Deep transformations
Series editors: Andreas Bieler (School of Politics and International
Relations, University of Nottingham), Gareth Bryant (Department of
Political Economy at the University of Sydney), Mònica Clua-Losada
(Department of Political Science, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley),
Adam David Morton (Department of Political Economy, University of
Sydney), and Angela Wigger (Department of Political Science, Radboud
University, The Netherlands).
Since its launch in 2014, the blog Progress in Political Economy (PPE) –
available at www.ppesydney.net/ –has become a central forum for the
dissemination and debate of political economy research published in book
and journal article forms with crossover appeal to academic, activist and
public policy related audiences.
Now the Progress in Political Economy book series with Manchester
University Press provides a new space for innovative and radical thinking
in political economy, covering interdisciplinary scholarship from the
perspectives of critical political economy, historical materialism, feminism,
political ecology, critical geography, heterodox economics, decolonialism
and racial capitalism.
The PPE book series combines the reputations and reach of the PPE blog
and MUP as a publisher to launch critical political economy research and
debates. We welcome manuscripts that realise the very best new research
from established scholars and early-career scholars alike.
Previously published titles
Keynes and Marx Bill Dunn
Imperialism and the development myth: How rich countries dominate in
the twenty-first century Sam King
Water struggles as resistance to neoliberal capitalism: A time of reproductive
unrest Madelaine Moore
Capitalism in contemporary Iran: Capital accumulation, state formation
and geopolitics Kayhan Valadbaygi
Deep transformations
A theory of degrowth
Hubert Buch-Hansen, Max Koch
and Iana Nesterova
Manchester University Press
Copyright © Hubert Buch-Hansen, Max Koch and Iana
Nesterova 2024
The right of Hubert Buch-Hansen, Max Koch and Iana
Nesterova to be identified as the authors of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
An electronic version is also available under a Creative
Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence, thanks to the support
of Lund University, which permits non-commercial use,
distribution and reproduction provided the author(s)
and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no
modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence
can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/.
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN 978 1 5261 7326 3 hardback
ISBN 978 1 5261 7785 8 paperback
First published 2024
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet
websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate
or appropriate.
Typeset by Newgen Publishing UK
To Krista
Contents
List of tables
page viii
Introduction: leaving the path towards eco-social collapse
1 Capitalism, the growth imperative and (human) nature
2 Institutional forms and diversity: from capitalism to degrowth
3 Theorising deep transformations
4 Civil society in degrowth transformations
5 The state in degrowth transformations
6 Business in degrowth transformations
7 Degrowth transformations –an empirical study
Conclusion: the four planes of degrowth
1
14
30
50
62
76
91
106
123
References
Index
137
156
newgenprepdf
Tables
1 Degrowth business practices and the four planes
of social being
2 Support for eco-social policy proposals in Sweden
3 Degrowth transformational potentials of habitus
groups along the planes of social being
4 Negative needs satisfiers by sites of degrowth
transformations
5 Positive needs satisfiers by sites of degrowth
transformations
6 Less and more on four planes
page 99
108
116
119
120
126
Introduction: leaving the path towards
eco-social collapse
Contemporary societies face several deep and intertwined crises. The level of
economic inequality has reached staggering heights. While a small elite has
accumulated wealth on an unprecedented scale, many people lack the means
to satisfy even their basic human needs. Economic and financial downturns
only further these inequalities and divides. At the same time, democratic
institutions are increasingly being undermined. Social scientists now contemplate how democracy will end (Runciman 2018), they speak of the rise
of authoritarian forms of neoliberalism (Bruff 2014; Wigger 2019), and suggest that even in countries where democracy used to be strongly established,
we find ourselves on the path towards post-democracy (Crouch 2016).
On top of social, health and political crises come the catastrophic ecological and biodiversity crises (Ceballos et al. 2015). A number of planetary
boundaries, including climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-
system change and biogeochemical cycles, are being transgressed (Steffen
et al. 2015). Overall, then, contemporary societies exist within a complex
constellation of deeply interrelated and mutually intensifying crises spanning multiple dimensions of being. An outcome of these crises is that the
preconditions for human beings and other species to thrive –and indeed
live –are rapidly being undermined.
The root cause of the crises, whether directly or indirectly, is the capitalist organisation of societies and the capitalist growth imperative central to
this organisation (Foster et al. 2010). Capitalism is a system of human
organisation which orientates all human activities and pursuits towards valorisation of capital (Gorz 2012). The engine of capitalism is the process of
capital accumulation, that is, the microeconomic activity of reinvestment
of past profits motivated by the desire to make more profits. This process
translates into economic growth, upon which capitalism is structurally reliant for its functioning. The accumulate-or-die logic defining capitalism as
an economic system creates a constant pressure to expand market relations
into new domains and to intensify such relations where they already exist.
2
Deep transformations
The result is both the geographical spread of the capital relation, which
has reached its culmination in globalised capitalism, and the ever-deeper
exploitation of human beings and nature. Even spiritual traditions and
practices such as mindfulness and meditation are not immune to commercialisation and utilisation for the purpose of increased labour productivity
(Purser 2019).
Seen in a historical perspective, the climate and biodiversity crises are
inevitable outcomes of the functioning of capitalism. The global economy’s
long-term exponential growth has resulted in an economy that is far too
large relative to the biosphere and thus grossly unsustainable (Koch 2012).
While capitalism is pervaded by several contradictions (Harvey 2014),
today the main contradiction in the capital relation is that between capital
and nature (Jessop and Morgan 2022). Latouche (2009: 2) observes that
we find ourselves in ‘a performance car that has no driver, no reverse gear
and no brakes and it is going to slam into the limitations of the planet’. One
would perhaps think that this situation would prompt large electoral majorities, policymakers, economists, investors, business associations and labour
unions to seriously take stock of the situation and consider whether the time
has come to replace the ‘car’ (capitalism) with an altogether different model.
Yet, while awareness of the looming ecological collapse has increased in
recent times, the pro-growth discourse remains hegemonic. According to
the currently prevailing perception, the only viable way forward is to pursue so-called green growth, that is, continued economic growth combined
with protection of ‘environmental services’. Underlying this notion is a
fundamental optimism as to what technologies and capitalist markets can
accomplish. New innovations coupled with various forms of market-based
solutions are expected to lead to greener production, greener jobs, greener
consumption and greener growth, all of which will reduce inequalities and
environmental impacts –not least CO2 emissions.1
Appealing as this vision may seem, the available evidence does not suggest that it is in fact possible, in the available time and on a global scale, to
combine economic growth with rapidly declining CO2 emissions (Haberl
et al. 2020; Jackson 2016). The developments thus far certainly give no
reason for optimism: for all the green innovations that have appeared and
despite political pledges to halt emissions, CO2 levels in the atmosphere
have continued to break new records (Buller 2022). Little suggests that
this is about to change in any fundamental way, let alone in good time: in
2018, an IPCC report suggested that we had 12 years to initiate far-reaching
change (IPCC 2018). With no profound shift having occurred, this ‘window of opportunity’ has narrowed to seven years. The main achievement
of the green growth idea has been to greenwash, and thus contribute to the
reproduction of, the capitalist economy and mode of living. All the while
3
Introduction
3
capitalism is being ‘green-growth washed’ by the powers that be at the level
of discourse; business as, by and large, usual continues at the level of material reality.
The great paradox of our times is this: on one hand it is increasingly
unlikely that capitalism can survive the multiple crises confronting it
(Streeck 2016). One aspect of this is that, in its destruction and degradation
of nature, it is ultimately endangering its own continued existence because
it is but a subsystem of nature.2 On the other hand, while the level of awareness of the climate and biodiversity crises is now relatively high (Brand and
Wissen 2013), capitalist ideology is so prevalent that most people continue
to find it impossible to conceive of a world without capitalism and exponential economic growth, let alone imagine that another economic system could
work better. And those who can imagine a different system, one in which
capital is not akin to a deity and humans are not reduced to mere consumers, may struggle to envision how such a system could come into being.
In this situation, critical scholarship has crucial roles to play. These roles
include, for instance, showing how there’s nothing natural or inevitable
about current socio-economic arrangements, developing visions of different
socio-economic orders and theorising how they may materialise.
The present book concerns one important vision of a different type of society, a vision that involves leaving the path towards eco-social collapse that
humanity is currently heading down. This vision, which goes by the name
of degrowth, has gained considerable momentum among scholars, activists and practitioners in recent times. Degrowth entails societies in which
much is different –including, for example, work, production, consumption,
housing, prevailing values, gender roles, the distribution of resources and
decision-making processes (Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2023). A mushrooming literature revolves around the degrowth vision and countless policies and other initiatives that can move current societies in the direction of
degrowth are being discussed in recent years. This literature often paints a
picture of a better future, where human needs are satisfied, where community replaces commerce (Klitgaard 2013), where humans participate in creative, meaningful and fulfilling activities (Trainer 2012) and where nature
and non-humans thrive. While such a future appears highly attractive compared to what we are currently heading towards, the question remains: how
do we get there? Various ideas exist, but degrowth transformations have yet
to be theorised in a manner taking into account the complexity and depth
of reality.
The present book contributes to filling this gap. It develops a theory
of deep transformations for degrowth via a combination of insights from
political economy, feminism, human geography, anarchism and sociology, among other perspectives, and grounds this emerging theory in the
4
Deep transformations
ontology of critical realist philosophy. From a critical realist perspective,
the purpose of theory is to bring to the surface constellations of mechanisms
which cause, or have a potential to cause, specific outcomes and phenomena. An interdisciplinary and holistic theorisation is required due to the
enormous diversity and complexity that characterises modern societies and
that would therefore also characterise degrowth transformations. The theory thus considers the multiple and overlapping planes, scales and sites on
which degrowth transformations would need to unfold. The planes include
humanity’s transactions with nature, social interactions, social structures
and peoples’ inner being (Bhaskar 2016). The scales include the local, the
national and the transnational levels on which political struggles alongside
other processes would take place. The sites include civil society, business
and the state.
Before expanding on the content of the book, the next two sections
unfold the notion of degrowth and introduce the critical realist ontology
underpinning the theory.
What is degrowth?
The ideas explored by degrowth scholars have long intellectual heritages and
stories. For instance, calls for simpler and more harmonious living, deviation from consumerism and seeing non-humans as neighbours can readily
be found in the nineteenth century (see e.g., Thoreau 2016). Likewise, the
need to live harmoniously in and with nature was highlighted (Emerson
2009a, 2009b) and the ‘hunger for wealth, which reduces the planet to a
garden’ was noticed in the same century (Emerson 2009b: 161). Going even
further back in history, in ancient China the obligation of the government
to ensure that human needs are met and for the people to develop human
qualities such as benevolence and moral agency were outlined (Mote 1989).
The end of economic growth was an issue considered by several of the
classical political economists. Among these, John Stuart Mill stood out by
believing that the emergence of a non-growing economy could be ‘a very
considerable improvement on our present condition’ and that ‘there would
be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and
social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much
more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed
by the art of getting on’ (Mill 1848: book IV, chapter VI).
