{"id":29035,"date":"2017-12-21T06:45:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T11:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29035"},"modified":"2017-12-21T06:45:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T11:45:54","slug":"in-defense-of-degrowth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29035","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Degrowth\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Defense of Degrowth<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Photo by Paul Sableman | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The economist Branko Milanovic recently wrote a blog post titled \u201cThe illusion of degrowth in a poor and unequal world<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 He penned it, he says, following a conversation he had with a proponent of degrowth.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, that proponent was me.<\/p>\n

First, let me say that I have a lot of respect for Milanovic\u2019s work on inequality.\u00a0 I cite him all the time.\u00a0 But unfortunately he doesn\u2019t have a strong grasp of degrowth.\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at his argument in detail:<\/p>\n

Milanovic rejects degrowth because he believes it is unfeasible.\u00a0 He notes, correctly, that if we were to cap global GDP at its present level then the only way to eradicate poverty would be through redistribution: reduce the income share of the richest and shift it to the poorest.\u00a0 He thinks this is a terrible idea.\u00a0 If we bring all of the poorest up to $5,500 per person per year (the global mean income), then in order to stay within the GDP cap everyone\u00a0above\u00a0<\/em>this level (almost all of whom live in the West) will have to take an income cut, with the richest taking the biggest hit.\u00a0 This would also require \u201cgradual and sustained reduction of production\u201d in rich nations, with economic activity slashed to one-third of its present size.<\/p>\n

Milanovic calls this \u201cthe immiseration of the West,\u201d and he dismisses it as \u201cnot even vaguely likely to find any political support anywhere.\u201d\u00a0 Forget about it, he says; we need growth.\u00a0 Let\u2019s focus instead on reducing our consumption of emissions-intensive goods and services by taxing them, and \u201cthink about how new technologies can be harnessed to make the world more environmentally friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Defense of Degrowth\u00a0 Photo by Paul Sableman | CC BY 2.0 The economist Branko Milanovic recently wrote a blog post titled \u201cThe illusion of degrowth in a poor and unequal world.\u201d\u00a0 He penned it, he says, following a conversation he had with a proponent of degrowth. As it turns out, that proponent was me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[17604,5493,17122,14688],"class_list":["post-29035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-survival-2","tag-branko-milanovic","tag-counterpunch","tag-jason-hickel","tag-regrowth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29036,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035\/revisions\/29036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}