Degrowth: An Idea for Our Time

The degrowth movement claims that to prevent environmental catastrophe, it is necessary to turn away from the cult of economic growth, which grips policymakers from left to right. It challenges sustainable development and green growth, whose double mistake is thinking that economic growth improves life and that it can be greened. Degrowth envisages a simpler, less material, less technological, but happier, more equal, and more sustainable society - a vision of personal autonomy within supportive, sustainable, communities, described here as millennial socialism. This chapter outlines the origins and ideological content of degrowth, the challenges of making it workable policy, and its implications for environmental law and regulation. It suggests that degrowth would reject efficiency as a goal, turn away from techno-fixes, market mechanisms, and incentives, and would embrace limits, planning, strict regulation, and de-industrialization. It would also entail local and global redistribution, and extensive social policies aimed at creating a decommodified life.