Crisis or opportunity? Economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability. Introduction to this special issue

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2010.01.014Get rights and content

Abstract

This article reviews the burgeoning emerging literature on sustainable degrowth. This is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level, in the short and long term. The paradigmatic propositions of degrowth are that economic growth is not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible. Degrowth proponents come from diverse origins. Some are critics of market globalization, new technologies or the imposition of western models of development in the rest of the world. All criticize GDP accounting though they propose often different social and ecological indicators. Degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension of human relations instead of market relations, demand a deepening of democracy, defend ecosystems, and propose a more equal distribution of wealth. We distinguish between depression, i.e. unplanned degrowth within a growth regime, and sustainable degrowth, a voluntary, smooth and equitable transition to a regime of lower production and consumption. The question we ask is how positive would degrowth be if instead of being imposed by an economic crisis, it would actually be a democratic collective decision, a project with the ambition of getting closer to ecological sustainability and socio-environmental justice worldwide.

Most articles in this issue were originally presented at the April 2008 conference in Paris on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. This conference brought the word degrowth and the concepts around it into an international academic setting. Articles of this special issue are summarized in this introductory article. Hueting, d'Alessandro and colleagues, van den Bergh, Kerschner, Spangenberg and Alcott discuss whether current growth patterns are (un)sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth might mean, and whether and under what conditions it might be desirable. Matthey and Hamilton focus on social dynamics and the obstacles and opportunities for voluntary social action towards degrowth. Lietaert and Cattaneo with Gavaldà offer a down-to-earth empirical discussion of two practical living experiments: cohousing and squats, highlighting the obstacles for scaling up such alternatives. Finally van Griethuysen explains why growth is an imperative in modern market economies, raising also the question whether degrowth is possible without radical institutional changes.

Introduction

The paradigm of economic growth has dominated politics and policies since 1945. Environmental concerns were introduced later but always subordinated to growth objectives. Expectations of win–win, sustainable growth through technological and efficiency improvements, have not been fulfilled. The present economic crisis opens up a social opportunity to ask fundamental questions. Managed well, this may be the best, possibly last and only chance to change the economy and lifestyles in a path that will not take societies over climate, biodiversity or social cliffs.

The idea of degrowth (décroissance in French) is emerging as a response to the triple environmental, social and economic crisis [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] It did not appear out of the blue. The people who defend degrowth come from different philosophical horizons, movements and intellectual sources [7], [8]. The first of them is culturalist. It comes from anthropologists criticizing the idea that southern countries need to follow the development model of the US and Europe [3], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Serge Latouche author of the editorial (in this issue) is a prominent defender of this school of thoughts. It is often a critique of what could be called the irruption of the generalized market system, in Karl Polanyi's terms [13]. The second source of degrowth is the quest for democracy, the aspiration to determine our economic and social system, breaking the close link among the political system, the technological system, the education and information system, and short-term economic interests [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21]. The third source is ecology, defending ecosystems and showing respect for living beings in all of their dimensions [21], [22], [23], [24]. The fourth source is linked to what some authors call “the meaning of life” and movements around it emphasizing spirituality, non-violence, art or voluntary simplicity [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29]. The last source can be called bioeconomics or ecological economics. It deals with the constraints linked to resource depletion and waste disposal [6], [29], [30], [31]. Degrowth is then needed to prevent overloading of source and sink capacities. Bioeconomists in favour of degrowth believe in more equity. In this special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production, many of the articles are in this tradition of bioeconomics (as Georgescu-Roegen liked to say) or ecological economics (as this transdisciplinary field of study chose to call itself from the late 1980s onwards [32]). However all positions are represented to some degree.

In ecological economics there have been strong voices against economic growth in rich countries and in favour of a steady state of the economy (Herman Daly, already in the 1970s [33]). The discussion on how degrowth of the economy was required in the first instance before reaching a steady state, is new (see Kerschner in this issue). Social movements for degrowth (décroissance in French, decrescita in Italian), and the writings from the culturalist stream induced ecological economist and others, including industrial ecologists, to join in the first international scientific conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity (http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/en/) that witnessed the gathering of 140 multidisciplinary scientists in Paris in April 2008 [1]. In the call for the conference, economic degrowth was explicitly defined as a reduction of the “collective capacity to acquire and use physical resources”. This capacity could be measured financially or in other terms. But it had to be envisioned as a search for equity and sustainability considering environmental limits in today's highly unequal world. It implied that “degrowth had to involve a local and global redistribution”. The problem of the macro-rebound-effect also had to be dealt with: the fact that gains from efficiency are reallocated to new physical consumptions in an expanding economy.

