<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<p>In the face of climate change and other ecological problems, the degrowth and post-growth approaches are gaining more and more supporters. However, these growth-critical approaches have many problems. While the critique of growth is justified in many areas, the contraction or stagnation of production is associated with negative social and political consequences, as it would most likely lead to massive distributional conflicts. Moreover, a shrinking or stagnating GDP could make the necessary decarbonisation of the economy more difficult, because the investment required for decarbonisation would be much harder to implement in such an economy than in a growing economy.</p>
</abstract>

In the face of climate change and other ecological problems, the degrowth and post-growth approaches are gaining more and more supporters. However, these growth-critical approaches have many problems. While the critique of growth is justified in many areas, the contraction or stagnation of production is associated with negative social and political consequences, as it would most likely lead to massive distributional conflicts. Moreover, a shrinking or stagnating GDP could make the necessary decarbonisation of the economy more difficult, because the investment required for decarbonisation would be much harder to implement in such an economy than in a growing economy.

No Growth is No Solution Either. A Critique of Degrowth and Post-Growth Approaches

Wirtschaftsdienst

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kein Wachstum ist auch keine Lösung: Eine Kritik an Degrowth- und Postwachstumsansätzen

In the face of climate change and other ecological problems, the degrowth and post-growth approaches are gaining more and more supporters. However, these...

No Growth is No Solution Either. A Critique of Degrowth and Post-Growth Approaches

Published Online: Aug 28, 2023

Page range: 564 - 569

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/wd-2023-0157

© 2023 Fabian Lindner et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.