What's stopping them? There's tons of empty land in the world. Go find a stream in the forest and live a sustenance-level life. Oh, they want everyone else to be miserable too.
Checkmate inequality.
The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
11–20 of 114 posts
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#12The economic value of a healthy environment is certainly not accounted for, but growth isn't bad. Externalities and tragedy of the commons are.
I want the economy to grow. Specifically I want the wind and solar industries to grow REALLY fast. So much so that their lobbying power is greater than that of the oil industry.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#13You can ridicule the specifics, but the high-level idea here is spot on. Either you have to decouple economic growth from increased consumption of natural resources, or you have to find a way to have a stable society without economic growth. I see no reason to think the former is possible, so that leaves the latter. The alternative is some kind of calamity.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#14This idea is a kind of calamity. They’re proposing to increase poverty worldwide when we haven’t even managed to get everybody over $2 a day of consumption, or bring child mortality down to rates that would have been acceptable in the US in 1950.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#15An author once came and spoke to my environmental studies class. Of the Club of Rome, he said "Fascinating ideas. They might be right. But try getting elected by promising a shrinking economy." Yeah, not gonna happen. Best to treat growth as a given and work around it, imho.
> "Fascinating ideas. They might be right. But try getting elected by promising a shrinking economy."
It sounds like the problem is democracy. What we need is a BDFL.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#16This idea is a kind of calamity. They’re proposing to increase poverty worldwide when we haven’t even managed to get everybody over $2 a day of consumption, or bring child mortality down to rates that would have been acceptable in the US in 1950.
Like I said, the specifics are certainly open to ridicule. But I don't think you can dismiss the idea that we need to find a way to live without economic growth. I think we still have room for some growth, but not for long. If we keep to the status quo, waste heat from energy production alone will grow to disastrous levels within a few centuries.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#17This idea is a kind of calamity. They’re proposing to increase poverty worldwide when we haven’t even managed to get everybody over $2 a day of consumption, or bring child mortality down to rates that would have been acceptable in the US in 1950.
Like I said, the specifics are certainly open to ridicule. But I don't think you can dismiss the idea that we need to find a way to live without economic growth. I think we still have room for some growth, but not for long. If we keep to the status quo, waste heat from energy production alone will grow to disastrous levels within a few centuries.
The world's population is still growing, economy must grow or there is less of everything for everyone.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#18For a while, I was pretty sold on anarcho-primitivism as a concept (Derrick Jensen is a prominent figure in that sphere), but it is pretty deluded to think that quality of life would increase and life would be cushy and comfortable.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#19What's stopping them? There's tons of empty land in the world. Go find a stream in the forest and live a sustenance-level life. Oh, they want everyone else to be miserable too.
Perhaps you know this already, but they would be outcompeted very quickly and disappear (like the shakers). It’s like how paying extra taxes voluntarily isn’t a substitute for wanting increased taxation.
Re: The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like I said, the specifics are certainly open to ridicule. But I don't think you can dismiss the idea that we need to find a way to live without economic growth. I think we still have room for some growth, but not for long. If we keep to the status quo, waste heat from energy production alone will grow to disastrous levels within a few centuries.
The world's population is still growing, economy must grow or there is less of everything for everyone.
Aren't we past the point of having too much? Making plastic single use goods obsolete and reducing all the Amazon purchases that get used once if ever would reduce total output. More focus could be put on quality (I know this can't be defined) products, rather that just driving blind consumerism.