inasabaThe Radical Plan to Save the Planet by Working Less: The degrowth movement wants to shrink the economy to address climate change, and create lives with less stuff, less work, and better well-being.
It’s not that radical, we lived with less than this for tens of thousands of years before the industrial revolution.
This sounds nice for someone in a developed country who has all they need, and is only satisfying their wants. But for most of the world, economic development is a necessity and a lifesaver. Child mortality is reduced, life expectancy and education level increased, child labor decreased, as a country’s economy grows. This is not a fringe right-wing idea. This is the very real effect of economic growth in developing countries, i.e. most of the world.
Degrowthers often seem to forget that applying their ideas will literally kill millions in developing countries, by preventing the economic developments that would have saved them.
FWIW, I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism either but think that it is important to consider science in important matters like this and not just go with gut feeling. That applies to both fascism and degrowth.
Degrowth addresses that, contrary to your opinion. Degrowth in the global north provides the space for the global south to properly develop, something that has been systematically denied to them in many places by western powers through unequal exchange and neocolonialism.
How does degrowth in the northern hemisphere give space to the southern hemisphere? Are we going to relocate the Amazon rainforest or something?
Lmao no but that’s a great mental image. Global north and south don’t exclusively refer to northern and southern hemisphere. Though, rewilding is a component of most degrowth strategies I’ve encountered. Obviously it’s much more complicated than just planting trees, entire ecosystems would need to be developed, but I guess sort of in a way it would be like moving the Amazon to the northern hemisphere, only that degrowth would advocate for redeveloping underdeveloped areas in the global south rather than further damaging wild ecosystems to develop more sprawl.
I still do not fully understand it, but thank you for the response.