The notion of degrowth (décroissance) is more recent. It was coined by
French political ecologist André Gorz in the early 1970s. In a later work
he observes that ‘today a lack of realism no longer consists in advocating
greater well-being through the inversion of growth and the subversion of the
5
Introduction
5
prevailing way of life. Lack of realism consists in imagining that economic
growth can still bring about increased human welfare, and indeed that it is
still physically possible’ (Gorz 1980: 14). From the outset, then, degrowth
formed part of a critique, an opposition, a discourse of deviation from the
pursuit of economic growth and hence from the destruction of life on earth.
It opposed capitalism with its growth imperative, its ever-increasing production and consumption, its overuse of material and energy resources, its
exploitation of human and non-human life and beings, its commercialisation of almost everything. Having laid dormant for many years, the concept
of degrowth was revived in the new millennium. This happened in France
where Serge Latouche emerged as a leading proponent of degrowth and
where the first international degrowth conference took place in 2008. Over
the past decade or so, degrowth has become a concept around which both
the works of a fast-growing number of researchers and the activities of an
international social movement have come to revolve.
The concept of degrowth does not have a single definition or meaning
that all advocates of it equally accept. However, there is broad consensus
that the energy and matter throughput of the rich countries is to decrease
significantly, and that this shrinking process would need to be organised
democratically and without undermining critical levels of wellbeing. One
matter that deserves to be highlighted is that degrowth, despite its (perhaps
unfortunate) name, is not opposed to growth per se (Buch-Hansen and
Nesterova 2023). Degrowth is consistent with certain forms of non-material
growth. These include growth in everything that can be associated with the
goodness of human nature, such as care, solidarity, mutual aid, empathy,
creativity and imagination, cooperation, connectedness, consciousness and
attention, concern for others, and benevolence. Some forms of material
growth also resonate with degrowth, the reason being that degrowth targets
aggregate growth. For instance, selective growth in desirable industries (such
as in renewable energy provision, organic agriculture and permaculture) is
necessary. So are improvements in material conditions, material consumption and access to infrastructure for those whose genuine needs are not met.
Such needs include basic needs as well as needs for education, self-realisation
and even spirituality. Yet another type of growth that does not go against
degrowth is growth in alternatives and in the diversity of forms of production.
This is something diverse economies scholars have researched and described
extensively throughout recent decades (e.g., Gibson-Graham 2006; Gibson-
Graham and Dombroski 2020). The diverse economies approach identifies
a wide variety of non-capitalist options which currently exist in, and even
sustain, capitalist societies, and which can become essential parts of the
landscape of degrowth societies. In terms of the forms of production, for
instance, they may include cooperatives, artisanal production and foraging.
6
Deep transformations
Further to these reflections, degrowth can be seen to imply a reduction
in humanity’s use of the material and energy resources wherever it can be
done, growth in their use where necessary, growth in diversity and growth
in human qualities in pursuit of harmonious coexistence. Naturally, when
such equal access to resources (material and immaterial) and satisfaction of
needs are pursued and when growth in the non-material is encouraged, it
precludes capitalistic strivings. By definition, then, degrowth cannot be capitalist. Apart from being anti-capitalist in seeking to transform all capitalist
forms of social being and human organisation, degrowth is also a process
which does not define itself purely in terms of being against, but also in
terms of continuously and adventurously being for. Throughout the book
we emphasise this processual and fundamentally hopeful and positive character of degrowth. Finally, we perceive degrowth as a phenomenon that,
far from merely involving less and different consumption and production,
involves deep change on all planes of social being. We return to this matter
in the next section when we outline the ontology underpinning the theory of
degrowth transformations.
As noted above, a growing field of research revolves around the concept of degrowth. Initially, the main scientific base of this field was political ecology and especially ecological economics. In contrast to mainstream
neoclassical economics, ecological economics regards the economy to be a
subsystem of society, which in turn is a subsystem of nature (Spangenberg
2016). As a result, there are natural limits as to how big the economy can
grow. To ecological economists, economic growth denotes ‘an increase in
the physical scale of matter/energy throughput that sustains the economic
activities of production and consumption of commodities’ (Daly 1996: 31).
Considering that throughput has grown far too big relative to the capacity of the biosphere, they argue that it is necessary to drastically reduce
throughput in the rich countries. While it is the expectation that doing so
will mean a reduction of GDP (the standard measure of economic activity),
the goal is not a GDP reduction (Kallis 2018).
These insights of ecological economics are widely embraced by degrowth
scholars. Yet with the growth of the degrowth research field, its scientific
base has broadened considerably. Sociologists (e.g., Koch 2022a), political
economists (e.g., Buch-Hansen 2014; Chertkovskaya et al. 2019), geographers (see e.g., Schmid 2018) and scholars from many other disciplines now
work with the concept of degrowth, resulting in a highly diverse and interdisciplinary body of scholarship. Degrowth has been put in conversations
with a wide range of perspectives, including, for instance, feminism (Dengler
and Seebacher 2019), historical materialism (Leonardi 2019), diverse economies thinking (Schmid 2020), existentialism (Nesterova 2021a) and critical realism (Bhaskar et al. 2012; Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2021, 2023;
7
Introduction
7
see also Morgan 2021 and Schoppek 2020). Moreover, degrowth thinking
has been applied to and related with multiple phenomena, such as business and organisation (Hankammer et al. 2021; Nesterova 2020a, 2021a;
Schmid 2018, 2020), housing (Mete and Xue 2021), social policy (Koch
2022b), urban planning (Xue 2021) and technology (Heikkurinen 2018).3
A social movement calling for degrowth emerged in the context of the
first international degrowth conferences. The conferences, which continue
to take place regularly, bring together activists, artists and academics –and
conference contributions span both conventional presentations of research
and various forms of activism. More generally, a wide variety of movements can be seen as degrowth compatible (Burkhart et al. 2020). Implicitly
degrowth-
compatible movements such as voluntary simplicity, the tiny
house movement and the zero-waste movement have many commonalities
with degrowth, but do not identify themselves as degrowth, though some of
the people within those movements might do or generally share degrowth
sentiments, arguments and pursuits.
Degrowth can also be regarded as a diverse political project. It is diverse
because despite sharing the critique of capitalism and having a desire to
achieve harmonious coexistence, views as regards the means by which such
coexistence can be achieved differ. Some perceive degrowth to be an eco-
socialist project (Swift 2014). Others advocate anarchism (Trainer 2014)
and call for change in individuals’ values and worldviews first and foremost (Nesterova 2021a, 2021b). Still others do not propose a single political ideology but rather highlight the variety of political systems, and hence
propose a variety of pathways through which degrowth can be achieved in
practice, which include both top-down and bottom-up strategies or a combination of eco-socialist and anarchist means.
The journey(s) of degrowth as a field of research, a social movement and
a political project is ongoing. It is motivated by a shared desire for a better
future, for a lasting, harmonious, peaceful co-existence between humanity
and nature, between humans and non-humans, and within humanity, which
includes one’s own self (Bonnedahl and Heikkurinen 2019; Nesterova
2021a). In the field of research, the collection of knowledge is deepening
and becoming broader. Yet degrowth scholarship also remains a collection
of often dispersed and contradictory knowledge and it still lacks a solid
foundation in the social sciences. Deepening of degrowth knowledge is done
from a variety of philosophical standpoints (whether explicit or implicit),
which, while not being bad in itself, often makes degrowth knowledge(s)
incompatible. The breadth of degrowth knowledge makes it increasingly
challenging to know what degrowth is and what it is not. Without a solid
foundation in the social sciences, degrowth risks going down the path of
remaining a mostly academic social movement rather than becoming at
8
Deep transformations
once an established and influential academic paradigm, a successful and
attractive political project and, of course, an inclusive and effective social
movement. For the social scientific foundations to be solid, philosophical
underpinnings need to be explicated.
The planes of social being
Any social scientific theory incorporates a set of ontological assumptions, that
is, assumptions about the general nature of social being. The social ontology
accompanying a theory regulates the type of explanations we can provide
when applying it. For example, a structuralist ontology precludes agency-
oriented explanations. It is thus crucially important that a theory aspiring to
provide a holistic perspective on degrowth transformations is underpinned
by a comprehensive and anti-reductionist ontology, that is, an ontology that
recognises social being in its entirety, including its relation to nature, and
which reduces no aspect of social reality (say, the activities of agents) to
a by-product of another (say, culture). We contend that the critical realist
perspective in the philosophy of science, and specifically Roy Bhaskar’s four
planes of social being model (Bhaskar 1986, 1993, 2016), offers precisely
such an ontology. Indeed, Bhaskar’s philosophy of science perspective is distinct in that it starts out from deep ontological reflections based on which
it subsequently develops its perspective on the form and purpose of (social)
scientific knowledge. The reason why this specific sequence is advocated is
that it makes little sense to take a position on what forms knowledge should
take without having first reflected on the overall nature of the reality that
this knowledge concerns (Bhaskar 2008). In what follows, we briefly outline
the ontology underpinning our theory of degrowth transformations (for a
general introduction to critical realism, see Buch-Hansen and Nielsen 2020).
Critical realist ontology covers both physical and social realities, considering them to be deep and layered. In the present context, we focus on social
ontology as we consider it particularly relevant in relation to degrowth.
After all, transformations need to happen in social reality, whereas nature
needs to become subject to transformation as little as possible. The conceptualisation of the relationship between structure and agency is of crucial importance to the analysis of social change and stability. It has thus
attracted attention ever since the beginning of the social sciences and is also
at the heart of critical realist social ontology (Bhaskar 1998; Archer 1995).
Reductionist approaches that privilege structure over agency or vice versa
have traditionally prevailed. Yet several social theorists, including, for example, Marx, Giddens and Bourdieu, occupy various types of middle positions
in the social structures/individual actions continuum (Koch 2020a).
9
Introduction
9
Critical realism also advocates a specific type of middle position, according to which the social structures confronting human beings are never made
in the present by those same human beings, but are the outcome of human
activities undertaken in the past. In the words of Bhaskar (1998: 45–46),
‘people do not create society. For it always pre-exists them and is a necessary condition for their activity. Rather, society must be regarded as an
ensemble of structures, practices and conventions which individuals reproduce or transform, but which would not exist unless they did so’. The social
structures of today face us as an objective reality and they are not going
to disappear so that new structures can be created. The implication for a
theoretically informed analysis of degrowth transformations is that it needs
to start out from currently existing structures. Not only do these structures
condition agency, future degrowth societies would also evolve from them.
Burkhart et al. (2020: 18) note that degrowth movements generally
‘share a holistic image of human beings, which they express either explicitly
or implicitly. People are not seen as rational utility maximisers à la homo
oeconomicus, but rather as social and emotional beings living in relationships with and depending on each other.’ This view of human beings is consistent with the ontology of critical realism. The latter emphasises that while
agency is conditioned by structure, it is never determined by it. Although
they are ontologically dependent, social structures and people are fundamentally different from each other (Bhaskar 1998: 42). Like structures,
people are different. But unlike structures, people have identities, emotions,
intentions and reasons. Unlike structures, people can be reflexive, creative,
loving, aggressive and impatient. And unlike structures, people have the
capacity to exercise agency, understood as intentional causality (Bhaskar
1998). These are important insights in relation to degrowth transformations
as they suggest that human beings –through concerted actions –are able
to change currently existing social structures. A key task of the theoretical
perspective to be outlined in this book is to fill this and other ontological
statements with sociological content to render more concrete the nature of,
and pathways to, change. For example, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, we
propose that some groups are more likely to be in favour of degrowth than
are others.
