The degrowth configuration

Yesterday, I got a text message from my mobile network operator. The message contained a link to an article titled “The minimalist’s guide” and detailed the steps we could — and should — all take to live neater, more modest lives by getting rid of things such as old clothes and electronics, donating books we won’t read again, and, apparently, deleting old emails to save on cloud space (and emissions).

I was really excited when I got that message. Finally, the degrowth brigade has reached little old me, I said to myself. Finally, I’m in the game instead of just hearing about people getting suggestions from their banks on how to reduce their emissions. I was seen. I mattered for the transition.

Obviously, I immediately jumped at the opportunity to clear my kitchen drawers of things I haven’t touched in years and throw out all the shoes I haven’t worn in more than a month. I also tried to guilt my husband into donating a rag he calls a T-shirt he wears for work in the garden to an animal shelter, to serve as bedding. Only I did none of this, really.

What I did was sit down and think about the degrowth movement because I think much better sitting down. After a certain time spent thinking I am now convinced it is even more profoundly stupid than green hydrogen.

Let’s see now. The idea of degrowth is that countries don’t really need to have growing economies and we can all just live happily without consuming so much of everything. In fact, it is strongly advisable we consume a lot less of everything, from food and energy to luxuries such as holiday travel. And shoes.

The degrowth movement essentially seems to argue that economic growth is basically overrated and out of date, so let’s try the opposite. It has, after all, never been tried before. Well, not deliberately, that is.

Okay, then. Let’s say most people do start buying less food, use less electricity, darn their clothes, and stop travelling for their holidays, spending the time at home, organising kitchen cupboards.

Let’s imagine that we all listen to dietary recommendations to reduce our meat intake to 300 grams per week or something and embrace a plant- and insect protein-rich diet — but sparingly, of course. Well, that would mean that a number of companies would be making a lot less money. And it will all spiral from there.

Farmers would be getting less money for their produce because everyone’s buying less fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy. Many will go out of business since they are already barely making ends meet as it is. Emissions from farming will go down. Yay.

Supermarkets, who are the main reason farmers are barely making ends meet now, would also be getting lower profits because of lower turnovers. They will raise prices, making a lot more people poorer. Maybe some of them will go out of business, too. That would definitely be good for emissions control, so yay again.

Consumer goods producers would go the way of supermarkets as we all start using fewer of these goods and use the ones we already have for longer. Prices will rise there, too, shrinking demand. A third yay for emissions — the fewer fridges and laundry detergents are produced, the lower the emissions footprint of these, and other, industries. Another yay for degrowth.

Moving on, let’s take a look at tourism. If everyone stays home organising kitchen cupboards and darning socks, the tourism industry that constitutes a solid portion of several European countries’ GDP and nearly all the GDP of many other nations, will gradually disappear. Remember what happened during the first wave of lockdowns? It was carnage and degrowth will also be carnage, but in slow motion.

So, retail’s going to shrink, tourism will all but disappear, and whatever farming remains will become all-organic because with much lower consumption, lower yields could be justified. Farming produce may become a luxury to be savoured on special occasions with most of us growing their own food as much as we can.

Then come all the industries that feed retail, consumer products, and travel. Naturally, the pain will spread to them — and so will the layoffs. Because as companies lose consumer demand, they will start laying people off.

I spy with my little eye a lot of unemployed people in the degrowth configuration and they won’t all be able to become solar panel installers or wind turbine maintenance workers.

Here’s where the idea of universal basic income will probably come in. Unemployed, hungry people are dangerous, so unless you can give them jobs, you’ll have to provide them with some form of financial support. A lot of migrants are making a living on that support already in Europe and, I hear, the U.S. and Canada, too.

There is only one little problem with that. Governments would need money to establish a universal basic income system. The money, on which governments run, comes from taxes. The taxes come from industries and working individuals. And when you’ve decimated all your industries in the name of degrowth and emission reduction, your tax revenues would be decimated, too.

The only solution to that problem would be a hike in taxes for those still working. Adding a carbon tax also sounds right and proper in the context of degrowth. The hikes would encourage lower consumption still, meaning lower GDP, emission reductions, and that universal basic income for all the newly redundant members of the former workforce. Tragically, here we might encounter another little problem.

With lower GDP growth and lower consumption of everything, a lot of people may choose the non-reproductive path, which would result in a shrinkage of the working, tax-paying population in future generations.

From a climate-centric perspective this is good news — the fewer people there are, the lower the species’ emissions footprint, which is a good thing and yay, and all that. From a more practical perspective, fewer people mean even lower tax revenues for governments, meaning less money for that universal basic income, among other less important things such as education and healthcare.

Education we could pretty much dispense with beyond, say, grade four because who needs educated people who won’t have a job? In fact, we might have to dispense with education altogether and let parents teach their children any basic skills they see fit because there won’t be money to fund schools. Except private ones, for the increasingly tiny minority of people who can afford both having children and educating these children. Like meat and travel, education may well become a luxury.

But perhaps this is too grim a view of the degrowth movement. Perhaps those campaigning for it want us all to consume just a little less of everything. Perhaps they only want us all to make a few small and insignificant sacrifices such as the all-time favourite shorter and colder showers, and eating less meat.

Perhaps. But even if we start will a little less, we would inevitably spiral into a lot less. Any drop in consumption prompts a reaction from suppliers and that reaction traditionally features price hikes and layoffs, prompted by the lower profits. And lower profits inevitably result in lower tax revenues.

Those lower tax revenues would then inevitably lead to lower government spending on things like education, healthcare, and infrastructure, which would affect living standards — and life spans — likely leading to a further shrinkage in consumption, and what a lovely vicious circle this would be. It won’t end with riots at all. And this is the less brutal scenario.

The more brutal scenario would be one in which the cause and effect are reversed and degrowth starts with business death because of exorbitant energy costs. Business death means supply death, so whatever demand there is, it cannot be satisfied because there’s no one to satisfy it. As the farmers’ protest movement summarised it, “No farmers, no food”. Ditto for every other industry that produces goods and provides services.

A little less consumption, a little less luxury sounds manageable. That’s what the degrowth campaigners are banking on. The problem, which those campaigners probably don’t realise, too busy campaigning, is that it will never stop with a little less. Just like an economy can never run in place.

If you deliberately curb consumption of everything or push an economy backwards into degrowth, it will slide backwards faster and faster until collapsing. And this is exactly what degrowth would bring about if pursued as aggressively as it is right now. Because it is being pursued with absolutely no thought spared for the multiple unintended consequences this pursuit will inevitably have.