In the the After Capitalism research, there seems to be pretty clear consensus that economic growth has to be either slowed, steadied, or even reversed.
The most politically savvy position is to either dodge the question or suggest slowing. Raworth in her popular Doughnut Economics work takes the politically astute position of “be agnostic about growth” as one of her seven key principles,basically a dodge.
The idea of a steady-state approach to growth has been around since the 1990s, popularized by ecological economist Herman Daly. It suggests that economic growth has gotten too big. It aims for stable population and stable consumption of energy and materials at sustainable levels. It is ideally established at a size that leaves room for nature and provides high level of human well-being, which is quite similar to the doughnut concept.
Perhaps the most courageous, and least politically astute, of the three positions is degrowth, which emerged in France in the early 2000s. In my scanning, I am seeing more and more mentions of this idea. I thought that perhaps it was starting to gain momentum vis-à-vis Steady State, but looking at the last five years of Google Trends suggests that Steady State is still the more popular topic by a significant margin. It could be that I am catching its growing popularity among the very small group of folks who are actively exploring these kinds of topics – not yet ready for the Google prime time.
Oh, right, in the spirit of producing a full grange of alternative futures, there are still some those who see no issue with growth continuing on its present trajectory or better yet increasing. And when you put growth in the search team comparison versus Steady State and Degrowth, the latter two pretty much disappear. -– Andy Hines
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