Should We Accept Degrowth as a Serious Academic Concept? Definitely not!

This is a very recommendable overview article!

Degrowth is the arena for big government and central planning! The degrowth literature seems to regurgitate a number of typical, well known and false claims against capitalism.

Criticism of economic growth started at least after WW II: Growth for growth sake ; limits of growth; growth as a fetish; do consumers need all these products and services?; the environmental consequences and so on.

The criticism of economic growth as an objective is at least several decades old and it is a fetish to some. Most of this criticism is baloney!

The book Doughnut Economics is a reminder of the notion of redistribution of a fixed cake. The book title suggests a static view, but economics is dynamic and it constantly challenges. In my quick take on this book is that the author subsumed economics under environmentalism (a modern religion).

Those who call on Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels (a capitalist who financially supported Karl Marx's bohemian lifestyle for decades) for inspiration in 2nd quarter of the 21st century are most likely fools.

Caveat I did not read any of the listed books below.

"In recent years, an intellectual movement known as “degrowth” has grown in popularity through the efforts of a small but growing group of academics and activists.

Key texts that champion this ideology, such as
Jason Hickel 2020 book Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World and Kate Raworth 2017 Doughnut Economics, appear on bestseller lists and in bookstores worldwide.

In 2020, Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito published Capital in the Anthropocene (published in English in 2024 as Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto), arguing that Karl Marx, in his later writings, anticipated the damage capitalism would do to the environment and called for rejecting unconstrained economic growth. ..."

"... The Doughnut of Social and Planetary Boundaries (the Doughnut) offers a visual monitor of progress towards the goal of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. ..."

Should We Accept Degrowth as a Serious Academic Concept? "Degrowth is less a practical economic program than a rhetorical vehicle for redistribution."

About Doughnut Economics

The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries.