Degrowth

"Man is small, therefore small is beautiful." (E.F. Schumacher)

Although the word décroissance was familiar to me, I have only just discovered the word degrowth in English. It's an attractive concept.


I have long worried about the limits to growth. It has never seemed possible to me that economies could just keep growing, and that by acting as if they could (for example by running deficits which can only be paid off through increased growth) we were burying our heads in the sand. I found the concept of sustainable development attractive, since it appears to take the limits to growth into account, reducing growth to what the planet can continue to provide. However, degrowth is better, because it goes further, rejecting the idea of sustainable development, and striving to make do with less, at least until a steady state of well-being is achieved.


If making do with less sounds unattractive, think of it as epicureanism. Of course, epicureanism isn't normally associated with less. As the Catholic Encyclopedia reminds us: "In its popular sense, the word stands for a refined and calculating selfishness, seeking ... the pleasures of sense, particularly of the palate". Pace the Catholics, this selfishness has always held a certain attraction for me. I very much enjoy the sun, wine, good food, sex, music... But indulgence in these things is not necessarily excess. Indeed, "Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided." (http://bit.ly/uT98kp)


If you look at today's uncontrolled development, in the Alberta Oil Sands for example, with their monstrous machines and tailing ponds, but also around the world in huge mining, damming, logging projects, in thousand-worker factories and ten thousand-tonne factory ships, it really does seem that, on a global scale, the troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle far outweigh the pleasures of partaking in it.