We Already Live in a Degrowth World, and We Do Not like It

Wim Naudé

No 16191, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The Degrowth Movement calls for "degrowth" – a reduction in GDP in advanced economies – to avert an ecological crisis. This paper argues that the Degrowth Movement misses that the West is already in a state resembling degrowth – a Great Stagnation. This state of degrowth and its correlates, declining entrepreneurship, innovation, science, and research productivity, are described. It is concluded that the notion that a degrowth economy can generate the technological progress necessary to tackle ecological and social crises and challenges is far-fetched. Moreover, as economic stagnation has taught, the consequence of degrowth is a zero-sum society: redistribution, instead of production, becomes the basis of the economy. In such a context, more degrowth will only make problems worse. This paper concludes by discussing scenarios for moving beyond Degrowth. Whether collapse or unimaginable riches through breakthrough technological progress will be the future, these scenarios suggest that there is more to humanity's future than envisaged by the Degrowth Movement.

Keywords: economic growth; Degrowth; ecology; sustainable development; collapse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D64 O33 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2023-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16191.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16191

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().