The April 2008 Paris conference was a successful event. For the first time, scientists gathered in an interdisciplinary and international academic setting with representatives of the civil society on the topic of economic degrowth as a possible path for more ecology, more equality or more well-being. It led to the publication of the Paris Degrowth Declaration (in this issue) which calls for economic degrowth if environmental sustainability and social equity are to be achieved. The success of the Paris degrowth conference showed acceptance and understanding of the word degrowth and the importance of the projects it supports. More than 90 academic presentations were made on various topics around degrowth. The first day was on partial visionary perspectives with sessions on background, applications, research areas and sectors. The second day was on wide socio-economic processes for degrowth, dealing with societal values and economic degrowth as a whole, with panels on cultural change, change of institutions and democracy. Most of the articles in this special issue were originally presented at this conference. Research on degrowth is growing, and a second scientific conference will take place in Barcelona in March 2010, organized by the editors of this special issue (http://www.degrowth.eu). It is becoming an established field of research.

In this review article we first offer our own definition of what does degrowth include, clearing out some misinterpretations. We then review and connect the latest contributions in the field presented in this special issue, before relating the debate on degrowth, which started as a concern for environmental sustainability, to the context set by the global economic crisis of 2008–09.

Section snippets

What is degrowth: definitions and misconceptions

Sustainable degrowth may be defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level, in the short and long term. The adjective sustainable does not mean that degrowth should be sustained indefinitely (which would be absurd) but rather that the process of transition/transformation and the end-state should be sustainable in the sense of being environmentally and socially beneficial. The

The latest contributions to the field

This Special Issue brings together several novel contributions that approach the question of degrowth from a variety of perspectives and foci, theoretical, modelling and empirical. We might divide the contributions into 3 + 1 groups (the last consisting of a single contribution). The first group (Hueting, d'Alessandro and colleagues, van den Bergh, Kerschner, Spangenberg and Alcott) discusses whether current growth patterns are (un)sustainable and offer different perspectives on what degrowth

Crisis or opportunity? Degrowth in the context of the economic crisis of 2008–2009

The Paris Conference took place when the economic crisis of 2008–09 was yet about to start (although our contributors were asked to revise their articles and reflect on the implications of the crisis). As Kallis, Martinez-Alier and Norgaard [43] argue, the crisis is a result of unsustainable growth. Irresponsible borrowing and the cultivation of fake expectations in the housing market were not accidents, but a systemic failure of a system struggling to keep up with growth rates that could not

Acknowledgements

Deep thanks to all conference participants, reviewers, authors, Filka Sekulova and Don Huisingh, as well as conference co-organisers Fabrice Flipo and Denis Bayon for their help and support, and to Bob Thomson and Jana Timm for translations.

References (57)

  • J. Martinez-Alier

    Socially sustainable economic de-growth 2009

    Development and Change

    (2009)
  • S. Latouche

    Le pari de la Décroissance

    (2006)
  • Y. Cochet

    Pétrole apocalypse

    (2005)
  • W. Hoogendijk

    The Economic Revolution

    (1991)
  • R. Hueting

    New Scarcity and Economic Growth: more welfare through less production?

    (1980)
  • Bayon, D., Flipo, F., Schneider, F. La décroissance en questions. La découverte, Paris,...
  • N. Ridoux

    La décroissance pour tous

    (2006)
  • G. Rist

    The History of Development, From Western Origins to Global Faith

    (1997)
  • F. Partant

    La fin du développement – La naissance d'une alternative?

    (1997)
  • H. Norberg-Hodge

    The march of monoculture

    The Ecologist

    (1999)
  • K. Polanyi

    The Great Transformation: The Political and Social Origins of our Time 1944

    (1957)
  • I. Illich

    Tools for Conviviality

    (1973)
  • J. Ellul

    Recherche pour une Ethique dans une société technicienne

  • T. Fotopoulos

    Towards an Inclusive Democracy – The Crisis of the Growth Economy and the Need for a New Liberatory Project

    (1997)
  • Ariès, P., 2007. La décroissance, un nouveau projet politique. Golias, Villeurbanne, France, 370...
  • A. Gorz

    Ecologia

    (2008)
  • A. Gras

    Le choix du feu – Aux origines de la crise climatique

    (2007)
  • F. Schneider et al.

    Eco-info-society: strategies for an ecological information society

  • H.T. Odum et al.

    The Prosperous Way Down

    (2001)
  • F. Guattari

    Les trois écologies

    (1989)
  • P. Rabhi

    Du Sahara aux Cevennes

    (1983)
  • H.D. Thoreau

    Walden or Life in the Woods

    (1854)
  • J.C. Besson-Girard

    Decrescendo Cantabile

    (2005)
  • S. Mongeau

    La simplicité volontaire

    (1985)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text