I love sci-fi and it’s very tempting to jump in feet first to discuss the growth-is-forever-possible-if-we-live-in-the-matrix argument from Noah Smith’s latest piece The Metaverse and (near-)infinite economic growth. But I won’t do that now. Instead, I want to respond to the – less amusing and yet extremely important – twofold claim that (a) growth is currently becoming green […]
Tag: post-growth
I often complain about texts critical of degrowth being short. And they mostly are. The average degrowth detractor only affords a few paragraphs, often copiously sprinkled with conceptual slur. Collapse-porn addicts, Malthusian maniacs, prophets of climate despair, civilisation-haters, dirty hippies; closer to a rap battle than to an academic dialogue. Imagine my joy when I […]
I must confess: I spend way too much time reading criticisms of degrowth. While there is plenty to go around (here is a list for fellow aficionados of conceptual brawl), it is – unfortunately – rare to stumble upon a constructive critique. But every now and then, something shiny ends up in my sieve, like the […]
It takes time to build a card castle but less to destroy it. While the first part is quite dull, the razing is always a thrill. This is perhaps why people enjoyed Bryan Walsh’s 3-pager How stalling growth hurts the planet. The text is tiny but ambitious since it claims to debunk the degrowth argument. Having […]
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Fear and Loathing in “Degrowth”
Degrowth is a word that upsets. In certain settings, a mere evocation of the D-word is enough to transform a constructive discussion into a strife; in others, the term becomes a smoke bomb causing widespread confusion. On these grounds, several commentators have argued that “degrowth” must change its name. I hear their arguments and yet I […]
Alors que la situation sanitaire s’enlise, que s’aggrave la situation économique, et que s’approfondit la crise écologique, le débat public autour de la croissance s’appauvrit à coups d’articles superficiels, de préconceptions, de prêt-à-penser, voire d’assertions erronées. Dernier en date : « L’économie s’est-elle vendue à Thanos, adepte de la décroissance ? » par Sébastian Laye dans Capital. Des […]