Whereas Bhaskar’s initial thinking on social ontology to a large extent
centred on the agency–structure relationship, subsequently he expanded it
and proposed that social being –that is, any social phenomenon, event or
person –exists (is and is in becoming) simultaneously on four social planes
(Bhaskar 1986: 128–130, 2016: 53). The planes are interconnected and
include (a) material transactions with nature, (b) social interactions between
people/inter-subjectivities, (c) social structure and (d) the inner being of individuals. Viewing social being as existing and unfolding on the four planes at
10
Deep transformations
once is valuable for degrowth because it provides a holistic and, by definition, anti-reductionist perspective. It precludes simple answers and unsustainable or unrealistic solutions. Degrowth transformations will concern all
planes of social being. Transactions with nature (a) need to be improved via
a (selective and equitable) reduction in matter and energy throughout. Social
interactions between people (b) need to become more humane (involving
for instance caring, empathy, solidarity, kindness, generosity and tolerance
of diversity) as opposed to taking capitalist forms (exploitation, competition). Social structures (c) need to undergo a significant transformation, for
instance involving redistribution of resources to massively reduce economic
inequality. Human selves (d) are where unprecedented growth needs to happen. After all, transformation arises from human agents: ‘agency provides
the effective causes for what happens in society –only human beings can act’
(Danermark et al. 2002: 12).
Human agents are cultural beings (Tuan 2001). Culture is often defined
in opposition to nature (Benton 2001). In the words of Benton (2001: 137),
such ‘opposition renders literally unthinkable the complex processes of
interaction, interpenetration and mutual constitution which link together
the items which are misleadingly dissociated from one another and allocated
abstractly to one side or other of the Nature/Culture great divide’. In the
course of degrowth transformation(s), one task is to overcome this opposition which permeates all four planes of social beings. Currently, nature is
seen as a collection of resources (plane a), social interactions and structures
(planes b and c) are seen as separate from nature or human-made, while
the embodiment of personality is viewed through the lens of mind–body
(Cartesian) dualism. Degrowth should aim to transcend such dualism by
recognising our ultimate dependence on nature and a deep interconnection
with it. Even as individual humans we are not only em-bodied, but also em-
placed, and the nature of the place co-creates our subjectivity (Næss 2016).
Such em-placement refers not only to a person’s immediate location, but
also to the cosmos at large (Tuan 2013), that is, nature includes existence
far beyond the nature in one’s region or even the earth.
As Bhaskar pointed out, one immediate virtue of the four-planar model ‘is
that it pinpoints the ecological dimension of social being that social theorists
have been prone to ignore’ (2016: 83). Displacing human beings from the
central position in ontology and incorporating the human being as well as
humanity as a whole into nature indicates transcending anthropocentrism.
Critical realism taken seriously and to its latest stage (the philosophy of
metaReality; see Bhaskar 2012a, 2012b) calls for and can effectively underpin a holistic and processual theory of transformation. The four-planar
model is, as is ontology in general, formulated at a high (philosophical)
level of abstraction. It is the task of substantive theory to render concrete
11
Introduction
11
the nature of the structures, agents, interactions, cultures etc. on the various
planes that matter in relation to whatever phenomenon the theory concerns.
As noted above, the theory to be developed in this book proposes that
degrowth transformations will unfold on various planes, scales and sites. As
the four planes encompass social being in its totality, both the scales and sites
exist within each of them. For instance, material transactions with nature
concern the local, the regional, the national and the international scales.
Improving material transactions with nature on the local scale while causing damage elsewhere is not a degrowth transformation. Likewise, policies
which improve the state of affairs for the local population while destroying
livelihoods elsewhere should not be considered degrowth compatible. The
concept of a site brings our attention to places which may be small and
otherwise overlooked when theorising planes, scales and places with their
own lasting constellation of structures and relationships. For instance, a
human individual can be a site of transformation where a different mode
of being can be nurtured and a different way of relating with the world can
be encouraged. We identify and theorise three interconnected but relatively
well-defined sites of transformation: civil society (including human individuals), state and business. Naturally, such sites can take different forms, and
degrowth journeys will depend on this form.
Further to its deep ontology, critical realism advocates the view that
social scientific practice should illuminate causal mechanisms, including
underlying social structures, cultures and agency. An analysis of degrowth
transformations underpinned by critical realism should thus aspire to illuminate both the mechanisms that make current societies in the rich countries
grossly unsustainable, and the mechanisms needed to bring about degrowth
transitions in specific settings. No individual discipline can on its own capture the nature of multidimensional degrowth transformations. Psychology,
sociology, political economy, ecology, geography and other disciplines thus
all need to participate in the uncovering of possibilities for (time-and place-
sensitive) transformations.
A final feature of the critical realist philosophy of science perspective to
be mentioned here is that it views normativity as a necessary and significant
part of scientific practice (Bhaskar et al. 2010). In Bhaskar’s view, social
science can come to be emancipatory by illuminating constraining social
structures that sustain various ills in social life, structures that people may
be unaware of (Bhaskar 1998: 32). For example, while some aspects of
social being across the four planes are clear to people, others may be less
obvious. A human being may have a sense of selfhood or individuality, but
may find it less clear which social structures influence his/her life and how. It
becomes a responsibility of social scientists to explicate such structures and
look deeply into social phenomena while critiquing oppressive structures
12
Deep transformations
and false knowledge, including capitalist myths. Cases in point are the
myths that one is poor because of laziness and that consumption makes one
happy. Degrowth is also orientated towards emancipation, including liberation from the constraints imposed onto human beings and non-humans by
capitalism. Thus, degrowth research in general –and the theory of transformation outlined in the chapters that follow –has much to gain from being
rooted in a philosophy of science perspective that can bolster such critical aspirations, legitimising them as constituting a key feature of scientific
practice.
On the content of this book
The purpose of this book is to propose a scientifically and philosophically
informed, holistic account of degrowth-inspired change: a theory of deep
transformations. By introducing the reader to the four planes of social being,
we hope to encourage the academic community, policymakers, activists and
practitioners to become attentive to the depths and connectedness of social
reality both within itself and with nature, and when facing complexity to
go beyond labelling something as ‘complex’, attempting instead to disentangle and theoretically structure complexity. When contemplating transformations, this involves, for instance, avoiding placing hope, resources and
efforts into any single policy, pursuit or place, and when indeed targeting
any particular aspects of social reality, to ask oneself, what does it mean for
other planes, scales and sites?
The book starts out from an account of capitalism both in its general and
specific forms (Chapters 1 and 2). In Chapter 1, drawing mainly on Marx
but also on other social theorists, we consider the growth imperative and the
nature of work and consumption in capitalism. Moreover, we reflect upon
capitalism in relation to (human) nature. Chapter 2 introduces the notion
of institutional forms to consider capitalism as it actually manifests itself in
concrete places and time periods. The notion is subsequently used to reflect
upon possible features of degrowth societies and economies. In Chapter 3
we initiate the theorisation of deep transformations. Drawing inspiration
mainly from contemporary political economy scholarship, we distil various
prerequisites for transformative change, including a deep crisis, the articulation of a political project, the mobilisation of a comprehensive coalition of
social forces and the building of consent.
The following three chapters enrich the theorisation by zooming
in on the sites of civil society, the state and business (Chapters 4 to 6).
Chapter 4 conceptualises civil society and reflects on its diversity and scales
in degrowth transformations, paying attention to individuals and their
31
Introduction
13
self-transformation. Chapter 5 considers the state’s roles in capitalist economies and its potential roles in degrowth transformations, bringing into focus
various forms and scales of state intervention. Chapter 6 reflects on the role
of business in degrowth transformations, addressing questions related to
scale, diversity and business practices. Chapter 7 then provides an illustration of how a part of the book’s theorisation of degrowth transformations
can be applied empirically. The chapter relates data from empirical research
on Sweden to the four planes of being, contemplating the potential uptake
of degrowth ideas by different groups of people. Finally, in the Conclusion
of the book, we synthesise the main arguments of the book, considering
degrowth transformations in relation to the various planes of being and
presenting our definition of degrowth. Further to this, we outline some key
areas and focus points for future degrowth research and practice.
Notes
1 The notion that sustainability and growth can be reconciled can be seen, for
instance, in the United Nations’ 17 ‘sustainable development’ goals. On one
hand these concern, for instance, clean water, climate action, sustainable use of
the seas and ecosystem protection, while on the other hand Goal 8 is to promote economic growth (UN 2015).
2 Only in the long run is capitalism itself in danger as a result of the climate
breakdown. In the words of Malm (2018: 194), it is only likely to happen
long after this breakdown ‘has killed those at the greatest distance from the
bourgeoisie’.
3 Many other strands within academia share degrowth advocates’ desire of a good
and harmonious life for all, including humans, nature and non-human beings.
Such strands include diverse economies (Gibson-
Graham and Dombroski
2020), deep ecology (Næss 2016), and scholarship on technological scepticism
and pessimism (Heikkurinen and Ruuska 2021).
1
Capitalism, the growth imperative
and (human) nature
Historically, humankind survived and advanced because humans lived in
groups in which they learned to collaborate and divide tasks and in which
they developed and used tools. This division of labour resulted in a differentiation of roles among members of society. In the earliest times, when productivity was low and members of society lived near the subsistence level,
the differentiation was probably not very hierarchical. Yet as productivity
increased with the innovation of ever more advanced technologies, it became
possible for small classes of individuals to escape ordinary, physically hard
labour and perform other societal functions. From this point onwards, hierarchical, class-based societies emerged and developed. These were societies
in which members of lower classes performed the work needed to support
all of society while members of higher classes –from slave owners in ancient
Greece and Rome, over feudal lords in medieval Europe to capital owners in
all capitalist societies –enjoyed the privilege of not being directly involved
in the production of everyday necessities while still benefiting from them
(Hunt 1975: 3–4).
In the present chapter we turn our attention towards capitalism. Doing
so in a book on degrowth transformations is relevant insofar as the capitalist organisation of societies and the capitalist growth imperative are –as
noted in the Introduction –root causes of the multidimensional crisis currently facing the earth and its inhabitants. As degrowth transformations
cannot but start out from what currently exists, that is, capitalist societies, a holistic understanding of capitalism is a prerequisite for being able
to theorise such transformations. By a holistic understanding we mean
an understanding that takes into account capitalism’s means of subsistence as well as effects on nature and human (and other) beings, instead
of merely considering it narrowly as an economic system. In this context,
we take up the question of whether egoism and greed are universally key
human attributes. This issue is of key importance to any consideration
of deep transformations, as deep social change beyond capitalism is only
conceivable to the extent that human beings are able to change or manifest
51
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
15
existing human qualities which transcend egoism and greed. Throughout
the chapter we take selected ideas of Karl Marx as our point of departure,
supplementing them with insights from a range of other social theorists
along the way.
The growth imperative
Capitalism is a complex system of structures and other mechanisms, which
is continuously transformed and reproduced through the activities of actors.
The reproduction of the class structure through day-to-day working processes or the use of commodities and money through practices such as buying a cup of coffee is typically not the intended outcome of individual action
(Koch 2020a). Unintended structural consequences follow from practices
such as working and shopping because these phenomena are embedded in
wider sets of, often unacknowledged, social structures, including the commodity form of work products, money and capital.
