Do you really want to be rich or do you want to be free?
Call me radical but I don't think destructive and exploitative economic growth is the best we can do. Here's an alternative.
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31 May - 17h30 - Brussels.
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What would you do if you didn’t have to work to survive?
Would you still have taken that gig job as an Uber Eats driver, that unpaid internship, that zero hours contract? What would you study?
A week ago, I emerged out of the European Parliament looking a bit dazed, along with hundreds of others. Like emerging from the Upside Down.
Like you, I grew up being told that I must make my study choices based on what would be best for my future employability. We were taught that jobs like cleaner or carer were ‘low-skilled’ and we should aim for more hard-hitting dream jobs. Like social media marketing. LinkedIn consultant. Middle management.
We get up and drink coffee because we ‘need it to face the day.’ That coffee bean farmer needs you to drink that coffee – actually, you and thousands of other people, because that’s how many it takes for them to feed their family. We buy the coffee from Nescafe or Douwe Egberts in a major supermarket, because we rarely have the time or energy or money for more transparent brands – and decry the loss of the independent high street shops and small businesses.
We work overtime in pursuit of productivity and profit, while CEOs sit on millions and street cleaners and healthcare workers strike to demand any kind of liveable wage.
And we sigh about the unfairness of ‘the system’ as if it was something that can’t be changed.
But that’s learned helplessness. It is changing. I listened to policymakers and scientists decry this way of living as obsolete. I heard them preach the merit of civil disobedience and discuss universal basic services. The ‘radical’ things.
I’ve been working on degrowth for weeks now – this edition is about it – and I’m exhausted but I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like a street preacher. Me, the cynic, wanting to tell everyone how good it could be, if we act now.
I want to say to the homeless people that shelter outside the Parliament – you should never have to prove your worth to merit a roof over your head. I want the binman and the woman caring for her three children to hear that they get the recognition they deserve.
I want to tear the walls of the Parliament down and hold these conferences in parks. I want COP28 to take place in the blistering heat of another unbearable summer in India or Spain. I want to buy coffee without wondering if the person who picked the beans was a child or underpaid and unheard woman. Shouldn’t this be obvious?
Today I don’t have any inspiring way to word this – honestly I should go to bed – I just want to say we have been lied to. We are not busy, we are being kept busy to prop up an economy that does not benefit us and does not make us happy. Democracy, sustainability, fairness, god are we really calling these radical notions?
I did not emerge from the Upside Down. I went back into it when the conference ended. We’re living it. It felt like another world in there, I wrote in the first draft, but it’s not – it’s this world, minus the bullshit.
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What’s Going On?
A third of the West’s burned forests can be traced to fossil fuel companies.
Related: Fossil fuel firms owe climate reparations of $209bn a year, says study.Climate change is making us all sleep less.
Related: ‘Heat island’ effect is killing black people.World on track to breach 1.5 degree of heating for at least a year, in the next 5 years.
Useful: This is not the same thing as failing the Paris Agreement targets (what the science actually means).The United Arab Emirates has appointed fossil fuel executives to its board advising on the upcoming UN climate conference COP28.
Related: US senators and European policymakers sign open letter calling for fossil fuel lobbyists to be kicked out of COP28.Ukraine is planning its green reconstruction even as war rages on.
Related: More than 8 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Europe but only 1 in 3 have found work.
Focus On… Beyond Growth
In May 2023 over 4000 people took part in a European Parliament conference about moving beyond economic growth and it’s the biggest deal you haven’t heard about. Editor of The Green Fix Cass Hebron was there and gives us the story.
Now a quick factcheck. Of course some news was written about the conference. I mean, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared the growth model centred on fossil fuels ‘obsolete.’ The 3 days are being described as ‘the Woodstock of post-growth.’ It’s not nothing.
But, like other major climate change events and the landmark IPCC report, it went significantly underreported. Meanwhile, The Economist - a widely-read media outlet - posted a critique of the ‘lefty Europeans’ with ‘pretty whacky’ ideas and proceeded to push some climate misinformation that has long been debunked.
So anyway, here’s what the Beyond Growth conference was actually about.
What does ’Beyond Growth’ mean?
Our existing economy depends on the idea of perpetual growth. The underlying principle is that progress can be measured by an increase in GDP, which means the amount of commodities sold and the total value of that revenue.
[GDP = the total revenue or economic value generated by a country].
But the infinite pursuit of GDP growth relies on extracting finite natural resources and fossil fuels to maintain exponential production. Economic gain comes at the expense of biodiversity, clean water, clean air, and climate tipping points.
So in May 2023, a group of 20 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) organised a ‘Beyond Growth’ conference, saying:
“We need an economic system that prioritises human well-being and ecological sustainability over GDP growth, one that recognises that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible… We need to find new ways of organising our economies without relying on the continuous exploitation of resources.” Open letter, 10 May 2023.
