The anti-consumerism Degrowth movement is gaining visibility and adherents in Europe. Degrowth (French: décroissance, Spanish: decrecimiento, Italian: decrescita) recognizes that the mindless expansion of mindless consumption fueled by credit and financialization is qualitatively and quantitatively different from positive growth.

Degrowth is based on a number of principles:

1. Consumerism is psychological/spiritual junk food (French: malbouffe) that actively reduces well-being (bien-etre) rather than increases it.

2. Better rather than more: well-being is increased by everything that cannot be commoditized by a market economy or financialized by a cartel-state financial machine– friendship, family, community, self-cultivation– rather than by acquiring more. The goal of economic and social growth should be better, not more. On a national scale, the cancerous-growth measured by gross domestic product (GDP) should be replaced with gross domestic happiness/ gross nation happiness (GNH).

3. A recognition that resources are not infinite, despite claims to the contrary. Even if fossil fuels were infinite and low-cost (cheerleaders never mention costs of extraction and refining or the external costs), fisheries, soil and fresh water are not. For one example of many: China Is Plundering the Planet’s Seas (The Atlantic). Indeed, all the evidence suggests that access to cheap energy only speeds up the depletion and despoliation of every other resource.

4. The unsustainability of consumerist consumption dependent on resource depletion and financialization (i.e. the endless expansion of credit and phantom collateral).

5. The diminishing returns on consumption. Investing in clean air and water, public transit, universally accessible knowledge/information–these forms of consumption yield high returns in public health, affordable mobility, etc. Buying clothing to wear once or twice and then throw away does not.

The investment in the rule of law, public infrastructure and universal access to clean air, water and education moves nations from developing to developed and greatly improves the material lives of the residents. Beyond this, consumption of resources offers diminishing returns up to a point of social/spiritual/ psychological derangement. Consumption beyond this point actively reduces well- being.

6. The failure of neoliberal capitalism and communism alike in their pursuit of growth at any cost.

7. We have reached Peak Consumption (video 27:30 minutes).

The Degrowth movement explicitly questions what John Michael Greer calls the religion of progress (i.e. growth). The civil religion that growth equals progress is akin to the Cargo Cult of Keynesianism, the notion that growth is so essential that expanding debt exponentially to drive diminishing returns of growth is necessary.

But both the religion of growth and its Cargo Cult enablers are merely superficial facades masking the real force: the expansion of global finance via financialization.Expanding capital, profits and power is the key agenda, and the quasi-religion of growth is just the public-relations narrative that mesmerizes the debt-serfs, political toadies and media sycophants.

What does Degrowth mean in practical terms? Use the thing until it cannot be repaired. Don’t ditch the mobile phone, auto, dress or digital device until it can no longer repaired. Buy local rather than than global-corporate whenever feasible. Crave less, need less, want less, resist the brainwashing of 24/7 marketing. Learn to become a person who does not need corporate-status signifiers for a sense of identity.

5 Comments on "Degrowth, Anti-Consumerism And Peak Consumption"

J-Gav on Fri, 10th May 2013 10:01 pm 



Degrowth is definitely where we’re headed but it’ll be accompanied by a lot of kicking and screaming before being generally recognized as inevitable. That will likely delay the ‘transition’ sufficiently to make it considerably more painful than it needs to be.

Supposing humanity comes out of that transition with some sort of social/cultural/economic model still intact and alive, it won’t look like life over the last 50 years, that much is sure.

Plantagenet on Fri, 10th May 2013 11:25 pm 



Degrowth is just a cover-up for the increasing poverty seen today in the EU and in the USA. The de-growth message to people losing their jobs is very simple—you can boil it down to “don’t worry—be happy.”

BillT on Sat, 11th May 2013 2:01 am 



I have a cell phone I bought in Dubai 7 years ago. And it still works fine. The paint has worn off and the battery cover has to be held on with scotch tape, but…it still works fine. It doesn’t dance. sing or show movies, but I can still get anyone in the world, anytime I want, with it. It isn’t pretty or the latest fad, but it still does what I bought it for, calling people. ^_^

The last 50+ years was a party thrown by cheap, plentiful energy. The party is now over. The contraction hangover is all we have to look forward to in our future. Buy quality, not quantity.

Kenz300 on Sat, 11th May 2013 2:02 pm 



Reduce…reuse….recycle……

Don’t be wasteful.

Mike in Calif. on Sun, 12th May 2013 6:18 am 



Accidental humor – love it. So Degrowth is a movement now?

“…Degrowth movement is gaining visibility and adherents…”

This is to say the Degrowth movement is growing.

Actually, I have nothing against “degrowth” in a general sense because is it inevitable. But I do find these clowns laughable. They seem not to realize they’ve grafted a quite modern ideology to their plan. They’re oblivious to fact that the end of consumerism will also end the modern economy. In their Khmer Rouge-like simplicity the economy will not support their preferred areas of consumption – namely public works and services. You can forget public transport, welfare, free education, universal health care, and water, sewage and electrical infrastructure. The Soviet Union provided these things but still consumed, polluted and depleted prodigiously.

Consume here, consume there. Pinch a minute, save a second. What’s the difference? It still ends in exhaustion. There’s no free lunch, no magic bullet and no “sustainability.”

It’s not that I have a solution which is not, like the above, ephemeral and transitional. We’re going to ride this horse until it drops. You can delay the nag’s demise, but you can’t stop it.

And worry deeply about someone who professes to tell US what makes US happy by THEIR yardstick and is willing to engineer it all. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot come to mind.