**Growth Bad – Topshelf

Transition Fails

The thesis of degrowth a.k.a “dedevelopment” is politically impossible, a transition would be deleterious.

Dedevelopment is too generalizing for the impact they are trying to solve, transition fails

Mestrum 09 [November 20, 2009, Francine Mestrum (International Council of the World Social Forum and Head of Global Social Justice), “DE-GROWTH OR OTHER GROWTH?”, online, http://www.cetri.be/De-growth-or-other-growth?lang=frm, RaMan]

The idea of de-growth is far from new. The emergent ecological crisis has given the concept a new impetus and its content has been somewhat updated. However, the idea of stopping growth altogether remains very controversial and it even seems that some advocates of ‘de-growth’ do not want to stop it. In this article, I will give the major arguments against the concept and propose an alternative approach. We should limit our ecological footprint, which is different from ‘de-growing’. For some, this is a semantic debate, for others, a fundamentally different view on our future. SCIENCE AND ECONOMY The idea of de-growth has first been promoted by the Romanian economist Georgescu-Roegen. His thesis was that western economic thinking is fundamentally wrong and he applied the principles of thermodynamics to the economy. This is how he introduced the idea of ‘entropy’ which indicates that infinite growth is impossible and that we should take into account our consumption of natural capital when developing economic theories. Natural resources are being exploited without their cost ever being measured whereas a return to an original situation is totally excluded. A comparison with financial capital is relevant here : using one’s capital to live from is perfectly possible but one knows this capital is finite and bankruptcy is the only possible final exit. Bankruptcy of the planet however will be final and irrevocable. It means we have to stop growing and to significantly reduce our economic activities. Several authors have developed this concept of de-growth. In France, the most famous one certainly is Serge Latouche. He considers de-growth to be incompatible with humanism. Latouche opposes modernity, development and technological ‘progress’. In the United States, Herman Daly is a former follower of Georgescu-Roegen. He promotes a steady-state economy and makes a distinction between ‘economic growth’ and ‘uneconomic growth’ that causes more damage than it produces benefits. Today, the idea of de-growth is mainly promoted by ‘green’ thinkers and activists, sometimes in a rather radical way, sometimes in a more relative way. The ‘New Green Deal’ that speaks of ‘prosperity without growth’ of the New Economics Foundation is a good example of this last version. But it also shows that the ideas need more clarification and that it is all too easy to create wrong impressions. De-growth remains controversial and the arguments in favor of it have never convinced me. Therefore, I want to develop a couple of ideas that lead to a less pessimistic world view. Even if the advocates of ‘de-growth’ promise more ‘happiness’, this seems to me to be a rather easy promise to make and a difficult one to realize. ALTERNATIVE INDICATORS The discussion on de-growth often takes place in a confusing context. Several ideas are being put forward that may be correct but that do not necessarily lead to ‘de-growth’. Let me therefore start with two statements. The first one concerns the indicators that are used to measure our prosperity. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has long been criticized, for very good reasons. GDP measures all our economic activities, independently from their positive or negative impact on our wellbeing or on our environment. A devastating natural catastrophe can produce more activities and thus more growth than a village party that contributes to social cohesion. Industrial activities with high carbon emissions are better to enhance GDP than the work of a craftsman. Environmental services, such as clean air and clean water are crucial for all life but they are delivered for ‘free’ and thus are not measured in the GDP, in the same way as the non-paid labor of mainly women is totally ignored. This is the reason why many scholars propose a new set of indicators. For poor countries, the UNDP has measured a ‘human development index’ that measures GDP in combination with literacy and life expectancy. In rich countries, an indicator for sustainable economic welfare (ISEW) is often introduced in order to measure the sustainability and the loss of natural capital of our activities. This indicator tells us when economic growth becomes ‘uneconomic’. These indicators are of the utmost importance in order to get a more or less correct idea of the real ‘progress’ of our societies. But this has nothing to do with the question of the slowing down of our economic activities. If we can produce more economic growth and less uneconomic growth, we are on the right track. A second statement concerns the western unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. It is clear that this pattern cannot possibly be generalized all over the world. If the whole of world society were able to ‘develop’ and were going to use as many cars as we in Western Europe, were able to buy as many air tickets and to eat as much meat, we would need 2,5 planets in order to make it possible. The allowable ecological footprint in Western Europe has been largely exceeded and it will necessarily have to be reduced. How we have to do this is another question but the answer is not necessarily ‘less growth’. Our way of life in the North is clearly unsustainable and we have to measure our ‘progress’ in a different way. This being said, de-growth is not necessarily the answer and I want to explain my arguments. ANOTHER WAY OF LIFE My first reason is totally prohibitive for the advocates of de-growth : technological progress. It does not mean that I unconditionally believe in the qualities and possibilities of technological progress, but I do think that it can solve certain problems. The ecological houses are a good example. Cars can drive with a substantial minor amount of petrol. Maybe there are possibilities for the sequestration or stocking of carbon emissions. Meat can be produced in laboratories. These are not panaceas, but it would be unreasonable to