Reflections on 'Beyond Growth' | Frankly #31

On this Frankly, Nate reflects on the Beyond Growth Conference held at the European Parliament, including the stunning public acknowledgement by EU President that a growth model based on fossil fuels is now obsolete. In the context of this growing and relevant conversation, Nate unpacks what the degrowth movement is getting right, but also what is missing from the conversation. Is it possible to purposely navigate from our current system to one with lower energy and material wealth? How does a large and growing global debt overhang impact this possibility? Is a transfer of wealth between nations feasible or even desirable based on realistic outcomes? In any case, as to the inevitability of a post-growth world, the degrowth conversation needs to be expanded. It’s the primary movement mapping out what a desirable destination might look like as we move through a Great Simplification.

#natehagens #degrowth

[David-lpd]

Let’s not get over our skis and lose all perspective in our expectations of politicians or those majorities they represent. The like voices here represent a small number of the population. Most people are completely unaware of the shape we are in.

[williams.]

Just listened to the line by von der Layen. This could be translated in a few different ways: "We do not have a monopoly on fossil fuel growth anymore". "We need to monopolize growth in a different way" "Growth is for us to define and to rule". "We need a whole new schedule of reasons to sanction other economies and or support US/nato destruction". "Growth is the end all be all, that's why we are obsessed with it".

[TennesseeJed]

We will either consent to degrowth or it'll be thrust on us.

[elizabethanker]

Very good points! I've had vague and unarticulated reservations about the cheery certainty I find in the core of the Degrowth movement. I am by nature of a 'de-grow it all' philosophy and have been rather bummed at not feeling like I could firmly embrace their ideas. Your points about moving money into systems where EVERYTHING still has to happen, with the potential for a sudden increase in devastation, and taking money out of systems to the extent of crossing sustainability thresholds are spot on. I especially liked the analogy of the half car. So thank you for giving my worries some logical form. Now, let's have that conversation between ecology and down-sizing strategies!

[patnafs]

i will be blunt, nate (sorry). As a European social democrat who cares about biophysical limits, by far the biggest obstacle for the EU to actually move forward with this agenda (in collaboration with low consumption countries, so-called the global south) is not China or not even Russia - its that one superpower across the atlantic built on the ideal of cancerous growth and its cultural (not just geopolitical) influence around the world

[zoecohen]

Interesting comments Nate
I'd love to hear responses from degrowth academics on your points
It was a great three days
Incredible energy

[cameronveale]

Thanks for 'frankly' and subject matter. I expect until we change our growth culture, cultural goals of having more we will likely have to crash and burn first and rebuild from the ashes. And learn to live within the planetary boundaries hopefully!! Thanks Nate

[mrrecluse]

May degrowth have more to do with quality of life issues, to the things we gain rather than the things we lose. Without such focus, it will always be about what we lose.

[Crusoe]

There are maps, but they aren't coming from above, Nate. Social Ecology, Confederal Municipalism, Libertarian Municipalism. The only ways out are radically democratic, decentralising, and, frankly, revolutionary. I'm not saying it's likely, but nobody said the best answers are likely. #Rojava #murraybookchin

[stellarwind]

Ursula von der Leyen admitting that the paradigm of growth based on fossil fuels is obsolete, signifies a major shift in the Overton Window towards de-growth. In energy terms, Europe has its back against the wall. The vast majority of debt that exists in the financial system cannot and will not be repaid. No politician will say that out loud because that would spook investors.

[chizb]

My main issue with degrowth is that we can't decouple population growth from resource consumption. I agree that what we will have is post growth, for me it is collapse.

[forknowledge]

none of the good will happen without a widespread better mindset. I don't see human's capable of living without greed, ego, selfishness, big picture and longer term thinking.

[bkreed]

Dude, the haircut is an improvement 👍

[fabriciofercher]

THE MAP IS:

1 Social Technical Education
2 Collapse
3 Global inventories
4 Redesign and rebuild all the infrastructure

Without eduction the transition is NOT possible to achieve a transition to a systems that allows the constant understanding and logistics to maintain the whole population within Earth Carrying Capacities.

[fungussa]

Developed countries have to help developing countries avoid full carbon based industrialisation, so it's very much in the interest of richer nations to provide resources to poorer countries.

[kvaka]

They are not "the only game in town". That's disrespectful those who have been fighting the system for generations now.

[timeenoughforart]

Degrowth reminds me of the 70's appropriate tech thinking. Nothing really came of it either. Debt will crash us and we might get to try to rebuild. I pray the degrowth has enough momentum that we rebuild rationally.
I wish it was presented as quality over quantity. I want a quality life for my grandkids and eating out every night isn't a solution. Any healthy change boils down to simple food and shelter. Give them trees and safe parks. Healthy food and clean water. Music in the streets and laughter in the air. That can't happen both parents working 60 hour weeks and always in debt.

[boredastronaut]

As long as human beings have insatiable desires, it's hard to imagine how we will ever evolve past our contentious, competetitive, antipathetic societies. At least at global scales involving billions of people who are strangers to one another. Already wealthy people care about acquiring more wealth as a means of acquiring more power. They don't care about the suffering of those who can't even meet their biophysical necessities. And if the tables were turned, I hate to say, and a different collection of people had the majority of the wealth, their attitudes and behaviours would follow the same dynamics, because those attitudes and behaviours are what made drove them (their ancestors) to hoard wealth and power in the first place. Humans—at least, some of them—are voracious for recognition, power, and control. They see others as competitors and threats, not as fellows. This is the root problem. The only question is, how far will we take this pathological road? It leads to tyrrany. In the past, tyranny led to decadence, decay, and revolution. But with the advent of technologies that don't get tired or bored and can potentially maintain tyranny forever. The old pattern, which allowed for cultural death and rebirth, may be halted, or at least extended for centuries or millennia. And even if the have-nots find a way to organize, to harness technologies to infiltrate and dismantle the techno-hegemonic power structures, the response may be a murder-suicide at planetary levels. We need to disabuse the powerful of their insatiable appetite for power, control, and domination. Their beliefs are a cancer that must be purged. Or we must redirect it, or find a way to keep it in perpetual check. But who has the will and energy to fight that fight, besides those same power-addicted people?

[williams.]

I actually think that the new market making approaches and new growth model ambitions have a lot to do with digital technology, information technology, digital money/debt, and thereby with so called AI.

[treefrog]

When finding some succulent rare mushrooms becomes the high point in your day, it is indicative of the sorry state of current affairs. Not that a begrudge you your mushrooms (rather, I applaud your discovery!) but when "counting our blessings" devolves to such a simplistic existential level, I cannot ignore the lunacy of our present paradigm. Your conversation with Daniel Schmactenburger yesterday floored me, and rattled my aging bones in ways I never could I have imagined. His ominous conclusion was that AI will, more than likely, exacerbate our human decline. A simple hammer can be used as either a constructive tool or a lethal weapon depending on the intent of the user. Considering the historical record, I would venture to guess that AI will be the 21st Century equivalent of gunpowder.