My wife bought me a dual subscription of the Guardian Weekly and Le Monde Diplomatique in English. I was shocked to find a small acedemic movement forming in France that is for zero growth or de-growth.
Essentially these economists argue that growth is not necessary to maintain our standard of living (and in the west that hasn’t significantly improved for most of us since the '70’s). Also, zero growth or de-growth would slow or maybe reverse our negative environmental impact as socieities.
The best of the two articles I read is here:
but it’s unfortunately for subscribers. Another good article is here:
I’ve just read the second article, I wasn’t that shocked. It just depends on the way you define “growth”. You can look at it from an artificial (=economic) point of view or you can define it as quality of life. I don’t agree with the author that employment is an undeniable advantage of expansion. These days people work that much that they don’t have the time to enjoy their possessions. (it also causes unemployment by the way) Balancing is the key. But as long as people aren’t aware of it… According to me it will also create some opportunities for the south after what happened during colonization.