not examine the technological possibilities, especially in circumstances where solutions become very urgent and where changes in attitudes are particularly slow to emerge. The ‘rebound-effect’ that leads to higher consumption precisely because one knows there are less negative environmental consequences, will also have to be taken into account. A second argument is also linked to technological progress and concerns the recycling of waste. ‘Cradle-to-cradle’ solutions do not offer total solutions and are never totally possible, but they do offer a possibility to significantly reduce our resource consumption. Moreover these activities lead to more economic growth. A third argument is a consequence of the former ones. The most important thing to achieve is economic growth that causes no environmental damage and that needs fewer natural resources. Recycling and services are two possible alternatives. The ‘knowledge economy’ is not necessarily environment-friendly but some activities – translations and conference interpreting, e.g. – will not be more damaging that the costs for the transport of their workers or the use of a computer. I do not understand why growth in these sectors would have to be prohibited. A fourth reason is obviously the ‘under-development’ in the South. The Northern/Western pattern of life is unsustainable but it is also unacceptable to deny Africans or Asians the material comfort that we enjoy. Growth is not a panacea to solve poverty, but how to reduce poverty without growth remains to be seen. To me, it seems obvious that poor countries will have to develop their productive capacities in order to satisfy the needs of their people. It means that third world countries need growth, growth that should try to limit as far as possible environmental damage. In order to limit the worldwide ecological footprint, it means we should also talk of a distribution of industrial activities and, consequently start to plan in the way that transnational companies are already planning their activities. They do it in function of costs ; we should do it in function of a fair distribution of incomes and of environmental damage. This redistribution of activities is also the easiest and most direct way to realize a redistribution of incomes. Moreover, it allows for a significant reduction of international trade and transport and thus for less environmental damage. My last argument against de-growth is a consequence of all former points. The advocates of de-growth only rarely make a distinction between different types of activities and growth. Their approach is too general, as if all growth necessarily implies the consumption of finite natural resources. This is not correct and I think the most important thing is to organize growth in a different way, to produce another kind of growth and other types of economic activities that can lead to economic growth in the sense of Daly. I have never understood why economic growth and growth in general should be stopped. ANOTHER ECONOMY The arguments in favor of de-growth clearly do not convince me. This does not mean that I can accept the current economic system. I hope that my arguments have already indicated in which direction I would like to see it change. I cannot develop all the different points here, but I think that a reference to the current economic and financial crisis, the growing inequalities and the missing gender dimension in economic thinking are the most important ones. Let me briefly develop the reasons that have to do with de-growth and ecology. One of the reasons why the advocates of de-growth keep hammering at it may be that growth has become in the past decades the only objective of economic activities. This is a rather new phenomenon and if it is a normal evolution within capitalism, it certainly is not within economic theory. Economy is about the satisfaction of basic needs with scarce resources. Economy, then, is about the allocation of these scarce resources. All other considerations fall outside of economic theory. The economy can ‘grow’ as population grows and more needs have to be satisfied. In fact, this is already an argument against de-growth because the population is indeed growing and a reduction of economic activities would lead to substantially less goods for everyone. The economy can also grow when more and more desires are perceived as being needs. It is here that the distinction between economic and uneconomic growth has to be made, but it surely does not lead to obligatory growth. Originally, development was not defined in terms of growth. In the UN development thinking of the 50s and 60s development referred to the modernization of productive capacities, to a diversification of activities and to a rising living standard. This necessarily implied growth but growth was not the objective of development. It was a means in order to achieve an end and in order to finance the development effort, independently from the North. Only in the last decades, after the structural adjustments and with the poverty reduction strategies, has growth become an objective, and end in itself. The reason is quite simple : redistribution of incomes disappeared from the agenda. It was said that poverty reduction needed growth and no one wondered where and how this growth had to be produced, whether poverty in the past had been reduced thanks to growth and how the growth had to be distributed. It was only when it became clear – once again – that this ‘development’ strategy did not work and that growth did not favor the poor, that a new concept of ‘pro-poor growth’ was introduced, which is, in fact growth produced by the poor themselves. In other words, the poor solve their poverty problem themselves. That is the way the World Bank sees it. But one indisputable fact remains : poverty can only be reduced either with growth or with redistribution. OTHER SOCIAL POLICIES The growing poverty and inequality clearly show that something is fundamentally wrong with growth and with the way our economic system is functioning. It will have to be re-examined and to me it is clear that growth cannot be the objective of economic activities. In the same way, the whole reasoning on the ‘homo oeconomicus’ is so fundamentally flawed – especially from a gender perspective – that it ignores or sees as uneconomic all forms of altruism. The basic tenets