De-growth

The word ‘de-growth’ is unfamiliar to many ears but its meaning has never been more critical to understand as it may be the only way to save our planet. Our current economic model has one very massive, presumptive fault - infinite growth. This model of infinite growth has set countries on a course of  blind industrialisation - countries are exploiting raw materials, setting up production plants and increasing output at the expense of  the environment.

De-growth is a radical economic theory that advocates for a socially equitable and deliberate reduction in the scale of production and consumption. The goal of de-growth is to achieve better well-being and improved ecological conditions, reducing the size of the global economy to fit within the planet's biophysical limits. In simple terms, it is putting environmental well-being over economic success. 

There are three ways to achieve de-growth: efficiency - maximising product output while minimising resource use, sufficiency - re-evaluating the amount of production and consumption truly necessary, and sustainability - making efforts to protect the environment through eco-friendly practices. But de-growth also warrants a change in our economic mindset. Since the 1800s, the GDP has been considered as the benchmark for defining how powerful an economy is, essentially, the more you produce, the more powerful you are. Jason Hickel, an economist, believes that economic sustainability can only be achieved if we displace GDP growth as the benchmark for economic success, and that we must replace the model of infinite economic growth with a model of required economic growth, where we meet human needs. 

Although the model of de-growth seems very utopic, it is impossible to question its practicality. How can we meet the food and energy requirements of a growing population without economic growth? Will we aggravate  poverty and unemployment by contracting the economy? Will all of people’s needs be able to be satisfied in the de-growth model? Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz believes that sacrifices are very important but ensuring that they are fairly distributed is absolutely crucial. He also questions whether de-growth is the most viable model to replace the economic model of infinite growth which has defined the world for about two centuries now and the effects that it will have on the socio-economic structures of countries if adopted? De-growth essentially boils down to economic communism, a very controversial theory that stops production of all luxury goods and focuses all resources towards meeting basic human needs, that will be distributed equally among all people.

Although this model will ensure that everybody’s basic needs are met and economic efficiency is reached, it will be almost impossible to implement in a hyper-capitalistic society. It also requires an ideology change where people are ready to sacrifice what they want for the environment. And sacrifices will have to be made in their standard of living as well. 

The viability of de-growth may be questionable but environmental problems like climate change are a fact. Professor Johan Rockström spent years researching planetary boundaries and concluded that we have exceeded our planetary boundaries in various critical areas like nitrogen cycles, to extinction rates. Our society is working on the dysfunctional principle of ‘Infinite growth in a finite world’, a very unsustainable ideology but we are still stuck with it because we have not found an alternative. But the first step that we must take to change this economic model is to re-evaluate GDP as the benchmark for economic growth and to replace it with a more sustainable measure. It's high time for a global debate on the sustainability and equity of our growth principles.