Just a thought: let's imagine we don't grow at all, we keep total energy and population and consumption static at some level. We're still going to need some resources - phosphate and potash for fertilizer, sulfur for sulfuric acid in order to process the phosphates, various minerals and metals for industrial use, fresh water for the areas currently irrigated by fossil water, oil for all the petrochemicals we make everything out of even if we dont use it for fuel, etc. As we consume these resources, we will choose to mine the easy and abundant stuff first - so it might take 1 unit of energy to get 1 unit of phosphate when you're mining good quality rock real close to the surface. But no matter our level of consumption, as long as its not zero, we will deplete these easy and abundant sources eventually. We then must move to using worse deposits that are harder to refine and process or just generally lower quality. So instead of mining copper from rocks that are 5% copper we mine it from rocks that are 0.5% copper, or instead of drilling easy convential oil we have to do all that nonsense with the tar sands. The energy cost goes up, so now it takes 2 units of energy, now 3, now 5... etc. If we are willing to pay a higher and higher price, there is no ceiling, but if we are not growing total energy then won't we eventually be priced out? Critical resources could be too expensive in energy terms and if our pocketbook hasn't grown at all, we will lose access to critical resources. Recycling can help but its both more energetically expensive than current deposits and lossy, presenting the same dynamic.

So then, don't we need to maintain a certain amount of growth in total energy available to be spent on resource recovery and refining even if we intend to keep physical resource use constant? Am I missing something here?

Hello everyone,

I am currently writing a Paper comparing climate ethical manifestos from the perspective of a spatial planner. It would be great to co-author this paper with somebody knowledeable in degrowth and climate movements. Ideally you would have at least an post graduate degree and work in academia. Write a PM for further information. Thanks.

At the time, few people realized that the shots fired on that New York sidewalk, were really the opening salvo in a revolution that changed the course of human history.

The public reaction to the shooting was overwhelmingly supportive of the shooter and anger at the perceived unfairness of how the wealthy and powerful treated the average person began to boil over. And that anger came equally from both the left and right sides of the political spectrum.

A month later, another shooting, this time in California and once again a CEO of an insurance company.  Two weeks after that, two more shootings, a stabbing and a vehicular hit and run, end the lives of four more corporate leaders, this time a petroleum company executive and three bankers.

And then it spread.  All across America and soon around the world.

People with wealth and power were suddenly aware of their vulnerability.  They began to hunker down, cancelled public appearances and limited their travel. But within 6 months we had the first case of a bodyguard, hired to protect one of the elite, turning on his employer and drowning him in his own swimming pool.

It seemed that being wealthy was no longer something to strive for.

And when the first billionaire decided to give away his wealth and turn his mansions over to an anti-poverty organization another trend was started.

It was less than a year after that, that the first national government, channeling US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made the highest marginal tax rate 100%.  Others quickly followed.

And then a remarkable thing happened. All around the world people began to lose their infatuation with endlessly increasing wealth as satisfier of human needs and woke up to the fact that there really was such a thing as material sufficiency. And once their basic physical needs were met, the robust satisfiers of their psychological needs were found in relationships and community and creativity and spiritual exploration and nature.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Hey everyone, I'm currently writing my master's thesis and in one chapter I explain different aspects about degrowth, especially a more just banking and interest system.

One author I quote a lot is Jason Hickel, and in one of his publications he states that

"Over the past decade ecological economists have concluded that a money system based on compound interest is incompatible with sustaining life on a delicately balanced living planet. As for what to do about it, there are several ideas floating around. One group argues that all we need to do is switch from the existing compound interest system, where debt grows exponentially, to a simple interest system, where it grows linearly - adding the same increment each year. Over time this would put a huge dent in total debt levels, bring our money system back in line with ecology, and allow us to shift to a post-growth economy without causing a financial crisis." (Jason Hickel, Less is More)

I don't study economics but find the thought of substituting the current exponential interest system for a linear one quite interesting. Unfortunately I was not able to find any other author who make the same argument. Have you ever heard of doing something alike? Or is this just a stupid thought?

Any thoughts on this?

This mockup imagines an app where people could collectively "remember" and support movements they value, like degrowth. It combines features like community recognition, funding generation, and direct democracy tools for proposing and voting on initiatives.

Could something like this help degrowth ideas gain more visibility or drive collective action? Or would it risk turning meaningful action into empty gestures?

Curious to hear your thoughts!

Hi, I'm a Austrian High School Student (but at the moment in the US) and I have to write and pre-scientific paper for my (Austrian) graduation.

Pretty much everybody complains about this paper but I really look forward to it. I decided on the topic Degrowth, but I want to write more about the social aspect of Degrowth (mentality of consumption, of people are ready for the change, and how our society has to change to make such a significant change) cause I have the feeling there is already a lot about the economic aspect (I mean kinda obvious cause it's a economic topic).

I already read some basics about the topic, but I wanted to ask if you guys have:

1. Literature recommendations

2. I want to do some research on my own with surveys and/or interviews. What topics would be interesting?

3. Or other ways I could do research to make the paper unique

I'm doing this more for me than really the school, cause I just enjoy learning new things and it's a good preparation for my later plans in college etc.

I know there are probably a lot of similar posts on this subreddit, but it would be a lot of help!

One of the aims of the Mseli project is to move power of online influence from individual influencers to collective influence through ensuring communities get more views than individuals.

It plans to achieve this through creating an app which allows communities to have profiles that individuals can go and press an “I remembered community” button.

