The 'Degrowth' Mentality Promises a World of Poverty and Misery

Market-based economies create incentives that unleash human creativity and provide incredible abundance.

Some ideas are so incredibly asinine and destructive that you'll of course find some high-brow academic movement that promotes them. Such is the case with something known as "degrowth"—a burgeoning philosophy arguing that humanity's continuing pursuit of economic betterment is unsustainable and a threat to the planet. Popular among environmentalists, it's a predictable end point for some climate-change warriors.

Per a pro-degrowth website, this idea "critiques the global capitalist system which pursues growth at all costs, causing human exploitation and environmental destruction." It wants to "prioritize social and ecological well-being instead of corporate profits…and excess consumption." Degrowth "requires radical redistribution, reduction in the material size of the global economy, and a shift in common values towards care, solidarity, and autonomy."

It's the latest environmental-oriented take on the same-old left-wing totalitarianism, as it would take immense government power to radically redistribute resources and determine how to re-order society. However this concept would be implemented, it certainly would enslave and impoverish virtually everyone, and lead to famine and misery.

Degrowth is unlikely to become a governing model anytime soon, but it's best to debunk dangerous idiocy as it rears its head. One might argue that progressive policy makers in California are engaged in a kinder, gentler version as they crush the oil and gas industry and try to remake our economy and rejigger land-use patterns to promote a "sustainable" and carbon-free future.

I'm fascinated by the degrowth movement because of its mind-blowing misunderstanding of modern society's unparalleled success in improving the human condition. With full bellies and from the comfort of their climate-controlled homes in Western democracies, degrowth theorists propose turning back the clock on the myriad advancements that have extended and improved our lives. Its mere existence reminds us that every generation is susceptible to utopian nonsense.

"The point is not to end a 'bad' economy and put a 'good' one in its stead, to have 'good' growth or 'good' development by declaring them ecological or social or 'fair trade,' by throwing in some state regulations or some notions of giving and solidarity," writes one of degrowth's best-known modern theorists, French professor Serge Latouche. "The point is to get out of economics."

He envisions an alternate world "somewhat akin to those Stone Age affluent societies that…never had an economy." Well, at least he said the quiet part out loud. The average life expectancy in the Stone Age was 20-25 years. I doubt humans were particularly happy (happiness is a degrowth goal) when life was so nasty, brutish, and short. I actually never thought I'd see the terms "Stone Age" and "affluent" in the same sentence.

There is no "getting out" of economics. Economics simply refers to the way that societies handle the age-old question of production. Latouche claims economics is like religion, but it's more like a science. One cannot simply wish away the forces of gravity or scarcity. There's always more demand for necessary and desired things—food, medical care, housing—than their availability. Degrowthers are the ones who sound like religious mystics.

Market-based economies create incentives that unleash human creativity and provide incredible abundance. Command-and-control economies, whether run by warlords or technocratic planners, result in shortages and poverty. As the world has moved toward a growth-based economy, worldwide poverty has plummeted. Quality of life has improved almost everywhere.

The post-World War II economic boom has seen the world get much richer, Vox explains in a 2021 rebuttal to the degrowthers: "It means cancer treatments and neonatal intensive care units and smallpox vaccines and insulin. It means, in many parts of the world, houses have indoor plumbing and gas heating and electricity. It means that infant mortality is down and life expectancies are longer." It means better-quality foods.

While mainstream environmentalists attempt to mitigate the down sides of growth while keeping the good stuff, an increasingly "vocal slice of climate activists," has abandoned such pragmatism and embraced these radical concepts, Vox adds. A World Economic Forum piece quotes the Vox critique as well as degrowthers who argue their movement isn't about living in caves, but about "people in rich countries changing their diets, living in smaller houses and driving and traveling less."

But degrowthers' own words belie that effort at "sanewashing." Economically growing societies can best deal with environmental problems because they have excess resources to spend on environmental improvement. Growing and free societies spawn new technologies that are effective at reducing emissions. It's no surprise communist nations were the world's biggest polluters.

Those who promote this buncombe do so in the name of helping people in the Global South and creating a more meaningful existence for the rest of us. But poor countries need more growth, not less of it. And it's easier to find meaning in a world where we aren't spending all day scrounging for food and washing our clothes with a rock.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.