New Master’s in Degrowth

The activist-academic collective Research & Degrowth has announced a new master's in Political Ecology, with a specialization in Degrowth and Environmental Justice.

Defending degrowth at ecomodernism’s home

by Sam Bliss In June, I was invited to speak at the eight annual Breakthrough Dialogue, an annual invite-only conference where accomplished thinkers debate how to achieve prosperity for humans and nature. The Breakthrough Institute, an ecomodernist think-tank, welcomed my presence as a provocateur. I was to participate in a panel called “Decoupling vs. Degrowth”. My …

Radicalizing the Ecological Transition. Reflections on “Lavoro Natura Valore: André Gorz tra marxismo e decrescita” by Emanuele Leonardi

by Alice Dal Gobbo Emanuele Leonardi's book is an analytically incisive and politically rich contribution towards a radical critique of capitalism. In between a slow and tentative exit from the 2008 financial crisis and the increasingly manifest impacts of climate change, we might locate our present at the crossroad of a number of crises: economic, …

Think Big Socialism and the spectre of degrowth: From one materialism to another (part II)

The Earth Wind and Fire issue of Jacobin is an environmentalism from the standpoint of the Progressive State. Economic growth is given and natural, it happens, social forces can slow it down or it can be accelerated. Nature on the other hand, bereft of value bearing physis, is a curious mix of a sum of …

Tourism and Degrowth: Impossibility Theorem or Path to Post-Capitalism?

by Robert Fletcher, Asunción Blanco-Romero, Macià Blázquez-Salom and Ivan Murray "Touristification" of cities is increasingly met by discontent of local communities deprived of their places: overtourism is a real issue and we must face the challenge of rethinking and remaking one of the world's biggest industries. The time has come to start talking seriously about how to bring …

Reframing the Left Eco-Modernism vs. Orthodox Eco-Socialism Debate, or: Assessing the Transformation of the Value-Nature Nexus

by Emanuele Leonardi Do we really need to choose either infinite (if alternative) growth or a steady-state economy? What if we may opt for shrinking entropic/industrial sectors and allowing for negentropic labor to freely flourish? Editors’ note: This is the third in a series of ENTITLE blog articles that critically engage with the ongoing discussions …

Planting the seeds of degrowth in times of crisis – Examples from Greece – Part II

By Marula Tsagkari * In the second of a two-part series, Marula Tsagkari explores how today, we are participants in a complex and severe crisis, and a radical crisis requires radical solutions. Through a number of examples it became obvious that in Greece there is groundwork for a transition to sustainable degrowth. There are seeds …

Planting the seeds of degrowth in times of crisis – Examples from Greece – Part I

By Marula Tsagkari * At the same time that the degrowth movement was gaining ground in the public discourse, Greece, was living the most severe economic recession since the Second World War. In the Chinese language the word crisis is represented by two symbols. The first means danger and, the second, opportunity. We must look for …

Punk, not cool. Assessing the degrowth debate

By Emanuele Leonardi * Leonardi reviews Giorgos Kallis’ new book “In defense of degrowth”, a volume that provides activists and academics alike with a detailed map of the degrowth discourse, with its theoretical controversies and opportunities for political alliances to come. What struck me first and foremost in the process of reading In defense of degrowth …

Going for “the simpler way”

By Ted Trainer* In his contribution to the series Ecology after capitalism, Ted Trainer argues that ecosocialism is not the answer and calls for the left and degrowthers to embrace all the radical implications of the "limits to growth" analysis. This implies following "the simpler way", his own proposal for achieving a post-capitalist society based …