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The value of a degrowth economy: Our planet would be richer for it
The value of a degrowth economy: Our planet would be richer for it
Decades of economic expansion have come at the expense of developing nations and a tremendous cost to the planet. Degrowth is a healthier future option, writes Erin Remblance.
THE THOUGHT of a degrowth economy can be scary. We’ve all grown up in a society where growth is good and not growing – recession – is bad.
Recession means unemployment, financial hardship and increasing poverty. Why would anyone choose that? But degrowth doesn’t mean recession. Degrowth is a conscious set of policies designed to optimise human and planetary well-being while minimising inequality, poverty and environmental harm. It is recognition that “more” doesn’t mean better and that, despite decades of economic growth, on average we aren’t happier.
Degrowth acknowledges that economic growth in predominately western nations has come at the expense of developing nations and at a tremendous cost to the planet and its ability to sustain life — and now we are on the brink of an unimaginable catastrophe.
So, what could a world not obsessed with gross domestic product (GDP) growth look like? In his book, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World, Jason Hickel advocates for many policies, including:
- ending planned obsolescence on products such as household appliances, technological devices, furniture, houses, cars, etcetera;
- cutting advertising;
- shifting from ownership to “usership” — think of all of the “stuff” we own that spends most of the year idle, especially cars;
- ending food waste;
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How mainstream economics has led to clueless governments
How mainstream economics has led to clueless governments
Governments of all stripes base their policies on mainstream economics. Powerful challenges to the mainstream, especially from ecological economics and modern monetary theory, explain why we are in a hole and can’t seem to get out.
If this article is largely correct, we can conclude that the economics profession is a major cause – directly or indirectly – of most modern evils.
In saying that, I draw heavily on the work of Australian academic economists Professor Robert Costanza, Associate Professor Philip Lawn, Professor Bill Mitchell and Dr Steven Hail.
Taken together, their work – in conjunction with colleagues overseas – claims that mainstream economics is fundamentally wrong left, right and centre — although I don’t mean to imply that these four scholars agree on every point.
Mitchell – a co-originator of modern monetary theory (MMT) – shows that we could have full employment quickly with a job guarantee, that federal budget deficits are normal and desirable, that the federal government never needs to borrow money, and that federal taxes do not fund anything.
The Federal Government should focus on non-inflationary full employment and not budget outcomes, because we can run deficits forever without borrowing.
In short, the Federal Government does not have the budget constraints of a household, business, or state government, because it can create unlimited money — but should spend prudently to avoid inflation and ecological overshoot.
For ecological economists like Lawn, increasing the size of high-GDP economies is now producing uneconomic growth rather than economic growth, because these economies are past their optimum size, as measured by a marginal cost-benefit analysis.
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