The goal of the conference was to discuss concrete policy options to develop a European economy based on the principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, and well-being.
Isn’t a bit of economic growth good for countries?
GDP is an aggregate number based on how many products are being sold. It fails to measure how that profit is used and shared.
Social wellbeing and reduced poverty is not determined by GDP but by the distribution of wealth and resources. It means nothing to be in a wealthy country in Europe if that income is not funnelled into the public good but into CEO salaries.
In fact, the competitive neoliberal market system has increased inequality, as corporations and the 1% hoard power and wealth while others struggle to survive in what is, on paper, a thriving economy.
The greater the income disparity, the more unstable the economy becomes and cost-of-living crises hit the poorest worst - including women, marginalised communities and people of colour.
Staggering inequality between the richest and poorest, between men and women, between countries and between the North and South have all increased. Global North wealth is dependent on continuous extraction and exploitation of poorer countries in the Global South - a legacy of colonial history.
In addition, GDP fails to measure the value of ‘hidden’ work necessary to keep society running, particularly unpaid care work and community work. More time spent with our neighbours or outside is proven to improve our mental and physical health and directly reduce pressure on healthcare services - yet by GDP metrics it has no value.
OK well moving beyond growth sounds cool, but how do we do that?
The process of downscaling energy and resource use in the Global North to stay within planetary boundaries is called degrowth. Degrowth is often described as the journey, and post-growth (or beyond growth) as the destination.
Degrowth theory encompasses an array of recommendations and alternative economic models based on ecological and social wellbeing.
In the run-up to the Beyond Growth conference, over 400 academics and civil society organisations signed an open letter with concrete recommendations for how the EU can advance to a ‘wellbeing economy.’
The concrete recommendations to move beyond growth include:
Reduction in natural resources use: fossil fuel phase-outs, limits to raw material extraction and nature protection and restoration measures.
Fiscal instruments to eradicate income and wealth extremes, as well as super-profits. E.g., a carbon wealth tax, both minimum and maximum incomes.
Wellbeing for all: secured access to essential infrastructures. E.g., Universal Basic Services (including the human rights to health, transport, care, housing, education and social protection etc.), job guarantees, price controls for essential goods and services.
Active democracy: citizen assemblies to formulate socially acceptable sufficiency strategies and strengthen policies based on ecological limits, fairness and wellbeing for all and a stronger role for trade unions.
This all sounds very nice but idealistic. Do you really think that would ever happen?
Examples of political and economic practices based on social and planetary health are already happening around the world.
Six countries and regional governments have formed a ‘Wellbeing Economy Governments’ partnership (Scotland, New Zealand, Iceland, Wales, Finland and Canada). Others are trialling different examples of degrowth practices:
Finland trialled a basic income scheme and noted improvements in social mental health and life satisfaction and even increased employment and entrepreneurship.
Spain, Denmark, the UK and France have all held public citizen assemblies to gather policy recommendations to tackle the climate crisis.
Community-owned renewable energy in the Balkans provides a more secure energy supply for hundreds of households through decentralised ownership.
At the same time, degrowth was only 10 years ago a niche so-called ‘radical’ fringe theory and its recent entry into mainstream political discussions is both an unexpected sprint forward, and a reflection of how far there is left to go.
The Beyond Growth conference was organised by a minority of MEPs and still featured European Commissioners pushing the usual myths of ‘green economic growth’. The Economist article and lack of media coverage of the conference reveals the extent of the taboo around the topic.
The question is not whether a post-growth economy is realistic. Continuing down the trajectory of GDP-driven economics isn’t realistic. We have passed 6 out of 9 tipping points.
The limit of this economy is already here. The question is whether the EU and other governments will transition to a post-growth society fast enough.
The conference sessions are all recorded and available here. A recap blog of the main points is here. You can follow the Beyond Growth coalition work with the hashtag #BeyondGrowth and #PostGrowthEurope.
So Now What Do I Do?
LEARN MORE
Listen: How degrowth will save the world (with Jason Hickel). A podcast.
Sign up for the free online course on Future Generations Leadership convened by the UN Foundation.
TRY SOMETHING NEW
Apply for this free psychology course on ‘becoming a guide for change’ by Project InsideOut by 31 May.
Apply to be part of the international hybrid Sustainability Impact Forum by SDSN by 10 June.
Intersectional Environmentalist is looking for paid content submissions on the intersection of race and pride.
CHANGE THE SYSTEM
Check out this new toolkit on how to effectively mobilise feminists for climate justice!
Generation Climate Europe are looking for a volunteer officer dedicated to building capacity for Beyond Growth.
Activists aged 18-30 can apply for this super-cool Climate Fellowship Squad by the 10th June.
By the way…
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