As the article itself makes plain, these folks aren’t advocating slower growth; what they call “degrowth” is negative growth, aka economic contraction. For those of you who find the advocacy of economic contraction somewhat misanthropic, you’re right, of course, but in fairness to the authors of this article, they aren’t calling for the whole world to be made poorer.
The authors make it clear that they’re only talking about negative growth for today’s prosperous countries. They’re in favor of poorer countries growing more prosperous while the richer countries’ economies shrink, thereby closing the current economic gap between rich and poor. This is a vision of socialism on a global scale.
The article calling for “degrowth” is disturbing on more than one level. Besides putting America’s prosperity in its crosshairs, the fuzzy illogic of the argument itself is appalling. It’s another sad sign of the decline of reason and clear thinking in academia.
Let me share with you a true story that illustrates how the crucial function of scholarly communities to recognize and correct errors and faulty theories has atrophied in recent decades:
About 15 years ago, a dear friend from my undergraduate school who was a senior professor at a school of law proudly shared with me her latest law review article. Typical of this conscientious, hard-working friend, the article had been thoroughly researched, as evidenced by hundreds of footnotes.
At one point in the article, she made a straightforward, unequivocal statement that directly contradicted another straightforward, unequivocal statement made only a page or two earlier. There was no recognition of the mutual incompatibility of the two statements, but since both of them were supported by footnotes, they were both presumed to be valid and accepted uncritically.
The article on “degrowth” contains similarly contradictory statements. For several months, I have tried to convince myself that the “degrowth” article would quickly fade into obscurity the way most law review articles do, but since Nature has published it, the horse is out of the barn. Sad as it is to say, bad ideas have a way of spreading beyond the confines of academia to contaminate public thought, just as the COVID virus spread beyond the confines of a Wuhan laboratory. Thus, it’s time for some truth-telling about “degrowth” and hope that this pernicious esoteric theory doesn’t go viral.
Space considerations don’t allow a full point-by-point rebuttal, although if you read the article itself, you will see plenty of red flags. The inconsistencies in the “degrowth” argument become apparent as early as the article’s subtitle, which suggests the obvious question: How does negative economic growth enhance prosperity? It’s rather Orwellian, isn’t it? “War is peace” and “less growth means more prosperity.”
Let’s look at the dubious assertions made in just the first three sentences of the article.
First sentence: “The global economy is structured around growth ... regardless of whether it is needed.” “Structured” is a word that socialist central planners use. They want an economy that’s structured according to one central plan. By contrast, the abstraction known as a “free market” is an inchoate, fluid, spontaneous order—the unplanned outcome of millions of individual plans.
The authors are correct, however, when they write that human economic activity is oriented toward growth—that is, toward the production of new, additional wealth. That’s because human beings desire improvements in their standards of living. It’s presumptuous for anyone to assert that some growth isn’t “needed.” Who is to decide what’s needed and what isn’t? People want more, but socialist central planners find that objectionable.
But “ecological breakdown”? The “degrowth” advocates are ignoring the Kuznets curve—the pattern of environmental conditions improving in affluent societies—i.e., those societies wealthy enough to be able to afford costly preventative and remedial measures.
Third sentence: Wealthier people and societies “consume energy and materials at unsustainable rates.” Perhaps I should be careful here, because this assertion is buttressed with a footnote. What the folks on the “unsustainable” bandwagon never seem to grasp is that human ingenuity constantly finds new ways of producing new forms of wealth.
We find more efficient uses of existing resources, we creatively pivot toward cheaper substitute materials, and individuals repeatedly discover additional sources of resources—discoveries that explode such hyped myths as “peak oil.”
Beyond those first three sentences, you'll find an ambitious vision for a radically reformed economy organized according to a socialistic central plan. What you won’t find is any proof of the assertion made in the title that “science can help” “degrowth” to “work.” Instead of science, those who favor “degrowth” will have to rely on faith that it can somehow work. But faith in what or whom?
This crucial question is one that the authors assiduously avoided. They repeatedly called for radical economic, social, and political changes, but they never come out and say who will oversee their grand plan. Who will define the “social and ecological goals” they envision, and who will be in charge of implementing them?
The next time you hear someone tout “degrowth,” ask them how any group of planners can square the circle and produce greater prosperity out of less growth. It can’t be done.
