The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy to address climate change, and create lives with less stuff, less work, and better well-being. But is it a utopian fantasy?
This sounds nice for someone in a developed country who has all they need, and is only satisfying their wants. But for most of the world, economic development is a necessity and a lifesaver. Child mortality is reduced, life expectancy and education level increased, child labor decreased, as a country’s economy grows.
This is not a fringe right-wing idea. This is the very real effect of economic growth in developing countries, i.e. most of the world.
Degrowthers often seem to forget that applying their ideas will literally kill millions in developing countries, by preventing the economic developments that would have saved them.
FWIW, I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism either but think that it is important to consider science in important matters like this and not just go with gut feeling. That applies to both fascism and degrowth.
I think a more fair take is that we need growth in underdeveloped places and degrowth in highly developed places. It’s less about changing the total economic output and more about changing how that output is distributed.
Which is a direct function of development. All of Africa produces less CO2 than Alabama, and Alabama is the least developed state in the developed world.
Degrowth addresses that, contrary to your opinion. Degrowth in the global north provides the space for the global south to properly develop, something that has been systematically denied to them in many places by western powers through unequal exchange and neocolonialism.
Lmao no but that’s a great mental image. Global north and south don’t exclusively refer to northern and southern hemisphere. Though, rewilding is a component of most degrowth strategies I’ve encountered. Obviously it’s much more complicated than just planting trees, entire ecosystems would need to be developed, but I guess sort of in a way it would be like moving the Amazon to the northern hemisphere, only that degrowth would advocate for redeveloping underdeveloped areas in the global south rather than further damaging wild ecosystems to develop more sprawl.
Edit: by space I meant in terms of emissions, development costs to land, etc. currently we’re already exploiting most of these countries resources, and destroying their ecosystems, through the aforementioned unequal exchange and neocolonialism, but under de growth, these regions would instead be able to exploit their own resources for their development, instead of being harangued into exporting raw goods by the global north for our oversized consumption habits.
Sure, so I imagine you’re also of the opinion that Texas should not be allowed to develop any more, that they must refuse any new immigrants from other states, and all Texans must move to other states, right?
Given what we know about climate change, I imagine you must feel the same way about the majority of the southern US, which indeed will itself become uninhabitable.
I feel that, it will be interesting to see how the global climate refugee crisis will go when western countries like the US start having millions of migrants internally as well as externally. I think it’s going to be crazy, so much of the west is already bigoted against refugees overall, will they turn that inward and create a class of undesirables who live in shanty towns? Will the state step up and spend the billions of dollars it requires to properly create places for all these people? It’s gonna be a crazy few decades.
It seems like the choice is to die from the environmental issues or die from poor health care? There is no way anyone survives with the current state of things.
This sounds nice for someone in a developed country who has all they need, and is only satisfying their wants. But for most of the world, economic development is a necessity and a lifesaver. Child mortality is reduced, life expectancy and education level increased, child labor decreased, as a country’s economy grows. This is not a fringe right-wing idea. This is the very real effect of economic growth in developing countries, i.e. most of the world.
Degrowthers often seem to forget that applying their ideas will literally kill millions in developing countries, by preventing the economic developments that would have saved them.
FWIW, I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism either but think that it is important to consider science in important matters like this and not just go with gut feeling. That applies to both fascism and degrowth.
I think a more fair take is that we need growth in underdeveloped places and degrowth in highly developed places. It’s less about changing the total economic output and more about changing how that output is distributed.
No, it’s about how much carbon we are putting I to the atmosphere. Pretty simple issue actually.
Which is a direct function of development. All of Africa produces less CO2 than Alabama, and Alabama is the least developed state in the developed world.
Degrowth addresses that, contrary to your opinion. Degrowth in the global north provides the space for the global south to properly develop, something that has been systematically denied to them in many places by western powers through unequal exchange and neocolonialism.
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Lmao no but that’s a great mental image. Global north and south don’t exclusively refer to northern and southern hemisphere. Though, rewilding is a component of most degrowth strategies I’ve encountered. Obviously it’s much more complicated than just planting trees, entire ecosystems would need to be developed, but I guess sort of in a way it would be like moving the Amazon to the northern hemisphere, only that degrowth would advocate for redeveloping underdeveloped areas in the global south rather than further damaging wild ecosystems to develop more sprawl.
Edit: by space I meant in terms of emissions, development costs to land, etc. currently we’re already exploiting most of these countries resources, and destroying their ecosystems, through the aforementioned unequal exchange and neocolonialism, but under de growth, these regions would instead be able to exploit their own resources for their development, instead of being harangued into exporting raw goods by the global north for our oversized consumption habits.
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Sure, so I imagine you’re also of the opinion that Texas should not be allowed to develop any more, that they must refuse any new immigrants from other states, and all Texans must move to other states, right?
Given what we know about climate change, I imagine you must feel the same way about the majority of the southern US, which indeed will itself become uninhabitable.
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I feel that, it will be interesting to see how the global climate refugee crisis will go when western countries like the US start having millions of migrants internally as well as externally. I think it’s going to be crazy, so much of the west is already bigoted against refugees overall, will they turn that inward and create a class of undesirables who live in shanty towns? Will the state step up and spend the billions of dollars it requires to properly create places for all these people? It’s gonna be a crazy few decades.
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It seems like the choice is to die from the environmental issues or die from poor health care? There is no way anyone survives with the current state of things.