As countless scholars have observed, both in the degrowth literature and
beyond, capitalism is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. For Marx, the origin of the imperative of capitalist economies to
expand in scale and grow in value lies in the logic of exchange relations,
especially the money form. He associated capitalism with endless M-C-M'
cycles, where capital as money (M) is invested, then assumes commodify
form (C), before it again assumes money form with added profits (M')
(Marx 1990: 247–257). The amount of money invested in the beginning of
the cycle (M) is transformed into a larger amount at the end of it (M') via
wage labour using natural resources to produce commodities (C). Capital
accumulation, then, depends on capital owners making profits by initiating
the production of goods and services and subsequently being able to sell
them (Jessop 2002).
Wage labour entails a commodification of work which occurs because
employees have no alternative but to offer the only commodity at their
disposal on ‘labour markets’. Employees, in other words, exchange their
capacity to work for a wage and are then forced to accept the right of
their employer (the capital owner) to reap the profit (or absorb any losses)
that results from the sale of the goods and services they have produced.
Analysing the last step in the M-C-M' cycle, Marx (1990: 728) observes
that there is ‘not one single atom of its value that does not owe its existence
to unpaid labour’. Further to this, the ‘ownership of past unpaid labour is
thenceforth the sole condition for the appropriation of living unpaid labour
on a constantly increasing scale’ (Marx 1990: 729).1 Capitalism, then, is a
system that is based on and produces deep inequalities.
16
Deep transformations
The social structure of capitalism is complex and contradictory. Under
feudalism, the vast majority of the population were bondmen and bondwomen subject to direct legal and political domination by feudal lords.2
Capitalism came to coexist with legal independence and political equality for
citizens, including the right to be geographically mobile within the jurisdiction of the state. Citizens, including wage labourers, formally became politically and legally free to, for instance, vote and start a business. Nevertheless,
they remained socially unequal in that most people found themselves having nothing to sell but their labour power while being separated from the
means of subsistence such as land.3 The production and reproduction of this
inequality became one of the central questions for the social sciences from
Marx onwards.4 In addition to exploitation related to class differences, capitalism exhibits other, often intersecting (de los Reyes and Mulinari 2020),
inequalities pertaining to, for example, gender, race and age.5
Capital accumulation generally unfolds in the context of corporate competition, that is, rivalry between firms for profits and market shares (on
capitalist competition, see Buch-Hansen and Wigger 2011). In its most
intense forms, competition ‘strikes not at the margins of the profits and
the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very
lives’ (Schumpeter 1947: 84). If they wish to survive, capitalist firms have
no choice but to compete. The capital accumulation process, then, instils a
grow-or-perish logic in the corporate sphere, as a result of which the interactions of capitalists can become like ‘a fight among hostile brothers’ (Marx
2006). Under this system, to avoid going out of business, companies seek
to increase their productivity by being ever more efficient. As for capital
owners, they are constantly watching out for investment opportunities that
yield higher returns (extra profits) than those they get on their existing
investments. In the words of Streeck (2016: 206), ‘Social institutions that
demarcate areas of trade against areas of non-trade, from national borders
to laws prohibiting, say, the sale of organs, children, or cocaine, will find
themselves under pressure from profit-pursuing actors seeking to extend
economic exchange across demarcation lines.’
As a historical system, capitalism has been defined by making ‘structurally central and primary the endless accumulation of capital’ (Wallerstein
2000: 147). Certainly, other systems, including ancient civilisations and feudal societies, knew commitments to accumulation of wealth, especially the
expansion of territory and riches earmarked for particular purposes such as
the building of palaces or pyramids. Yet in such systems the pursuit of profit
for its own sake tended to be seen as deviating from the norm. In medieval
Europe, for example, economic interests tended to be subordinate to religion and the quest for ‘salvation’ (Weber 1958). Consequently, before the
1820s, when economic growth accelerated in the context of the Industrial
71
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
17
Revolution, economic activity around the world was characterised by periodic swings, yet expanded only by an average of 0.05% annually, due
largely to slow population growth (Maddison 2001, 2007; see also Büchs
and Koch 2017: chapter 2). In comparison, the annual average compound
world growth rate was 2.21% from 1820 to 1998 (Maddison 2001: 28).
Considering the nature of the capital accumulation process and the actual
history of the capitalist economic system, there is little to suggest that a
smaller and overall non-growing economy is potentially compatible with
capitalism as a few scholars have suggested (e.g., Lawn 2011; for a critique
of the suggestion, see, e.g., Spash 2020). By implication, far from being a
process that can be reconciled with capitalism, degrowth points beyond and
stands in opposition to it.
Work and consumption
In the chapter’s introduction we noted how human beings have historically
advanced as a species by dividing tasks. Marx (1875) viewed the division of
labour as the necessary precondition for the ‘all-round development of individuals’ and their productive powers. Far from viewing economic growth
as an ahistorical and quasi-eternal goal of economic action, he regarded
economic expansion and a simultaneous intensification of the division of
labour as a temporary and historically specific necessity to reach a development stage in which basic needs can be satisfied relatively easily, and where
social actors are able to devote more time to purposes other than economic
ones (Koch 2019a). He famously distinguished between the ‘realm of freedom’, which ‘lies beyond the sphere of actual material production’, and the
‘realm of physical necessity’ of material production, which can be temporarily reduced but not eliminated. Indeed, he was optimistic that the development of the productive forces under capitalism would create conditions
making possible a reduction of the time devoted to material labour. Like
many contemporary degrowth proponents, Marx viewed the shortening of
the working day as the basic prerequisite for the realm of freedom to blossom (Marx 2006: chapter 48; see also Saito 2023: 238–239).
In capitalism, work is organised around the production of goods and services that the employer can sell with a profit, the very profit that allows capitalists to sustain and increase their powers. ‘Workers’, writes Harvey, are
hereby ‘put in a position where they can do nothing other than reproduce
through their work the conditions of their own domination’ (2014: 64).
Work assumes the form of a paid activity that an individual performs in
accordance with goals and procedures determined by the employer. The
typical worker in capitalism, then, is an individual ‘who produces nothing
18
Deep transformations
she or he consumes and consumes nothing he or she produces; for whom
the essential objective of work is to earn enough to buy commodities produced and defined by the social machine as a whole’ (Gorz 1989: 22). To
the extent that the concrete work process of products is dominated by the
valorisation process of capital, the employee is estranged or alienated (Marx
1977), not just from the products he or she contributes to producing, but
also from nature, fellow humans and community. Alienation from nature
can result from the work taking place in locations with a lack of access to
nature, such as cities. It can also result from attributes of the workplace, the
nature of the work itself and from long working hours that ‘tie’ the worker
to the workplace.
Degrees of exposure to alienation vary with the position of the individual
worker in the division of labour of a company. Ultimately it is a question
of the extent ‘to which involvement in one’s work implies the enrichment
or sacrificing of one’s individual being. After my day’s work, am I richer or
poorer as a human being?’ (Gorz 1989: 80). Though, potentially, work can
be a source of fulfilment, personal growth and learning, a space where one’s
creativity can be exercised, the bulk of work under capitalism does not leave
those who carry it out richer as human beings. The notion of alienation is
therefore as relevant to the type of industrial work that was performed in
the ‘dark satanic mills’ of the Industrial Revolution in Marx’s lifetime, as
it is to much work in contemporary capitalism. Cases in point include the
work performed by today’s global working class, most of which is located in
developing and rising economies, and the widespread and growing existence
in developed countries of ‘bullshit jobs’ (Graeber 2018), that is, jobs in, for
example, financial services, administration, corporate law and public relations that are, according to the workers themselves, essentially meaningless
and unnecessary.6
This brings us to the issue of the technology of work. As an economic
system, capitalism is, on one hand, characterised by a ‘strange stillness’ in
the form of the recurrent pattern of the M-C-M' cycle, a pattern which is
repeated over and over again (Sewell 2008). On the other hand, there is
flux. As a result of competition and the accumulate-or-perish logic, companies continuously reshape and innovate technologies, products and organisational forms to succeed in capitalist markets. The history of capitalism
has thus been marked by deep changes in technologies and organisational
forms –and these changes have, in turn, been accompanied by radical
transformations of work. Much of the technological change that has happened over the course of capitalist history has been used to disempower
and replace workers, in other words to the opposite of enriching their being
(Harvey 2014: 270). Such transformations have been guided by what André
Gorz referred to as economic rationality: the aspiration to use the factors
91
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
19
of production, labour power included, as efficiently as possible to maximise
profits. The economic rationalisation of work sweeps away ‘the ancient idea
of freedom and existential autonomy’ and ‘produces individuals who, being
alienated in their work, will, necessarily, be alienated in their consumption
as well and, eventually, in their needs’ (Gorz 1989: 22).
As noted above, Marx (1977: 94) pointed to ownership of capital as the
condition for accumulating more capital. He observed that
private property has made us so stupid and one-
sided that an object is
only ours when we have it –when it exists for us as capital, or when it is
directly possessed, eaten, drunk, worn, inhabited, etc., –in short, when it
is used by us. … In the place of all physical and mental senses there has therefore come the sheer estrangement of all these senses, the sense of having.
Building on these and other observations, German psychoanalyst Erich
Fromm later developed an elaborate distinction between what he called the
mode of having and the mode of being. The modes constitute two different
ways of existence, two different orientations towards oneself and the world,
which shape how a person thinks, feels and acts (2013: 21). The mode of having prevails under capitalism and is thus the mode we will focus on here –in
later chapters we deal also with the mode of being. In the mode of having, a
person’s relationship to everything and anybody in the world is one of wanting to possess and own it/them. The relationship between the having person
and what she owns is one of deadness: she has things because she has made
them hers; but conversely things have her in the sense that her identity rests on
what she has –money, stuff, prestige etc. –and what she consumes (2013: 21).
Fromm notes that the most important form of having is consumerism and that
the attitude inherent in it ‘is that of swallowing the whole world’ (2013: 24).
Pierre Bourdieu (1984) points to correspondence between individual consumption and positions in social space, especially class positions (see Koch
2019b). The cultural sphere is regarded as a site of symbolic struggles over
the societal acceptability of lifestyles in which the dominant class manages to
maintain a hierarchy of cultural forms that subjects all consumptive acts to
the legitimate taste (its own). This process is objective and effective insofar
as it operates largely independent of the (manipulative) intentions of dominant groups. While members of the middle and working classes may eschew
legitimate cultural practices or regard them with suspicion and disdain, the
position of the dominant class at the pinnacle of the cultural hierarchy normally goes unchallenged because it appears to be built upon ease, casualness
and natural superiority. The competition for positional goods (Hirsch 1976)
is mediated through a social logic referred to by Bourdieu (1984) as distinction, perceived as natural differences. The result of the naturalisation of the
specifically capitalist character of production and consumption relations is
20
Deep transformations
that economic growth appears to be the ideal breeding ground for upward
mobility and progress and in everyone’s interest. With regard to production
relations, a strong work ethic seems to be a worthwhile and rational individual strategy to ‘get ahead’, while in consumption, growth guarantees the
creation of ever-new generations of consumer articles which are the material
basis for individual distinction.
In capitalism, then, competition exists far beyond the marketplace.
Fromm notes that a society revolving around profit and property produces
a social character oriented around the having mode of existence, due to
which key attributes of the relation between individuals are antagonism,
competition and fear.
