Introduction: This article arises from increasing frustration and irritation about the way that the debate about Greece, and in general about austerity, is framed. My frustration is not only with the policy thugs who are implementing austerity, but also, to a degree, with their critics – which includes the failure of most of the critics of growth to actually get involved in this controversy and argue their own point of view. There have been attempts, for example by Nicola Hinton of the Post Growth Institute. It seems like a tough one to argue for degrowth in the context of the Greek crisis and as an alternative to austerity – but then all the more reason to try. Otherwise a movement for degrowth will never get out of the university lecture rooms into the real world. It will never become a guide or a narrative for the future of society to be realised in practical and popular politics.