Degrowth: North European decline as a grandiose moral quest? Or precisely what the climate research demands of us?
Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash
We don’t much like the term “de-growth” - it feels counter-intuitive, in terms of humans’ ideas of themselves as developing creatures. But we do pay attention to those proposing measures that involve a contraction in the current toxifying economic models (while keeping a big ear out for positive alternatives).
We keep tabs on material from the de-growth advocate Jason Hickel, because his communications are both clear and well-researched (involving his own, mostly collaborative work). Hickel made a Twitter thread response this week to the US columnist Noah Smith’s Substack piece attacking degrowth - itself worth reading.
Smith’s key points are:
The level of income in the North that degrowthers see as necessary to hit real zero carbon targets would be so low as to cause social revolt
The level of central planning that degrowthers propose is simply not credible
The extent of the sustainable infrastructure that we have to build to hit our targets is, in fact, economic growth
"At its core, I feel like degrowth’s appeal comes from its implicit promise to recast genteel North European decline as some sort of grandiose world-saving moral quest."
We like the way that Twitter posts present their information, so we’ve (somewhat painstakingly) embedded Hickel’s thread below:
Your comments on Hickel and Smith’s pieces most welcome!