If having is the basis of my sense of identity because ‘I am what I have,’ the
wish to have must lead to the desire to have much, to have more, to have most.
In other words, greed is the natural outcome of the having orientation. It can
be the greed of the miser or the greed of the profit hunter or the greed of the
womanizer or the man chaser. Whatever constitutes their greed, the greedy can
never have enough, can never be satisfied.
(Fromm 2013: 97)
Fromm observes that in capitalism, ‘the having mode of existing is assumed
to be rooted in human nature and, hence, virtually unchangeable’ (2013: 86).
This brings us to the question of human nature.
Human nature
The classical liberal creed asserts that human beings are innately egoistic,
greedy, atomistic, coldly calculating, lazy and generally independent of society (Hunt 1975: 55). It is moreover assumed that it will benefit both the individual and society at large if such human beings are given the unrestrained
freedom to compete in capitalist markets. In The Wealth of Nations, for
example, Adam Smith (1976: 454) writes that
every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study
of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that
employment which is most advantageous to the society.
The notion that the actions of all humans flow from them being, in their
essence, egoistic utility-maximisers has survived to this date, most notably in the homo economicus (economic man) of mainstream neoclassical
economics.
12
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
21
Marx (1977, 1990) adopted a fundamentally different perspective, one
involving a distinction between human nature in general and human nature
as it is affected by a given type of society. As regards human nature in general, productive labour is held to be at the core of its essence. ‘It is just in
his work upon the objective world … that man really proves himself to
be a species-being. This production is his active species-life’, writes Marx
(1977: 69). Although other species are also productive, building nests and
dwellings for themselves and their young, only human beings produce with
tools. As a result, the productive powers of human beings –unlike the productive powers of other species –develop over time, and what is being produced takes a greater variety of forms than does the production of any other
species. Moreover, only human beings produce even when they are free from
the physical need to do so (1977: 68).
Seen from this perspective, human beings are not egoistic, greedy and
competitive because their human nature dictates them to have such character
traits; rather, the extent to which they are egoistic, greedy and competitive is
a result of their character being moulded by the specific societal context in
which they are situated. Instead of claiming that human beings are driven by
egoism and the desire to maximise material gains, Marx claims that the way
human beings produce in a specific spatio-temporal context has a decisive
impact on his/her thinking and desires (Fromm 1961: 12). Consequently,
being shaped by –and in turn contributing to shaping –the transformation
of their natural and social environment, the concrete psychology of human
beings will differ from one setting and one era to the next (Collier 2004: 25).
If engaging in productive labour is at the core of what defines human
beings, it follows that the alienation of such labour under capitalism can
only impact the inner being of humans in profound ways. In the words of
Collier (2004: 25),
the alienation of the human essence –productive labour –creates a totally
different moral atmosphere from that, which, if Marx is correct, is natural to
humankind. It makes people egoistic, not only in the sense that it sets everyone
in mutual competition for survival, and thus corrupts our relations with our
fellow humans, but also in the sense that it destroys our feel for the intrinsic
value of things.
The commodification of labour under capitalism runs deeper than labour
power itself being a commodity. It is not just that people come to experience
themselves as commodities to be sold; it is also that, simultaneously, they
have to act as the sellers of that commodity (Fromm 2013: 127). Because
success depends on how well a person is able to sell him or herself in competitive labour markets, a decisive issue becomes how nice a ‘personality
package’ that person is or can appear to be. That is, how reliable, robust,
22
Deep transformations
ambitious and so on he or she comes across. Offered for sale on the ‘personality market’, personality structures come to continuously adapt to
the employer’s desires and thus to exhibit great plasticity. Being saleable
becomes the overriding concern of human beings. Associating this state of
affairs with the having mode of existence, Fromm (2013: 86) notes that
while humankind’s biological urge for survival tends to further this mode,
greed, selfishness and laziness ‘are not the only propensities inherent in
human beings’.7
As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the question of human
nature is crucial when theorising degrowth transformations. Were capitalism a system existing in natural extension of an immutable human nature,
deep transformations along the lines of degrowth would be ruled out.
Fortunately, human nature is not fixed once and for all. Rather, as already
noted, it is shaped by pre-existing social structures and cultures. Whereas
capitalism produces ‘as a chief incentive the desire for money and property’,
different ‘economic conditions can produce exactly the opposite desires, like
those of asceticism and contempt for earthly riches, as we find them in many
Eastern cultures and in the early stages of capitalism’ (Fromm 1961: 11).
Under different socio-economic circumstances, then, greed and selfishness
may become less prominent features of the personalities from which peoples’ actions flow. In the words of Kallis et al. (2020: 42–43):
To keep systemic expansion going, growth imperatives are internalized in life
purposes and identities, making it feel like the impetus for growth is in our
DNA. But … [h]uman nature offers many possibilities: we can be selfish and
we can be altruistic, we can want more and we can do well with less, we can
accumulate but also share. Which propensities get cultivated and which ones
constrained depends on sociocultural systems.
Further to this, it can also be noted that several degrowth scholars have
referred to human needs theory (e.g., Büchs and Koch 2019). Such scholars,
for instance, draw on Max-Neef’s distinction between universal needs and
culturally, socially and locally specific needs satisfiers (Max-Neef 1991; see
also Chapters 5 and 7). This distinction draws attention to how, on one
hand, human beings, qua their biological nature, universally have various
needs in common and, on the other hand, to the specific spatio-temporal
social conditions in which human lives are lived.
The capitalist consumerist culture incentivises people to work hard and
long so as to be able to purchase commodities and commodified experiences. These commodities and experiences replace deeper, more enriching
and lasting satisfactions (Soper 2020: 55). While human nature is shaped
by consumer culture, it is not dictated by it. Human agency and inner being
possess emergent properties making them irreducible to structures and
32
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
23
discourses. A person can thus live in a capitalist consumer society without
(entirely) internalising the prevailing culture of that society. Indeed, many
people under capitalism live lives that are shaped by altogether different
discourses, discourses that do not equate the ‘good life’ with consuming
fashion items, air travel, cars, electronic goods, spacious accommodation
and so forth. And there is growing realisation that the consumerist lifestyle
is a source of over-work, depression and health problems (Soper 2020: 54).
Even so, people in capitalist consumer societies are generally slow to change
their lifestyles in ‘a less energy-intensive and climate-adverse direction’, both
because they face many structural and cultural barriers such as the consumerist culture (Næss 2010: 69) and because the desire to have more is deeply
ingrained in the social character (Fromm 2013).
In this and the preceding sections we have considered some key features
of capitalism and some of the ways in which this economic system affects
social life and the inner being of humans. As such, our perspective on capitalism so far has been an anthropocentric one. In the following section
we broaden the perspective to situate capitalism in relation to the natural
environment.
Capitalism and nature
Fundamentally opposing views as to the relationship between expanding
capitalist market economies and the natural environment can be found in
extant scholarship. Mainstream neoclassical economics regards the growth
of monetary value as indefinite. Economic processes are conceptualised as if
they were a closed system within which flows of services and goods are compensated by financial flows in the opposite direction. Energy, other natural
resources and the earth in general are treated as if they were infinite and/or
irrelevant. In this view, then, ‘nothing enters from the environment, nothing
exits to the environment. It does not matter how big the economy is relative
to its environment’ (Daly 1991: xiii). Yet economics has not always been
synonymous with a science of prices, economic value and monetary growth.
Political economists of the pre-industrial period did not conceive growth in
abstract, quantifiable terms (Dale 2012a, 2012b) or as a key policy goal for
governments.8 Although Smith, David Ricardo and other classical economists pointed out that it is labour that produces exchange value, they did
not go as far as to leave out nature from their analysis of economic processes
(Koch 2012: 18).
For Marx, who witnessed a largely industrialised economy where most
labour products had taken the form of commodities that were produced for
the purpose of exchanging them on markets, labour is the connecting link
24
Deep transformations
between nature and human beings. In order to survive, humans must interact
with nature and transform natural raw materials into use values. Building
on Justus Liebig, Marx viewed this metabolism between human beings and
nature through the labour process as an anthropological constant, as the
‘everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence’ (Marx 1990). In
this view, human life and society are embedded in and dependent on nature
and the two are considered to exist in a dialectical relationship in which they
continuously shape one another. In the words of Marx (1977: 67), ‘That
man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature
is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.’
Under capitalism, the endless accumulation of capital is, as mentioned,
made possible through the appropriation of unpaid labour or its product. Yet Marx (1990: 134) also observed, following William Petty, that
‘labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use values produced by
labour. … labour is its father and the earth its mother’. To put it differently,
the capital accumulation process is premised on production processes combining labour power with land, raw materials, fuels and the like. The C in
the M-C-M' cycle, then, refers to commodity production processes that, in
addition to creating increased exchange value, also involves the use and the
destruction of nature. Gorz (1980: 20) notes that this destruction is inevitable: ‘The earth is not naturally hospitable to humankind. Nature is not a
garden planted for our benefit. Human life on earth is precarious and, in
order to expand, it must displace some of the natural equilibriums of the
ecosystem.’ All human activities and social forms inevitably affect nature,
but they can reshape it to smaller or larger extents and do so in more or
less destructive ways. Capitalism is an extraordinarily destructive system, a
system under which nature has been reshaped more than under any other
system.9
Further to the above observations regarding the alienation of work and
consumption under capitalism, Gorz (1989: 86) writes that ‘learning to
work means unlearning how to find, or even to look for, a meaning to non-
instrumental relations with the surrounding environment and with other
people’. In his analysis, the dominant culture in capitalism leads people to
treat nature and fellow human beings in instrumental ways, doing violence
to them. This violence is seen ‘in the functionality both of our everyday
tools and of the objects and spaces we have designed to support and contain our bodies: chairs, tables, furniture, streets, means of transport, urban
landscapes, industrial architecture, noises, lights, materials and so on’
(1989: 86). Again, it is important to recognise that there is a scale of violence. While some transactions with nature, such as fracking and large-scale
conventional agriculture, are extremely violent, other transactions, such as
small-scale organic agriculture, are hardly violent at all.
52
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
25
The logic of capital accumulation pushes companies to not only produce
an ever-expanding range of commodities but also to invent ever-new wants
that can be satisfied by means of these commodities. Historically, this process has resulted in (over)production divorced from basic or universal needs
as defined by scholars such as Max-Neef or Doyal and Gough. And in parallel, it has resulted in the consumption of ever more nature. While the logic
of capital accumulation reigns supreme, this process will not end until all
of nature has been consumed. As an economic system, capitalism ‘cannot
help but privatise, commodify, monetise and commercialise all those aspects
of nature that it possibly can. Only in this way can it increasingly absorb
nature into itself to become a form of capital … This metabolic relation necessarily expands and deepens in response to capital’s exponential growth’
(Harvey 2014: 262). Because it unfolds under the condition of competition
which forces individual companies to speed up the overall turnover process
as much as possible, the use and commercialisation of nature is continuously intensified and expanded, subsuming new geographical areas.
