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Sustainable Degrowth
The History of a New Idea
Giorgos KallisICREA Professor,
ICTA, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelonawww.eco2bcn.es
Uppsala, 23 September 2010
My aim is to:
1. Introduce you to the literature on degrowth.
2. Explain to you the main concepts.
3. Direct you to further reading.
Structure of this presentation
1. What is degrowth?
2. Where does it come from?
3. Where is it heading?
1. What is Degrowth?
Definition Structuring ideas Macro-Policies Bottom-up initiatives
“Sustainable degrowth”
“An equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions”
Schneider, Kallis and Martinez-Alier, Vol 18 (6), 2010
How to? Environmental policies
Impact Caps.
Eco-taxes.
Leave resources on the ground.
Ecological investments.
Stonger regulation of commercial media (advertising).
www.degrowth.eu
How to? Economic policies
Reduced working hours.
Complementary currencies.
Shift taxation from income to consumption.
Investment in social services and relational goods.
Basic income and salary caps (redistributive taxes)
Cooperative/communal property and ownership.
Communities and social movements
Transition towns.
Rurban squats.
Co-housing.
Work or Tool sharing.
2. Where does it come from?
i. Ecological Economics.
ii. Sustainable Consumption Studies and Industrial Ecology.
iii. French Political Ecology.
iv. Post-Development Studies.
Ecological Economics
The economy as an entropic process
Economy increases entropy.
Finite stocks are being depleted.
“Thermal pollution”.
Degrowth is inevitable in the long-term, the objective should be to arrest its pace by turning from “funds” to “flows”. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906-1994)
The “father” of Ecological Economics
Prosperous decline
System cycles of growth and decline.
Energy decline inevitable in a shift from fossil fuels to renewables.
Policies for making the decline smooth.
Steady-State Economy
Need to limit scale of the economy, not just make it more efficient.
Growth does not mean progress.
Development betrayed
“Development” fails outside the West because it doesn’t fit local environments.
Increasing transaction costs.
Increasing cultural conflict.
Exploitation and resistance of the poor
Cost-shifting from West to the rest of the world.
Environmental injustices.
Local movements struggling for alternative futures, in different “languages”.
Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Consumption
Efficiency and conservation alone are not enough.
To achieve the 450ppm stabilization target by 2050, we need 21 to 130-fold improvement in carbon intensity (gCO2/$)
Absolute decoupling is not happening.
See the work of Wupertal Institute and reports by the European Environment Agency
Rebound effects
Responses that tend to offset the conservation benefits of a more efficient technology and that they are causally related to the new technology.
See the work of Steve Sorrell from SPRU (University of Sussex)
Jevon’s Paradox
See the work of Polimeni, Alcott, Giampietro and Mayumi
How to make degrowth stable?
Reduced working hours.
Social and ecological investments.
Tolerate low productivity.
French Political Ecology
Tools for conviviality
Institutionalization of specialized knowledge.
Alienation and structural power imbalances.
Regain control with convivial tools.
Ivan Illich (1926 – 2002)
The new class struggle is for working less, with security.
Degrowth lacks a social agent.
We cannot let go of complex industrial society.
Maintain, but constrain, market domain.
Farewell to the proletariat.
Unite for less work. Andre Gorz (1923 – 2007)
Autonomy
Discontinuous social change.
Social Imaginary.
Autonomy.
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922 – 1997)
Anti-ulitarianism
Different, non-utilitarian rationalities of social relation.
Exchange through different institutions.
Post-development studies
Alternatives for the “South”
Failure of Western-driven development to alleviate poverty and exclusion.
Attention to new, endogeneous visions.
De-development
The invention of the economy.
Decolonize the imaginary.
Live better with less.
Degrowth already happening.
Serge Latouche
Multiple streams of degrowth
CULTUREECONOMICS
TECHNOLOGY SOCIAL IDEAS
3. Where is it heading?
“A political slogan with theoretical implications”
Serge Latouche, “Farewell to Growth”.
Scientists and civil society working together
More and more scientific visibility
Social mobilizations and collaborations
Questions
Reaching out – convincing the people.
Political strategies vs. fate.
Theoretical coherence.
Theoretical development.
Research
Demonstrate insufficiency of efficiency gains in new cases.
Study alternatives (communities – past and present -, systems, policies).
Policy – impact models.
Study social perceptions.
