Ecological and social limits to growth
From a degrowth perspective, the current social–ecological–economic crisis is the result of systemic limits to growth and the obsession to promote growth at all costs, including the creation of debt to fuel growth or austerity policies to restore stability (Kallis et al. 2014, 2009; Bonaiuti 2013). These tensions recall O’Connor’s (1998) second contradiction of capitalism, which highlights that capitalism systematically undermines the biophysical conditions on which it depends in the pursuit of capital accumulation, although there are no automatic connections between biophysical limits, increases in costs of capital and the end of capital accumulation (Klitgaard 2013; see also Harvey 2014). However, recognizing the importance of defining ecological limits in which the economic activity should be embedded is not sufficient (Deriu 2008; Muraca 2013). On the one hand, it should be acknowledged that the ecological crisis directly stems from the ‘imperial mode of living’ of the global North, which is “rooted in prevailing political, economic, and cultural everyday structures” (Brand and Wissen 2012:555). Taking this into account, economic growth is not only environmentally unsustainable, but also unjust, and degrowth connects with concepts such as the recognition and reparation of ecological debt, post-extractivism and Buen Vivir (Martinez-Alier 2012; Demaria et al. 2013). On the other hand, degrowth advocates agree that ecology by itself cannot pinpoint the way or the normative ground on how to reach the desired social-ecological transformation (Muraca 2013; Deriu 2008). Degrowth aims to open up the democratic discussion of selective downscaling of man-made capital and of the institutions needed for such a ‘prosperous way down’ (Odum and Odum 2001). An important lesson taken from early political ecologists is that degrowth is about a (collective and individual) democratic movement of establishing limits within which human well-being and creativity can flourish (Muraca 2013; Kallis et al. 2014; Asara et al. 2013). The literature on autonomy emphasizes collective self-limitations, rather than (external) limits to growth, invoked not to protect nature or avoid disaster, but because simplicity, conviviality and frugality is how good life is conceived. Limits to growth therefore become “a social choice, not […] an external imperative for environmental or other reasons” (Schneider et al. 2010:513).
Additionally, degrowth scholars are increasingly engaging with the intersection between income and well-being. The so-called Easterlin paradox refers to the lack of positive correlation over time between reported subjective well-being and income growth, at least for countries with sufficient means to meet basic needs (Easterlin 1974; Helliwell et al. 2012). What Max-Neef (1995) has called the ‘threshold hypothesis’ holds that, after a certain threshold point, economic growth does not bring about improvements in people’s quality of life. Other studies have shown that income equality is conducive to better individual and collective health and happiness (Jackson 2009; Chancel et al. 2013; Pickett and Wilkinson 2009). Such emerging evidence, however, has not yet undermined the extended mantra that economic growth can be “a magic wand to achieve all sorts of goals” (Dale 2012): from soothing class tension and reducing poverty to reducing the gap between ‘developed’ and ‘developing countries’, to fostering social capital and steering environmental sustainability through ‘green growth’, among others.
It can be argued then that such ideological fix on economic growth stems from the naturalization of the prevailing social order in which the interests of capital are identified with the common good (Dale 2012; Purdey 2010). For example, it has been traditionally assumed that the benefits of economic growth (spurred by financial benefits accumulated by business and investors) trickle down to the poorest groups of society through a variety of means, such as employment and redistribution programs. More recently, the calls for and rhetoric of ‘green growth’ suggest that fostering resource efficiency measures, promoting more sustainable primary energy sources and mobilizing new sources of private funding for resource conservation will allow for continuous capital accumulation whilst generating social benefits, such as new employment opportunities. Economic growth thinking rests thus upon the paradoxical combination of promised abundance and structural scarcity, in which desires are transformed into needs and needs are reduced to solvent demand (Rist 1996).
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