Though capitalist development cannot and does not get rid of the material and energy sides of production altogether, it nevertheless tends to negate
and dispel them as much as possible (Burkett 1999). Whereas money and
valorisation are quantitatively unlimited and, hence, reversible, natural
resources are generally limited as the result of which the consumption of
them is irreversible. The earth’s stock of fossil fuels, in particular, is confined, and the existing stock can only be burnt once.10 These contradictions and limits nevertheless place an expiry date on a growth-dependent
economic system such as capitalism. When that date is depends on how
successful capitalists are in pursuing their objectives: ‘a way of life that bases
itself on materialism, i.e. on permanent, limitless expansionism in a finite
environment, cannot last long, … its life expectation is the shorter the more
successfully it pursues its expansionist objectives’ (Schumacher 1993: 121).
Still, capitalism exists, and, while it is not exactly thriving (see, e.g., Streeck
2016), it continues to overall grow five decades after Schumacher made this
observation –and indeed after the Club of Rome published its Limits to
Growth report (Meadows et al. 1972). While environmental limits to capital accumulation certainly exist, such limits will not by themselves bring an
end to capitalism. Capital accumulation seems likely to continue well into
the future, while the earth becomes increasingly uninhabitable for an ever-
greater number of human and non-human beings.
Recognition of biophysical limits and the social and ecological downsides
of endless growth led to the establishment of the field of ecological economics within heterodox economics. Pioneered by thinkers such as Georgescu-
Roegen (1971), Herman Daly (1991) and Inge Røpke (2004), the field views
economy and society as subsystems of nature. In the words of Clive Spash
26
Deep transformations
(2020: 2), reality is ‘a hierarchical structure with the economy emergent from
and embedded in social relations, while social and economic systems are also
subject to biophysical structures and their law like conditions’. In this view,
capitalist growth some decades ago passed a point beyond which it became
uneconomic in the sense that its social and ecological costs came to exceed
the benefits of growth (Daly 1991). As mentioned above, ecological economics initially constituted the main scientific base for degrowth scholarship
(Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2021). It calls for limiting ‘the physical scale
of matter/energy throughput that sustains the economic activities of production and consumption of commodities’ (Daly 1996: 31; see also Puller and
Smith 2017).11
The notion of the Anthropocene has been used to describe a new geological era in which the activities of humankind have come to have a significant impact on the climate and ecosystem of the earth. While few deny
that the activities of human beings have had and continue to have a massively negative impact on nature, the notion of the Anthropocene has been
questioned for creating the appearance that the predicament we are now
in is the unavoidable outcome of human biology or that it is an outcome
for which all human beings are equally responsible. Yet some countries,
classes and human beings are clearly more responsible for it than are others.
In the words of Hornborg (2019: 141), ‘the Anthropocene is the creation
of a minority of the human species in its struggle to dominate and exploit
the global majority’. The consequences for human beings of the violence
and irreversible damage done to nature in the Anthropocene are also distributed unequally, with the severe overshooting of the earth’s ecological
boundaries having more fatal ramifications for ‘those at the neo-colonised
periphery’ than for those ‘in the neo-imperialising centres’ (Soper 2020: 17).
The fact that, historically, various modes of production have existed under
which humanity did less violence to nature than has been the case under
capitalism (Soper 2020) has led some to adopt the notion of Capitalocene
(Moore 2017).
In conclusion: from capitalism in general to capitalism
as a social formation
In the book’s Introduction we noted that any social phenomenon exists
simultaneously on four planes: material transactions with nature, social
interactions between people/
inter-
subjectivities, social structure, and
inner being. As shown in the present chapter, capitalism is no exception.
Capitalism shapes humans’ transactions with nature by exploiting, commodifying and transforming it into human artefacts at an ever-increasing
72
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
27
rate. It alienates people from one another on the plane of social interactions.
Its production relations hierarchise people on the plane of social structures.
Finally, on the plane of inner being, capitalism brings out, nurtures and
rewards greed and egoism, in combination with illusions of meritocracy.
It promotes and normalises these traits, rendering opposition to capitalism
more difficult.
In this chapter we have dealt with capitalism at a rather general level,
for the most part at the level of what Marx called a ‘mode of production’,
entailing for example that an abstraction is made from institutional regulation while individual actors are reduced to economic character masks
(Marx 1990). Though the analysis of the mode of production allows for
insights into the general tensions between economy, ecology and society
that characterise all capitalist societies, it does not sufficiently consider how
these structural tensions are articulated in actual societies and institutional
circumstances.
For example, the long-term expansion of the scale of production and the
associated increase in material and energy throughput under capitalism,
and the ensuing rise of CO2 emissions and the transgression of planetary
limits, can be analysed at the level of abstraction of the mode of production. But such a perspective is too abstract and general to explain why
CO2 outputs per economic unit differ from one era to the next or why
one capitalist country has considerably lower CO2 outputs per capita than
another (Fritz and Koch 2016). The tensions existing within the capitalist
class in particular sectors also cannot be adequately analysed at the level
of the mode of production. For example, whereas the profits of companies
operating in some sectors may be negatively affected by specific forms of
environmental protection, companies in other sectors may benefit from it
(Görg 2003: 286). And whereas for most entrepreneurs the overconsumption of raw materials and natural resources is a means of valorisation, for
others it threatens profitability. When, for example, the rainforest is cut
down, it places strain on resources required by the pharmaceutical industry
(Dietz and Wissen 2009).
Actual capitalist economies and societies, that is, capitalist social formations (Poulantzas 1968), are far more complex than capitalism viewed as a
mode of production. They are dominated by this mode yet also feature elements of non-capitalist economies, corresponding forms of domination and
a range of real-type combinations of productive and unproductive as well as
paid and unpaid work contexts (Gibson-Graham 2006; Koch 2011).12 And
over time social formations change profoundly (Buch-Hansen 2014; Lipietz
1992). In other words, it should be recognised that not only do different,
coexisting and competing forms of capitalism exist, but also that capitalism as an economic system is not all-pervasive. In each of the four planes
28
Deep transformations
capitalist manifestations coexist with non-capitalist ones (Buch-Hansen and
Nesterova 2023). Proceeding along these lines, that is, taking into consideration diversity within and beyond capitalism, the following chapters add
nuance to the perspective presented in this chapter.
Notes
1 The transfer of surplus labour is hidden through the continuing distortion of
specifically capitalist economic categories and social relations into objects and
natural features (Koch 2018a). Consequently, while capitalism is premised on
the exploitation of employees, it comes to appear as if all labour is paid and as
if profit derives from other sources than surplus labour.
2 Bondmen and -women were part of the personal possession of their feudal
lords, just as the land or the tools used in agriculture. They were tied to the
place where they worked and could not move without the consent of their
landlords. Both were politically and legally unequal.
3 Marx (1990: chapter 24) described the historical separation process of labour
and land using the example of the Scottish Highland Clearances. This case
of ‘enclosing the commons’ gave later rise to the formulation of the general
concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Luxemburg 1951; Harvey 2005),
which was applied to processes of corporatisation, privatisation and commodification of previously public assets, from water and public utilities to social
housing and academia.
4 This tension between the spheres of production and circulation made Marx
regard capitalism as a historical transition period. The experiences of equality,
individual independence and mutual respect, associated with the circulation
of commodities, awaken and increase the will and the potential in humans to
also make these core characteristics of their work relations and hence a post-
capitalist mode of production.
5 The latter are forms of ‘exclusion’, denoting a situation in which the material benefits of one group are acquired at the expense of another group, coercive practices being an essential part of the process. ‘Exploitation’ is a specific
form of exclusion in that the ‘material well-being of exploiters depends on the
effort of the exploited’ (Wright 1994: 40), whereas in non-exploitative exclusion there is no labour transfer from the excluded to the excluding group. The
crucial difference is that in the former case, the exploiter needs the exploited,
whereas in the latter case the excluding group is sometimes better off if the
excluded group simply disappeared (Koch 2017: chapter 1).
6 Schumacher (1993: 39–40), arguing for a Buddhist economics, noted how
organising ‘work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal: it
would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of
compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive
side of this worldly existence’.
92
Capitalism, growth and (human) nature
29
7 The philosopher Baruch Spinoza thought of greed and ambition not as natural
aspects of human nature but as mental illnesses. In Ethics (1677) he makes the
following observation: ‘if the greedy person thinks only of money and possessions, the ambitious one only of fame, one does not think of them as being
insane, but only as annoying; generally one has contempt for them. But factually, greediness, ambition, and so forth are forms of insanity, although usually
one does not think of them as “illness” ’ (cited in Fromm 2013: 82).
8 This changed in the course of the nineteenth century, when use values, matter and energy were reduced to abstract numbers and monetary magnitudes
started to become a salient feature of economic life. In the first half of the
twentieth century, this development reached a new level when, in 1932, the
US Congress commissioned the economist Simon Kuznets to devise a means
by which to measure the nation’s output. This resulted in the Gross National
Product (GNP) and later the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure that
estimated the market value of all final goods and services produced within a
country per year, including the costs of government services (Paulsson 2019).
Subsequently, not least in the post-Second World War period, GDP growth
became a dominant priority for all countries, informing practices and policies
that have deeply shaped societies and the planet (Schmelzer 2016).
9 This is, of course, not to suggest that capitalism is the only environmentally
unsustainable type of economic system. Most notably, Soviet communist countries were fossil fuel-based economies that strove for high economic growth
rates. As a result, their ecological footprints were very large.
10 Hornborg (2019: 17) speaks of ‘modernity as a social condition founded on the
capacity to externalize biophysical burdens and risks’.
11 While it is, as such, not first and foremost preoccupied with GDP growth, limiting the scale of matter/energy throughput to a level where the economy works
within ecological boundaries would undoubtedly result also in a smaller GDP.
12 If we do not consider the fact that capitalism proceeds in different growth strategies and modes of regulation, then we run the risk of repeating the errors
of earlier generations of Marxists who thought that the social tensions and
contradictions inherent in capitalism as mode of production would lead to its
inevitable and in some cases immediate collapse.
2
Institutional forms and diversity:
from capitalism to degrowth
The capital accumulation process is pervaded by several tensions and contradictions that manifest as continuous features of, or ruptures in, the
development of capitalism (Harvey 2014). Due to its contradictory nature,
capitalism depends on the existence of societal institutions beyond the market to temporarily stabilise it (Jessop 2002: 19). Various strands of scholarship deal with this phenomenon.1 In this chapter, we build upon regulation
theory, which was designed to consider the specific social, cultural and institutional forms and frameworks within which capitalist growth in actual
social formations proceeds. According to this theory, accumulation regimes
need to be stabilised by modes of regulation conceptualised in terms of various institutional forms: the wage–labour nexus, the enterprise form, the
monetary regime, the state and insertion into international regimes (Boyer
and Saillard 2002; Koch 2012; Lipietz 1992). In addition to this, regulationist scholarship has dealt with the relation to nature of specific accumulation
regimes.
Consideration of institutional forms has so far predominantly entered
analyses of capitalist social formations. Degrowth scholarship has not, for
the most part, adopted the concept, or for that matter regulation theory
terminology more generally (but see Koch and Buch-Hansen 2021). It is
thus safe to say that comprehensive answers as to what the various institutional forms could involve in relation to degrowth (that is, whether they
could come to stabilise a degrowth economy) have not been provided.
Nevertheless, to varying extents, ideas or visions related to each form have
been developed, both by degrowth scholars and scholars working on, for
instance, eco-feminism and diverse economies. In this chapter we relate to
some of these ideas to contemplate what transformations towards degrowth
could entail. Moreover, we bring up the issue of what capitalist diversity
means for such transformations. First, however, we consider institutional
forms under capitalism.
