" is also criticized for being a confusing term, since its aim is not to halt economic growth as the word implies. Instead, "a-growth" is proposed as an alternative concept that emphasizes that growth ceases to be an important policy objective, but that it can still be achieved as a side-effect of environmental and social policies.

Eurocentrism

According to a review by Weiss and Cattaneo, while degrowth scholars operate globally, the academic discourse is predominantly centered in Europe, with a notable concentration of research originating from Spain. This geographic imbalance has led some researchers to argue that the movement predominantly represents the socio-economic interests and values of the European "green" middle class.

Systems theoretical critique

In stressing the negative rather than the positive side(s) of growth, the majority of degrowth proponents remain focused on (de-)growth, thus giving continued attention to the issue of growth, leading to continued attention to the arguments that sustainable growth is possible. One way to avoid giving attention to growth might be extending from the economic concept of growth, which proponents of both growth and degrowth commonly adopt, to a broader concept of growth that allows for the observation of growth in other sociological characteristics of society. A corresponding "recoding" of "growth-obsessed", capitalist organizations was proposed by Steffen Roth.

Marxist critique

Traditional Marxists consider that it is the exploitative nature and control of the capitalist production relations that is the determinant and not the quantity. According to Jean Zin, while the justification for degrowth is valid, it is not a solution to the problem. Other Marxist writers have adopted positions close to the de-growth perspective. For example, John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff, in common with David Harvey, Immanuel Wallerstein, Paul Sweezy and others focus on endless capital accumulation as the basic principle and goal of capitalism. This is the source of economic growth and, in the view of these writers, results in an unsustainable growth imperative. Foster and Magdoff develop Marx's own concept of the metabolic rift, something he noted in the exhaustion of soils by capitalist systems of food production, though this is not unique to capitalist systems of food production as seen in the Aral Sea. Many degrowth theories and ideas are based on neo-Marxist theory. Foster emphasizes that degrowth "is not aimed at austerity, but at finding a 'prosperous way down' from our current extractivist, wasteful, ecologically unsustainable, maldeveloped, exploitative, and unequal, class-hierarchical world."

Reference details

External links

Research and Degrowth International International Degrowth Network Degrowth.info Degrowth Database Degrowth Journal Explore Degrowth Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development. Monthly Review issue on "Planned Degrowth". July 1, 2023.

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