Degrowth

Laurie Mercier talks with Old Mole Joe Clement about the argument for degrowth within international environmental, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist movements. Degrowth proposes radical wealth distribution by way of a planned scale-down and re-organization of the economy in ways that increase well-being while reducing extraction, inequality, exploitation, and waste. They critique the influence of growth on how we understand what we need and can do to change our economy, both to avert ecological collapse and realize freedom and justice.

For Further Reading and Listening

• Degrowth.info: Hub of news about the degrowth movement.
• Socialism Without Growth: Essay by Giogos Kallis that argues for realizing socialist goals while degrowing the economy. 
• Degrowth and Feminism: panel discussion with degrowth scholars at the 2020 Degrowth Talks (all of which can be found here) that considers feminist economics as a forerunner of degrowth, and why degrowth needs a better theory of social reproduction and unpaid labor that feminists have long championed.
• Degrowth: a vocabulary for a new era: 
• We are all degrowthers; we are all ecomodernists: an analysis of a debate - Nick Carson critically assesses debate between degrowth advocates and their critics. While pointing out short-comings and challenges in degrowth arguments, Carson defends degrowth and shows criticism of it to relies on poor reasoning, gross mischaracterization, and an unexamined but unsupported belief that efficiency gains can be decoupled from material extraction, driving not just climate change but ecological breakdown of several earth systems. The history of how capitalism has prioritized waste, power and control challenge core degrowth critics assumptions of what does and doesn't need to change about the economy.
• Why degrowth is not Malthusianism: Giorgos Kallis examines charges of Malthusian made against degrowth, explaining their inaccuracy, and analyzes Malthus' economic arguments in terms of his political vision of using scarcity and inequality to drive economic growth.
• Jason Hickel on Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The Planet
• David Graeber on The Practical Utopian's Guide To The Coming Collapse
• Joe and Anna Coote on a 30 hour work week 
• Joe and Nathan Schneider on who stole the 4 hour day
• Joe on why we should just give everyone food stamps