13
Institutional forms and diversity
31
Institutional forms
The concept of institutional forms refers to the various institutional
arrangements that, in a given spatio-temporal setting, lend stability to a
specific regime of accumulation (Piletic 2019: 1310). By implication, institutional forms vary in place and time. The examples of Fordist and neoliberal capitalism can be used to exemplify this point. The Fordist era in the
decades after the Second World War is often referred to as the Golden Age
of Capitalism (e.g., Glyn et al. 1990). It entailed ‘a virtuous circle of growth
based on mass production, rising productivity based on economics of scale,
rising incomes linked to productivity, increased mass demand due to rising
wages, increased profits based on full utilization of capacity and increased
investment in improved mass production equipment and techniques’ (Jessop
2002: 56). Overall, institutional forms in this era delivered stable accumulation and social progress in the advanced capitalist countries for approximately three decades (Neilson 2020).
The content of the institutional forms in the Fordist mode of regulation was characterised by the following features. Its wage–labour nexus
involved industrial relations systems with minimum wage levels and
generalised collective agreements that coupled wages and productivity
increases. Its enterprise form involved large corporations oriented towards
economies of scale production and an oligopolistic form of competition.
Its monetary regime entailed credit money and credit policies oriented
towards maintaining aggregate demand in national markets. In terms of
state form, a Keynesian welfare state provided social security for citizens,
ensuring that they remained consumers even in the absence of employment. And, finally, the international system was oriented towards the
expansion of trade and investment in the Atlantic zone (Jessop 2002: 57;
Boyer and Saillard 2002; Lipietz 1992). Of these institutional forms, the
wage–labour nexus prevailed in the Fordist mode of regulation: ‘The
necessity of a parallel evolution of mass consumption and mass production for the coherence of Fordism put the institutional arrangements of
the wage–labour nexus at the centre of the whole institutional architecture’ (Amable 2000: 665). As this indicates, not only does the content
of the various institutional forms vary, so does their internal hierarchy,
which is to say that one or more institutional forms matter more than the
rest in a given mode of regulation.
After the 1970s, Fordist-Keynesian capitalism gave way to a postfordist-
neoliberal form of capitalism (henceforth denoted neoliberal capitalism).
In Chapter 3 we consider some of the mechanisms causing this shift. In the
32
Deep transformations
present context we can note that the new form of capitalism entailed deep
changes in all the institutional forms making up the previously existing modes
of regulation. Neoliberal capitalism involves a finance-dominated accumulation regime, and a key feature of its mode of regulation is financial deregulation (Skyrman 2022; see also Koch 2012: 87). Entailing deregulation of
domestic financial systems combined with the liberalisation of international
capital flows, financial deregulation fundamentally changed the financial
landscape and enhanced the power of the financial sector (Stockhammer
2011: 239). The growing weight of finance in the economy is often referred
to as financialisation (Krippner 2005). As observed by Frieden (2007: 385),
‘By the late 1990s international financial activities were so intertwined with
domestic financial markets that for all intents and purposes there was one
global financial system that included all the developed countries and many
developing and formerly Communist countries.’ In terms of the hierarchy of
institutional forms, regulation theorists have suggested that this monetary
regime is at the top under neoliberal capitalism (e.g., Boyer and Saillard
2002; Piletic 2019).
It is not so much the transnationalisation of finance, however, as the
transnationalisation (globalisation) of the production process that qualitatively sets the neoliberal era apart from previous eras (Robinson 2004).
This development was closely related to gigantic, transnational corporations (TNCs) becoming the dominant enterprise form. The number of
such corporations increased from approximately 7,000 in 1970 to over
38,000 in 1995 and to more than 100,000 in 2010 (Jaworek and Kuzel
2015; Robinson 2004: 55–56). Paralleling this development was a massive
increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) –that is, investments that are
made to acquire interests in companies operating outside the economy of
the investor. In the neoliberal era, deindustrialisation, technological change
and the growing transnationalisation of ownership structures and production circuits marked a gradual and partial transition towards a more flexible type of capitalism (Jessop 2002). The transnationalisation of economic
structures intensified competitive pressures and forced many companies to
become more flexible.
This development translated, for instance, into a push for more flexible
labour markets, resulting in a move away from the existing wage–labour
nexus. ‘The developed economies needed to adjust to a new and emerging
division of labour, where huge differences in unit labour costs stimulated
the relocation of production especially in manufacturing’ (Dannreuther and
Petit 2006: 106). As a result, wages and social protection came under pressure in the advanced capitalist countries. This development was to no small
extent driven by changes in the state form. Keynesian welfare states were
gradually transformed into competition states. These expose citizens to the
33
Institutional forms and diversity
33
forces of competition and promote social solidarity only insofar as it constitutes an asset in global competition (Cerny 1997; Hirvilammi and Koch
2020; Streeck 2000). In parallel, state regulation of the economy in a broad
range of areas was ‘neoliberalised’, the areas of competition policy, industrial policy and monetary policy being cases in point (e.g., Buch-Hansen
and Wigger 2011; Bulfone 2022). This development was to no small extent
due to the emergence in the international system of loose networks made up
of trans-and supranational organisations such as the OECD, IMF, WTO,
World Bank and EU, together with national states. These networks, which
can also be thought of as transnational state apparatuses (Robinson 2004),
serve to organise the conditions of transnational accumulation. In this transnational architecture, states compete with one another to attract mobile
capital.
A sixth institutional form? The social relation to nature
Different accumulation regimes correspond to specific forms of appropriation of nature by society. For example, accumulation regimes may be linked
to specific forms of energy consumption such as biotic, fossil and renewable
energy sources. This is reflected in regulation theory, where some scholars
speak of ‘energy regimes’ or more broadly ‘the social relation to the environment’. There is some disagreement among regulation theorists as to whether
the social relation to the environment constitutes an institutional form in its
own right. Some argue that the relation to the environment is governed by
all the fundamental social relations of capitalism, as a result of which it does
not constitute an institutional form in its own right (Douai and Montalban
2012). Others argue that it is meaningful to consider the relation to the
environment as a sixth institutional form inasmuch as the specific manner
in which energy/matter is utilised is subject to regulation (Becker and Raza
2000). This institutional form, then, regulates ‘access to, and utilization of,
the material world both for productive and reproductive activities. Hence,
it also regulates the spatial and temporal distribution of the ecological costs
and benefits of these (re-)productive activities’ (2000: 10). Synthesising these
perspectives, Cahen-Fourot (2020) proposes that while each of the five traditional institutional forms is likely to influence society–nature relations,
the combination of all their effects is what produces a particular relation
between the mode of regulation and the environment.
Here we proceed on the assumption that the social relation to the environment can meaningfully be considered a distinct institutional form, yet
consistent with the terminology used in Chapter 1, we refer to it as the social
relation to nature. Considering this institutional form first in relation to
34
Deep transformations
Fordist capitalism, we can note that this type of capitalism delivered some
decades of economic growth and social progress in the advanced capitalist
countries. It did so, in processes mediated by global value chains, on the
basis of highly violent social relations to nature (Brand and Wissen 2012).
That is, the aforementioned Golden Age of Capitalism in the Global North
was premised on massive consumption of fossil energy and only possible
due to the overexploitation of natural resources. Had all people led lifestyles
corresponding to what many Westerners came to think of as adequate material welfare levels after the Second World War, the planet would have ended
in an acute climate emergency significantly earlier (Koch and Mont 2016;
Fritz and Koch 2016). Fordist progress, then, was accompanied by massive
growth in CO2 emissions. Indeed, the origins and development of the global
climate crisis relate directly to ‘the upswing and generalisation of the Fordist
production and consumption norm in the Western world and of the simultaneous establishment of an international division of labour in industrialised
and extraction societies’ (Koch 2012: 83; see also Lessenich 2019). For this
and other reasons (Laruffa 2022: 124), Fordism and the Keynesian welfare
state should not be glamorised.
As for neoliberal capitalism, it certainly inflicts no less violence on
nature than did its predecessor. Aside from remaining overwhelmingly reliant on fossil fuels, an inbuilt problem of neoliberal capitalism is that with
the weakening of labour, wages and thus aggregate demand levels in the
advanced capitalist countries came under pressure (e.g., Kotz 2010). This
inbuilt problem was dealt with partly by maintaining and even increasing
levels of private consumption by facilitating the increased indebtedness of
households, partly by exporting the Western consumption norm to other
parts of the world. The result is that ‘at no other point in time have so many
people in the world participated in consumption patterns that used to be
the privilege of elites’ (Koch 2012: 120). Under neoliberal capitalism, then,
despite greener technologies, more natural resources are being used than
ever before –with the distribution of this use and extraction being massively
unequal (e.g., Soper 2020: 39; see also Neilson 2020). The violent extraction of natural resources continues, mainly in the Global South. Yet it is also
important to recognise that it occurs within countries in the Global North.
For example, peripheral regions of Finland have ‘been one of the key targets of the recent global boom in the quest for untapped mineral resources’
(Lassila 2018: 1).
As noted above, the social relation to nature in a given social formation
will be influenced by other institutional forms. The state form is a case in
point. Some scholars speak of the emergence of a green or environmental
state in the last third of the twentieth century (Eckersley 2004; Hausknost
2020; Koch 2020b). Just as the welfare state emerged together with the
53
Institutional forms and diversity
35
institutionalisation of the wage–
labour nexus to mediate capital–
labour
relations and to limit the social damages caused by capitalist production, so
the environmental state serves to limit, to a certain extent, the environmental damages caused by capitalist accumulation (Gough 2016). Similarly, the
structures of the international system have a major impact on social relations
to nature in every country. For example, patterns of resource extraction are
shaped by free trade legislation enforced by international organisations.
In the context of degrowth social formations, the social relation to nature
would be altogether different from how such relations are and have been
in different capitalist social formations. Transactions with nature would be
characterised less by violence and more by gentleness and care (Buch-Hansen
and Nesterova 2023). In capitalist social formations, nature is regarded as a
pile of resources that can be extracted, monetised, exchanged and consumed.
Nature, then, is valuable because it is a source of raw materials and energy
that humans can use. Degrowth, conversely, views nature, including non-
humans, as inherently valuable irrespective of their usefulness for humans.
In economic and social practice, gentleness and care towards nature would
involve both reduction and growth in different domains. An overall far
smaller throughput of matter and energy necessitates growth in nature-and
place-based economic activities as well as more sufficiency-based modes of
being. A major reduction of fossil fuel use requires growth in renewable and
localised energy production. Importantly, there are limits as to how localised such production can meaningfully become, especially in the short run.
Equipment such as wind turbines, solar panels and the like typically requires
long supply chains, which are themselves associated with high energy consumption. Existing localised production of renewable energy, for example
using wood as biofuel, is not necessarily more sustainable than production
requiring long supply chains. Considered as a distinct institutional form,
gentle social relations to nature would be placed high in the hierarchy of
such forms in degrowth social formations. In other words, it would have a
deep impact on the functioning of the other institutional forms.