Hence a community like Degrowth, if most of its fans embrace it, can get 10,000 views a day easily or 300,000 views per month which is mid-tier influencer views.

The views can then be monetized through having an ad when someone opens the profile to remember the community.

Hence with 10,000 views every day, the community can gain advertisement money and members of the community can then propose how the money is used through an online direct democracy.

The members can propose a bill to use the money for hosting educational webinars and workshops, maintaining websites and forums, creating content that promotes sustainable living, translating and publishing de-growth resources, funding research on alternative economic models, supporting small-scale sustainable projects, producing videos or podcasts about de-growth principles, developing interactive tools for community sharing and collaboration etc.

If the bill passes the project is funded using the collective money.

I created a video to visually show how the app will work including the online direct democracy used to manage the collective money. The link to the video is in the comments section.

But for all this to work, people have to first get used to remembering the science fiction community every day and that is why I am running the daily appreciation tradition where I post a poll every day that members of this community can vote to show they remembered the community.

If you believe in this project and that the degrowth movement can have more power and influence you can vote below:

View Poll

a two-part query:

1. from my understanding of degrowth, personal investments are antithetical to degrowth values and the movement, even if they are in sustainable businesses. true? other takes?

2. if this is the case, what do you all think is the most degrowth way to save for the future? savings account? property purchase? directly supporting resilience (and other) efforts in your local community? other ideas?

The Mseli project is a project that aims to normalize appreciation and rememberance.

Currently, we are trying to help communities become more united and connected through the daily rememberance tradition.

The tradition involves voting on a poll on a daily basis that you remembered the degrowth movement so that we can see the true number of people who remember and appreciate the movement everyday.

The primary benefit of this tradition is the strengthening of our community.

Each time you visit the daily remembrance post, you’ll see how many others are participating (say thousands), creating a shared sense of presence and solidarity.

The secondary advantage is that it will provide us with valuable proof to build a dedicated app that amplifies this daily tradition.

The app will feature a status update that users will see before they can show their remembrance.

With thousands of people viewing this daily status, we could sell advertising space on the daily updates to businesses or projects, since they’ll be seen by thousands—if not tens of thousands—of people each day.

The community can then vote, using an online direct democracy of the app, on how to allocate these funds, ensuring that resources are directed toward causes and projects that benefit the degrowth movement.

This will allow us to switch the online influence from individuals influencers to collective communities.

But it all starts with embracing the daily remembrance tradition.

So, remember below:

View Poll

This is something that hasn't been happening enough and I think growthists are now claiming they know what is "universally good" for everyone, then seeing as there is no evidence for it: It is as valid for the religions and philosophies who disagree to step up and present diverse perspectives of morality against this to the public.

Apart from the Protestants being mainly the only ones that agree or who founded this "growth = divine goodness" school of moral thought, why aren't the others doing this enough? Who founded this notion first anyway?

The moment growthists try to dictate "universal good" it should be fine for different religions and philosophies to publicly present alternative views.

Hey everyone,

I am studying Sustainable Energy Systems at the Technical University of Denmark and I am getting closer to writing my master's thesis. Throughout my studies, I've explored various green energy technologies, as well as topics like machine learning and operations research in energy systems.

A lot of what we learn is based on the capitalist economic system we live in, so many of our courses focus on making everything profitable or maximizing profits. Personally, I am a bit idealistic and do not believe that the current capitalist system works. However, I am also aware that many in my field have a more tech-optimistic view. This has made it difficult for me to find a thesis topic that I can be truly passionate about while also aligning with my moral values.

I don’t think technology is inherently bad, but I feel that capitalist corporations often exploit it solely for profit. I believe it’s possible to combine a green and just energy transition if we shift the focus from profit maximization to broader social and environmental goals.

Does anyone here have experience in combining the green energy transition with degrowth or post-capitalist economic theories? I am not an economist, so I am looking for more basic economic ideas. I’d love to hear any suggestions or potential thesis themes, or if you know of anyone working in this field.

So much money is spent on sadistic torture of refugees fleeing pain. Where if spent on helping them would be way more practical.

Why is so much spent on “boarder security”

https://www.anthropocene.info/great-acceleration.html

Notice how each line is crawling since 1750 and shoots up around 1950

Does business feel increasingly soul-sucking, meaningless, stressful, and dehumanizing to you?

We are all these creative, innovative, impact-driven, caring, change-enthusiastic, entrepreneurial minds, but in the current business system…we cannot be ourselves.

Because this way of doing business, this system, incentivizes fitting in, being like everyone else, being manipulative and egoistical, thinking along, playing zero-sum games, holding back change, and exploiting others including the environment around us.

No wonder we feel shit! We’re built for something else! We’re built for a system that fosters creativity, being different, thinking weird, and embracing change!

Here comes the positive news, though: There is a world of business out there that is different! I call it the Business-As-Un-Usual world.

And in this world, people are building a way of doing business that embraces slowness, mindfulness, sufficiency, and care, while cultivating adventurism, resonance, playfulness, meaning, and interdependence. It's a soul-nourishing world that embraces the do-ers, the changemakers and impact-seekers out there!

And yes it really does exist! I'm talking about business concepts like slow productivity, commoning, mutual aid organizations, co-ops, non-coercive marketing, post branding, nature stewardship, endineering, work-life integration, slow living, post growth, chronowork, small is beautiful,....

So, if you're into this, consider checking out this handbook I put together, showcasing a long list of new, joyful narratives and inspiring business models of a Business-As-Un-Usual world.

Looking forward to discussing it in the comments!