Less Is More: Rogue Economists Champion Prosperity without Growth

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Less Is More: Rogue Economists Champion Prosperity without Growth

Harald Welzer's career as a critic of growth began with a few simple reflections. Just how progressive is it, he asked himself, when millions of hectares of land are used elsewhere in the world so that we keep down the cost of meat? How modern is it when producing a kilogram of salmon in a supposedly sustainable way requires feeding the fish five to six kilograms (11 to 13 pounds) of other types of fish?

If everyone used up as much space and resources as we do, says the 54-year-old Berlin-based social psychologist, we would need three earths. In Welzer's eyes, this can hardly be called progress.

All of this made Welzer so angry that he wrote a book critical of equating this sort of progress with growth. The ruling class of economists, who he characterizes as "disdainers of reality" and "proponents of a world essentially limited by consumption," is responsible for compulsively tying these two concepts together, he argues. His treatise, "Selbst denken" ("Thinking for Ourselves&quot , is a manual for phasing out the "totalitarian consumerism" that gives people desires that, until recently, they didn't even suspect they would ever have.
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According to Niko Paech, a 52-year-old economics professor in the northern German city of Oldenburg, we continue to apply these remedies until GDP is back on track, even in the midst of a crisis. But, he adds, treating GDP as a measure of the prosperity of modern societies is downplaying the problem and is "a measure of environmental destruction."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/critics-propose-economy-with-less-growth-and-environmental-damage-a-897550.html

A note on a cultural translation: "Prosperity" in this case is not used in the American sense of having more toys, but rather is used in the sense of "sustainable health".

To focus merely on the method of German energy production is to miss a larger point: with half of the consumption of Americans, any transition is easier, and conversations like this become possible.

[David__77]

1. Anti-growth = right-wing austerity.

Human needs will be addressed through economic development: "growth." Some anarcho-primitivists would delight in abolishing the wheel, but it's far from progressive.

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2. The article (and the concept) has nothing to do with austerity or abolishing wheels.

It's about migration or transformation to a low consumption, anti-consumerist, pluralist economy with low volumes of manufacture, high rates of reuse/recycle/repurpose, and strong sozial support.

Given that severe limitations on currently unrestrained manufacture are openly discussed, I doubt that it would be popular with the American right. It's all about human needs, and not about consumer fantasy.

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3. Did you even try and read the article?

nt

[caraher]

4. That's a pitfall but not an inevitability

How is wasteful consumption of disposable consumer items in response to manufactured needs the same thing as "prosperity?"

There are parts of the world where there is a genuine need for "development" in the sense you mean, but in most of the developed world, further "growth" brings with it few advantages in terms of health or happiness. And some research suggests that, for developed nations, equality is a more suitable goal than growth per se - a proposal the RW austerity crowd would find anathema!

It certainly is progressive to evaluate policy not in terms of proxy metrics like GDP but in terms of more direct measures of quality of life. But you're right that we should be careful not to let this distinction wrongly be used to suggest that the negative effect of austerity on growth as traditionally measured is not a problem. I just think the worry is fairly remote, given that the usual RW narrative is that austerity is necessary because government overspending throttles growth (despite the fact that the "research" used to support that narrative has been thoroughly discredited!).

[David__77]

5. Technological and productivity improvements.

I don't look to GDP for GDP (PPP) or even HDI as the best possible measure of social development. Literacy, availability of truly "free time," access to recreation regularly, retirement guidelines... many things should be accounted for rather than a measure of monetized productivity. But everything is a cost benefit trade-off. Austerity under the banner of ecology or sustainability is still austerity.

[wtmusic]

6. Seems the article seeks a re-definition of prosperity (and conversely, austerity).

as a sociological problem, not a political one.

Translated to politics, it would inevitably mean putting some brakes on capitalism. That doesn't necessarily result in a cost-benefit tradeoff, however. If take-home salaries are reduced by higher taxes, for instance, that "austerity" would be counteracted by a new transportation system, or paying down a deficit.

[GliderGuider]

7. It's a good beginning. Now lets see a few rogues champion degrowth.

What's that you say? Not in this lifetime? They're just anarcho-primitivist scum, TK wannabees?

Well, you know what they say, "Nature Bats Last."

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8. I was suprised enough by seeing it mentioned in a major paper,

and maybe more surprised that it wasn't slammed to the ground by editors and German politicians. Cut consumption? The Burger King is not amused.

I think I'll make a map of the borderlands for arguments over solutions, from "tweak around the edges" to "you've got to be shitting me". This is a bit north of "saving string", and not as far east as "a bloody revolution running down the peddlers of debt-driven growth". It might be too late, but I'll live there for a while.

[GliderGuider]

9. +1

What you said.