Degrowth Handbook - Part I

What is degrowth?

*sharp inhalation* 

Degrowth is a school of thought and a movement that critiques infinite economic growth as a desirable objective for society. It stems from a simple premise: you can’t have infinite economic growth that’s tied to physical resource use on a finite planet, eventually you’ll run out of stuff. Degrowth also suggests that the constant striving for growth at all costs has led us to neglect aspects of life that make it worth living- care, wellbeing, fulfilment, and the health of our ecosystems.  

Degrowth puts forward the idea that we in the Global North use up far more than our fair share of resources, and to co-exist with the rest of humanity and the non-human world we must ‘degrow’ our resource consumption to a sustainable level. 

Degrowth goes beyond more reformist environmentalist movements. Moving away from promises of “green growth” and the idea that technological fixes will solve the climate crisis, the movement calls for an equitable downscaling of production and consumption and a radical redistribution of material wealth. The implications of these ideas are pretty enormous. It implies nothing but a very radical transformation of how we approach the world and the way we consume on a daily basis.  

Degrowth questions conventional wisdom that we are naturally ferocious and competitive beings, and that the ‘dog eat dog’ world of modernity is not the inevitable outcome of human evolution. Another world is possible. The only thing we can really say about human nature is that we are creative beings, who can consciously reflect on our conditions, our realities, and decide whether this is the path we’d like to take.

The degrowth movement is concerned with theorising and discussing how we can all enjoy a high quality of life, reinforced by more resilient, fair and accountable democracies, within planetary boundaries so we may allow future generations to also participate, unencumbered, in the dance of life. It is a lively theatre of debate, which is constantly evolving, no two degrowthers are the same and no one claims to have a monopoly on what degrowth means. 

No one claims final authority on degrowth, nor do we claim degrowth to be a universalizable principle. Degrowth exists as one of many pathways through climate breakdown, it emphasizes co-existence and collaboration with other, self-determined movements around the world that are fighting for their autonomy in the face of the destructive tendencies of “business-as-usual". 

This handbook will explore various aspects of degrowth in concise little articles. Short enough that you could read one whilst having a coffee, or going to the loo. I’ll even try and narrate these articles, so you can have me explain it to you.  If you want to unsubscribe to the mailing list and peruse at your own pace, that’s your right!