In order to facilitate the transition towards a postgrowth or even degrowth economy, further research on alternative ecoomic and social models is utterly important, as we have no working models of non-growing economies at the moment. However, despite the urgency of this matter, progress in this direction is slow. Large amounts of research-funding are directed towards "green growth" and other even less sustainable economic strategies. To provide realistic and truly sustainable alternatives, we have to answer many pressing questions about the viability of non-growing economies. This will not be possible without further research and experiments. For more information and details, please watch this inspiring 15-Minutes TED-Talk by ecological economist Miklos Antal. If you agree with his arguments, please sign and share this petition.
Growth-critical authors and advocates of a post-growth society are often criticized on the grounds that some of their arguments appear open to appropriation by authoritarian nationalist and nativist racist forces. As such objections are often made in a polemical and overly generalised manner, often ultimately aiming to delegitimize growth-critical ideas as a whole, those being criticised often ...
In a recent article with Stefan Drews, we discussed why degrowth might be an unfortunate name and slogan for the alternative economics movement. We listed several expressions that could possibly be better, but we were also upfront about their disadvantages. Here I propose a new term that might combine the advantages of the word degrowth with those of its more positive alternatives. For an asse...
By Friederike Habermann Growth is no option, considering that an absolute decoupling of growth and resource use has historically proven impossible – This position unites everybody who contributes to the Degrowth-conference. In the media too there is an increasing presence of growth critique. Even the German liberal weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” (No. 10/2013) ends an editorial on this topic sayin...
