17. The Path to Degrowth for a Sustainable Society

The word degrowth has been recently used in the ecological, economic and social debate; it started being used in 2002 as a provocative slogan to denounce the mystification of the ideology of sustainable development. It now designates a complex alternative project, with undeniable analytical and political significance. It is about first escaping from consumption society and then building a durable society of prosperity without growth or frugal abundance. Thus degrowth is not the alternative, but rather a matrix of alternatives that opens the human adventure to a plurality of destinies and space for creativity, while removing the lead blanket of economic totalitarism. Degrowth therefore offers a general framework that provides meaning to many sectorial initiatives or local resistances favoring strategic compromises and tactical alliances. This project may seem like a pipe dream today but it is extremely realistic if we want to avoid the collapse of human society in the future.