Degrowth Is Decline, Degeneration and Disaster: Growth Is the Very Opposite!

Guest Post from Robert Bradley, Jr. at Master Resource.

Marcus Feldthus, “Exploring how to align business with the planetary boundaries. Sharing what I learn along the way” at Post Growth Guide, claims that “Degrowth is breaking into the mainstream.”

It’s all covered by the UN, Harvard Business Review, NY Times, Ernst & Young, BBC, and Bloomberg Festival as something to be explored, not ridiculed.

Here is a quote from each:

Bloomberg Festival: Ted Talk by Gaya Herrington

“Our choice is not whether to keep growing or not. But whether the end of growth is coming by design or disaster. Either we choose limits or have them forced upon us.”

Harvard Business Review: In Defense of Degrowth“

The core of the degrowth argument is the historical fact that economic growth and emissions are inexorably connected (…) To be realistic about the fundamental challenges of growth, we must adjust our cultural assumptions and reconfigure unsustainable business models.”

UN Rapporteur, Olivier De Schutter: Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth

“The transition to a post-growth development trajectory, focused on the realization of human rights rather than on an increase in the aggregate levels of production and consumption, should be explicitly mentioned in A Pact for the Future”

New York Times: Shrink the Economy, Save the World?

“Less than two decades ago, an economist like Herman Daly, who argued for a “steady-state economy,” was such an outlier that his fellow economist Benjamin Friedman could declare that “practically nobody opposes economic growth per se.” Yet today there is a burgeoning “post-growth” and “degrowth” movement doing exactly that — in journals, on podcasts, at conferences.”

Ernst & Young: A New Economy

“Seemingly organized under many different frameworks (e.g., Doughnut Economics, Beyond GDP, ecological economics, degrowth and regenerative economics), these concepts share the common vision of an economy founded on human and planetary flourishing. We suggest they also point to five guiding principles foundational to accelerating the transition toward this goal.”

BBC: Less Is More: Can Degrowth Save The World? by Alvaro Alvarez Ricciardelli

“A group of academics and activists are questioning the possibility of endless economic growth on a finite planet. They instead advocate for a bold solution: degrowth.”

These highlights also show that we have a long way to go.

First, these highlights are from Western Media only.

Second, they are grounded in a Western Perspective.

For the Degrowth/Post Growth to deliver on its promises of well-being for all, it needs to incorporate the perspectives and insights of the Global Majority.

Editor’s Note: Bob Bradley has pulled out some great examples of the sort of stupid think that counts for intellectualism in elite circles. Bob's observation about the failure to address the wants of the global majority is a solid one. Let me two others as well:

1. The globalist elites are economically challenged in the worst way and that I don’t mean financially challenged. What I do mean to say is that these people haven’t a clue about how the wealth they have was made. It is a result of the division of labor made possible by growth. The more people among which to spread the responsibility for making things, the more efficient it is and the more wealth that is created for society. The story of how pencils are made at insignificant cost today illustrates, of course. More people yields more wealth and less poverty because man is the resource.

2. Elites too often tend, by nature, to despise the masses even though they couldn’t survive without them. They want the common to serve without being seen, of course. They want to manage him and imagine they could manage without him. It's all nonsense. Degrowth is for academics, trust funders and like-minded elites who passionately want to live as they do destroy and replace what has afforded them the luxury to do what they do. They have no idea what they wish for; a world decline, degeneration, and disaster.

#Growth #Degrowth #Decline #Degeneration #Bradley #MasterResource #Wealth #Wealth