of our economic theories will then have to be re-thought. Trade unions have their own relevant reasons for rejecting all ideas of de-growth as they refer to social problems. Less growth – as we can see in today’s crisis – means less employment and less income for workers. Clearly, this cannot be defended in a trade union context. Moreover, it is not easy to convince people to abandon material comfort on a voluntary basis. The promise of ‘more happiness’ or ‘more wellbeing’ is too abstract and too incredible to be seriously considered. From a sociological point of view then, de-growth can never be a popular idea. Whatever one may think of the ‘happiness’ of people, it is clear that the economic growth in the North in the past century – and its redistribution – has given rise to a much better standard of living. ‘Without growth’, as the most recent study of the New Economics Foundation states, is also incredible. In fact, the report itself admits it. Economic stability, according to the authors, cannot be based on growth of material consumption. This means it can be based on immaterial consumption and on growth of the services sector. This is not an argument against growth. Moreover, the report states that ‘prosperity without growth’ in the Western world has become a financial and ecological necessity. In other words, growth in the South is acceptable. This puts the whole idea in a very different context and one can only say that the title of the report is very misleading. WHAT IS GROWTH ? I believe the concept of growth is in fact too general. It is obvious that from an ecological point of view we have to be much more cautious than we are and that we have to respect our planet and the resources it gives us. But growth that is based on other elements ? Just imagine that our societies decide to pay women for their reproductive work. If we do this at the price of a domestic worker, it would mean that our GDP would rise with 50 to 70 %. Do we have to oppose this because it is ‘growth’ ? A second more difficult point concerns growth which is based on natural resources and the argument of Georgescu-Roegen that all growth is always destructive. This is certainly true, though I suppose that for some resources depletion is not immediately threatening. Our planet is finite and intergenerational solidarity is a must, but how many generations to we have to take into account ? If we can organize our production in such a way that our resources will not be depleted within the coming half millennium, does that limit our responsibility ? But who knows if our planet will not be destroyed in the meantime by a meteorite, or by a very destructive nuclear war ? Or that we find water on Mars ? This ethical question is not easy to answer, though I seriously question the assumption that we have to leave the earth the way that we have found it. Where does our responsibility stop ? ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL PROBLEMS It should be clear that our prosperity cannot and should not only be determined by growth. To question the material growth and to defend a redistribution of material growth is a logical consequence. In view of the coming climate conference it is clear that the new emerging economies are not willing to abandon their development only to please the West. A serious global redistribution will have to be organized. It is also the best way to reduce the growing income inequality in the world. More industrial activities with environment friendly methods in the South, a serious reduction of uneconomic growth in the North and a serious economic growth based on green technologies, why should this not be possible ? Sustainable development means that development is not synonymous with growth and that it concerns the North as well as the South. Much more research is needed in order to find out what activities will have to be reduced and which ones will not. Now, everything is lumped together and this leads to a serious blurring of lines. We already know that the existing oil reserves will not last for a century. Countries need to have an opportunity – as Ecuador is doing – to not exploit their oil and to protect the rainforest and its inhabitants. If that means we can produce less plastic and can drive fewer cars, than we have to prepare for it, now. We need other forms of mobility. If we want to avoid a serious decline of our living standard it is best to be pro-active. Humankind is very inventive and I trust we can find new solutions. The most important conclusion should be that the ecological crisis cannot be paid for by those who have nothing and who did not cause the current crisis. In the international documents on sustainable development, the poor are either seen as victims or as culprits. It is clear that poor people who have no money for ecological houses will indeed consume more energy. But half of the world population is poor and is already the most important victim of the ecological crisis. Today, farmers suffer from drought or from floods. Islands are already disappearing. Those who say, in general, that we have to de-grow also say implicitly that there is no hope for the 2.5 billion poor people and that inequality will continue to rise. If we are prepared to re-think development and development cooperation, I am sure we can find ecologically sustainable solutions which can be ‘sold’ more easily to the populations of North and South. De-growth seems to be an impossible idea. Material prosperity remains the basis for our wellbeing and our happiness, but there certainly are limits to the growth of prosperity. This is not in defense of voluntary poverty, but in defense of controlling our markets and the limitless offer of useless and damaging products. Nobody will suffer from less neon publicity, less meat, fewer cars, less toys, less plastic bags. Re-thinking our agricultural policies, in North and South, can deliver a better and ecologically friendly production of everything we need. There are thousands of examples of activities that can maintain our prosperity, improve our wellbeing and limit the environmental damage. A determined analysis of the feasibility and the desirability of all activities is very urgent. Stories about ‘de-growth’ and ‘without growth’ make people afraid and fear never is a good councilor.

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