Growth and degrowth – revolutionary approaches to saving the planet

“It is a disquieting reality that even though there has been increased economic growth for many years now in the Western world, a serious proportion of the population is worse off, few are actually benefiting while a tiny number are seriously better off.”

This statement was made in 1997 by Green economist Richard Douthwaite and led off his article Good Growth and Bad Growth, which distills points he made in a book The Growth Illusion. But does anything exist that can be described as good growth? This article investigates the idea of growth and in particular looks at the spread of interest amongst both reformists and revolutionaries in France (including the French Anarchist Federation) in the idea of Decroissance that can be translated alternately as `degrowth’, `ungrowth’, or `retreat’.

Economic growth is central to the ideology of modern capitalism. In capitalist economies, growth is usually related to a measurement known as Gross Domestic Product, GDP, defined as the value of all goods and services purchased in a country over a specified period. Growth is said to occur if this value increases, and most nation states are obsessed that this happens, year by year. But this says nothing about whether spending was necessary, or who did the spending. Consumption of any goods or services, whether needed or not, contributes to growth.

It has never been clearer that growth is at the expense of the well-being of most people on earth and the planet itself. Most of us do not have a say in what is produced from the Earth’s resources, because the land and means of production are owned by a minority of individuals. Shareholders of companies do not usually care and are certainly not encouraged to think about the consequences of `getting a good return’ on their investments. The idea of the consumer in developed countries also depends on spending being good, whatever it is on, without a care about waste of energy or raw materials, or the working conditions of the people who provide the items or service. Consumer goods pushed by marketing and advertising campaigns all contribute to GDP whether or not they are really needed. Money spent on destroying the environment (like cutting down trees for profit), and even money spent cleaning up oil-spills, all contribute to this insane measure of monetary value since it all makes profit for someone. For the technologically `advanced’ nation states, making war abroad is especially good for growth because it involves spending huge amounts money on weapons that quickly become obsolete if they are not used, and especially if they ensure their corporations get the contracts for rebuilding the damage (as is the case for UK and US companies in Iraq). Perceived insecurity at home from the `war on terror’ is also a boon for the economy, as this helps companies sell surveillance technologies, fingerprinting machines, ID databases and the like.

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