On June 6th we will once more celebrate the Global Degrowth Day (GDD). On this day, like last year, we want to show that there are alternatives to the capitalist growth society and that a good life for all is possible! This time of multiple crisis can be overwhelming, but it is also a crucial moment to re-think how we live and how societies are organized. Degrowth is a powerful tool to examine the origins of the several crises we face. It is time to demand and build new roots for a new future, built around values of solidarity, justice, care, wellbeing and sufficiency. Despite coronavirus, there are Global Degrowth Day events planned around the world. See a full list here. Many of these Global Degrowth Day events will be livestreamed, but some will be live, face-to-face, with the appropriate measures for social distancing.
Last month a group of academics working in the fields of development and environmental sciences in the Netherlands wrote a manifesto for post-corona recovery based on degrowth principles. This initiative gained widespread attention, pushing the degrowth agenda into (Dutch) mainstream consciousness and the traditional corridors of power. The initiative was born in conversations that various a...
Degrowth addresses the negative consequences of consumerism (psychological stress, long working hours and positional competition) and discusses the benefits of frugal lifestyles. Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher from the 20th century, argues that if ideas or values are not physically implemented in space, they become mere fantasies. As such, if degrowth wishes to prevail, it has to leave it...
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 ...
