Publish at April 26 2020 Updated January 18 2024
If we had to sum up the fundamental question at stake in international politics, it would be this: what should we choose between the environment and economic growth? In both camps, the answer is obvious to those in favor. For ordinary people, it's not quite so simple. We want society to progress, but we are increasingly aware that we are reaching the limits of our resources and threatening our very survival. The notion of "progress" needs to be redefined.
Incidentally, this was one of the possible themes for the 2019 SES bac. In the end, it wasn't the one chosen, but this France Culture program was a good reminder to high school students of the situation and the elements to remember in a potential dissertation. All the more so as this issue has long been debated by experts.
In 1972, the Club of Rome, a group of experts from a variety of fields, published the Meadows report, also known as "The limits of growth". They had already noted that economic growth, which was strong at the time, could not be sustained. After all, the Earth's resources, particularly fossil fuels, are finite and therefore cannot support infinite inflation. Their models showed that continuing at the same rate would lead to a sharp drop in demographics and industry in the 21st century. Yet the response to this warning signal has been, at best, indifference and, in some cases, ridicule. This Radio-Canada program explains well the reactions to this report at the time of its publication.
And yet the document, without predicting everything perfectly, was right in many respects. Today, we can clearly see the limits that have been reached and the catastrophes that await us if we continue down this path. But with the growth paradigm so firmly entrenched in our society, it's becoming difficult to think differently or to decrease. Indeed, even sustainable development at its core is an approach that seeks to pursue unlimited growth with limited resources - a truly difficult equation to solve!
For some, the solution lies in continuing the market economy, but with eco-responsible incentives, as the European Union, for example, is doing. Whether it's a carbon tax or stricter environmental rules for businesses, anything is possible to improve the ecological footprint and continue free trade. In fact, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote an op-ed in 2019 asserting that it was entirely possible to combine growth and ecology by ceasing to rely on the market and creating sound public policies. These could invest more, strongly regulate polluting practices and give back to the poorest members of society.
For these Luxembourg economists, the limit lies not in the material, but in the intellectual. It's time to think in terms of an ecological civilization with appropriate infrastructures. They want to move away from the growth-decrease conflict and propose a-growth, an agnostic approach that would take into account well-being rather than simple GDP.
On the other hand, some argue that we need to stop believing that growth is infinite, that its limits have never been as obvious as they are now, and that we need a new paradigm that prioritizes natural capital. For these people, the argument that high-growth countries have better environmental records is totally false. What's more, they point out that the supposed improvement in living conditions brought about by growth has not been so incredible. According to the extreme poverty index, which varies from economist to economist, 800 million people live on $1.90 a day and 4 billion earn no more than $7.50 a day. In both cases, nothing to write home about. So, experts are proposing, among other things, more frugal urban planning to improve things and, above all, the adoption of degrowth.
In the final part of the France Culture program, students were asked to think about a post-growth world. They had to be able to give some ideas for the future. This Usbek & Rica article shows that Swedish researchers have studied degrowth and come up with several scenarios. For a start, degrowth would not necessarily mean widespread bankruptcies, mass unemployment or even the end of capitalism per se. Rather, it would lead to various types of economy, such as collaborative (sharing of goods and services), circular (use and reuse of materials), local self-sufficiency (reduced consumption and imports) or automation with a high quality of life (automation leading to less work and less need for material consumption). There are other probable scenarios, but these are the main ones thought up by scientists.
Obviously, degrowth would mean radical changes to our daily lives. It would impose ways of doing things that are still hard to imagine today. So it's hardly surprising that the concept should strike fear into the hearts of many and be demonized by certain commentators in the media. We'll have to think about it, though, because our resources and the space on our planet are not infinite.
Illustration: drpepperscott230 from Pixabay
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