This consideration brings us to the more general matter of what
degrowth could entail in relation to the remaining institutional forms. Being
an anti-and post-capitalist project, it is clear that institutional forms under
degrowth would not serve to stabilise capital accumulation. Instead, they
would be oriented towards facilitating gentle social relations to nature as
well as social equity to ensure satisfaction of the basic needs of humanity
now and in the future. It is an open question whether the same institutional
forms –the wage–labour nexus, the enterprise form, the monetary regime,
the state form and insertion into international regimes –would also be the
key forms in the post-capitalist context of degrowth. In the following, we
will assume that they would (in versions profoundly different from their
36
Deep transformations
current manifestations) and bring together ideas and visions from degrowth
scholarship and related literatures that more or less closely connect to each
form. The purpose of this exercise is not to present a blueprint of institutional forms under degrowth. Providing such a blueprint would be meaningless, both because the future is not predetermined and because institutional
forms under degrowth would neither be uniform across space nor be fixed
once and for all. Rather, the purpose is to think, at a general level, about
what degrowth could entail in various interrelated dimensions and in this
context indicate the depth of the transformations it would require. While
touching upon all the institutional forms in the following sections, we devote
most attention to the wage–labour nexus and money, as later chapters deal
in greater depth with the remaining forms.
The wage–labour nexus
Several growth-critical scholars have observed how, under capitalism, work
is intimately entangled with the growth imperative. Jackson and Victor
(2011) speak of a productivity trap, which involves companies, in order to
increase profits and market shares, seeking to grow labour productivity. As
a result, fewer employees are needed to produce the same quantity of goods
and services, meaning that unemployment increases in the absence of economic growth. For those affected, unemployment entails a loss of meaning,
identity, social status and the ability to consume. The trap, then, contributes
to creating widespread support for economic growth. While not necessarily
involving the abandonment of wage labour, degrowth would involve breaking with productivity growth and entail various transformations of work.
Barca (2019), for example, advocates a liberation from and of work. The
liberation from work involves a reduction in work time and the simultaneous creation of time and spaces beyond work-life for regenerative activities, community building and activism. The introduction of a universal basic
income is a policy that could contribute towards this end. The liberation of
work involves changing the predominant nature of work, for instance in
terms of how it is controlled, organised and distributed. This could entail
that work is increasingly controlled by those carrying it out, that work is
organised more democratically and less hierarchically, and that both stimulating work and less pleasant but necessary work is distributed more equally
(see also Chertkovskaya and Paulsson 2021).
Wage labour is the predominant form taken by work under capitalism,
yet zooming in on existing societies it can be seen that labour, including
wage labour, takes multiple forms. Diverse economies scholarship brings
into focus this diversity (e.g., Gibson-
Graham and Dombroski 2020).
73
Institutional forms and diversity
37
It notes that some labour is unpaid, including labour undertaken by non-
human species, housework, family care, emotional labour, neighbourhood
work, volunteering and slave labour. As for waged work, it also takes a
variety of forms, ranging from salaried and unionised work to increasingly
common precarious forms of work, such as part-time, non-unionised, temporary, freelance and seasonal work. Finally, several forms of work that are
remunerated in ways other than with wages exist, including, for example,
self-employed, self-provisioning, cooperative, indentured, feudal, reciprocal
and bartered labour (Gibson-Graham and Dombroski 2020: 13).
It is in non-
profit-
oriented work contexts that niches relevant for
degrowth transformations are most likely to be developed and expanded
(Hinton 2020). Feminist scholars have long noted that work of essential
importance to the functioning of society either does not take the form of
wage labour or is underpaid and under-recognised. Most notably, reproductive care work –taking care of children and elderly and various household
work –is mainly undertaken by women and is not regarded as proper work.
In the Global North, where many women work in the wage-labour market,
much care work has been commodified, for example by being outsourced
to privatised care providers employing underpaid, mainly female, caregivers
from the Global South (Dengler and Seebacher 2019). Feminist degrowth
scholars envision gender-just care beyond monetary valuation (Dengler and
Lang 2022). They note that the reorganisation of care needs to take into
consideration the diversity of currently existing care arrangements existing
around the globe and that ‘many of today’s examples for caring commons
are found in the Global South, where communitarian caring commons …
and more generally, communal modes of living have survived colonial intrusion at the margins of capitalism’ (2022: 17). It is important to add to this
that in many places communal modes of living come with family obligations, arranged marriages, traditional gender roles and restricted freedoms,
especially for women. As such, these communities should not be romanticised in general. Also, for the sake of nuance, it is important to recognise
that not only women perform underpaid, under-recognised and undesirable
work: for example, many dirty industries with dangerous work employ
mainly male workers. For degrowth, then, the point is not just to emancipate women but to emancipate humanity (see also Bhaskar 2012a).
As noted in the Introduction, degrowth as we understand it involves
massive growth in some sectors such as organic agriculture and renewable
energy, combined with the shrinkage or abolition of other sectors. These
other sectors include polluting sectors such as oil and coal, sectors promoting unsustainable consumption such as advertising, sectors manufacturing products that inflict harm on people and nature such as the military
industry, and sectors creating little use value, finance being a case in point.
38
Deep transformations
By implication, the distribution of jobs across sectors –and thus the prevalent nature of work –would be very different in the context of degrowth.
Under degrowth, the bulk of employment would have to be shifted from
jobs that are environmentally harmful to jobs that entail gentler relations to
nature. An aspect of such gentleness relates to the types of outputs resulting
from work. Desirable outputs are goods and services that directly benefit
nature (for example, composting food waste) or constitute ecologically generalisable need satisfiers (for example, organic horticulture providing people
with food). Conversely, undesirable outputs are ones entailing unnecessary
violence done to nature. Cases in point are work outputs designed to satisfy luxury wants for, say, holidays in distant locations, SUVs and villas
(Bohnenberger 2022). Another sustainability-related aspect of work concerns lifestyles. A sustainable work-lifestyle exists when a job does not
prevent the employee and his or her household from leading a sustainable lifestyle. A job can do so in various ways. It can, for instance, provide
income that is too low for the employee to be able to make sustainable
choices, such as buying organic food. Conversely, a job can provide income
that is so large that it enables the employee to lead a grossly unsustainable
lifestyle (Bohnenberger 2022).2
In the previous chapter we noted how, in capitalism, most jobs alienate
workers. Moreover, many jobs result in employees suffering from burnout
and stress. Degrowth advocates envision a post-capitalist society in which
the pace is slower, including in the area of work. Soper (2020) imagines
a society in which state-of-the-art technologies in the energy and medical
areas blend with the reinstatement of previous ways of producing and providing. Specifically, she has in mind the expansion of craft ways of working
with ‘their emphasis on skill, attention to detail, and personal involvement
and control’ (Soper 2020: 100). The use of skill, the exercise of mental
concentration and the satisfaction it can give rise to means that such work
has relevance in post-capitalist contexts. Soper underscores the importance
of not reproducing the exploitative nature of labour processes associated
with artisan work in premodern times, of cutting the link between economic
growth and progress without dismissing ‘the advances in democracy and
social and sexual emancipation that have accompanied the development of
market society and mass production’ (2020: 104).
The monetary regime
As noted above, a monetary regime characterised by deregulated financial
systems and liberalised international capital flows is at the top of the hierarchy of institutional forms in neoliberal capitalism. More generally, the
93
Institutional forms and diversity
39
nature of money and the financial system is at the core of what makes possible the commodification of nature and social life under capitalism, leading
to a variety of ills. The current international financial system, for example, facilitates the drain of natural resources from the Global South to the
Global North due to debt relations and financial dependency (Dziwok and
Jäger 2021). Money is unlikely to disappear in a degrowth society, yet in the
literature on degrowth, various proposals are discussed that involve money
coming to play a different and overall far less prominent role. In other
words, the monetary regime would be placed much lower in the hierarchy
of institutional forms than is the case under neoliberal capitalism.
A demonetisation of pursuits such as food and energy production is a
key way in which money could become less important in degrowth social
formations. That is, to the extent people can use or share energy and food
they themselves have contributed to producing, these activities come to exist
outside the capitalist accumulation process and thus no longer translate into
economic growth (Heikkurinen et al. 2019). Demonetising these and other
pursuits could not only result in all basic human needs being satisfied outside the framework of capitalism, it could also free time and energy for
other activities, such as activism and education. This would mark a shift in
relation to (neoliberal) capitalism where, as previously noted, much such
time and energy is tied to wage labour. The use of time banks, where time is
the unit of currency, is a means through which demonetisation can unfold.
Other practices of demonetisation could be barter (Trainer 2012) and the
introduction of local currencies (Dittmer 2013). Demonetisation, then, is a
process that would result in the shrinking of the space in which monetised
relations and the accumulate-or-perish logic of capitalism prevail.
Another proposal discussed in the literature on degrowth is to put the
creation of money under public control, so as to democratise the monetary
regime and increase the probability that money is provided for societally
desirable purposes (Cahen-Fourot et al. 2022: 344). Investments would,
for instance, be channelled to sustainable, non-growing businesses, community energy initiatives, and improvements of public infrastructure and
transport, as well as worker-led organisations (Chertkovskaya and Paulsson
2021: 417). This would require legislation at the national and international
levels, legislation requiring public banks to serve the common good by providing money for activities satisfying human needs (as opposed to wants)
and gentler relations to nature.
In recent years there has been much talk of green finance in degrowth
circles and beyond. Originating in financial-sector strategies, green finance
initiatives for the most part serve mainly to turn the climate and biodiversity crises into profit opportunities for the sector. Such initiatives, then, are
reformist in nature and do not point beyond capitalism. Yet other visions of
40
Deep transformations
green finance are more progressive. Distinguishing between different varieties of green finance and monetary policy, Dziwok and Jäger (2021) identify a variety which they consider broadly compatible with degrowth. They
call, for instance, for the expansion and transformation of so-called debt-
for-nature swaps. Such swaps involve forgiving foreign debt obligations,
allowing debtor nations to use the money for environmental purposes. They
also suggest that monetary policy can provide a global institutional setting
within which resources for the attainment of global sustainable welfare can
be provided (Dziwok and Jäger 2021). For green finance to become compatible with degrowth, the financial sector would need to give up its one-sided
fixation on growth and focus instead on the common good and relocate
vast sums of finance to other areas (Dörry and Schulz 2022). That is, in
contemporary capitalism, money is channelled to where returns on investment are high or acceptable. In degrowth social formations, the point would
be to channel money to where ecological and social returns are high, that
is, where it is needed, irrespective of the potential return. For instance, this
may include financing small-scale businesses which do not plan to grow and
pursue sufficiency in the size or scale of the business.
Currently a lot of so-called green finance is channelled to activities aiming to lower carbon emissions, such as renewable energy. The main struggle
small, non-growth-oriented sustainable companies are currently facing is a
lack of access to finance. Under degrowth, financing would not depend on
businesses wanting to grow (Nesterova 2021a). Seen from the perspective of
degrowth, this focus is inadequate as it risks forgoing support towards other
transformative forms of business. Cases in point could be local craft and
artisanal businesses, small-scale organic farmers, repair cafés, libraries, renting services, lower and appropriate technologies, businesses that produce
durable products, and alternative, affordable dwellings. If so-called green
finance is to make a difference in degrowth transformations, the meaning of
‘green’ needs to be redefined and expanded, to concern not just low carbon
but to also include other degrowth-compatible businesses and initiatives.
Under normal (capitalist) circumstances, little investment which does not
promise return would be happening. To avoid such an outcome in degrowth
social formations, the state would in all likelihood need to oversee financing
and change the terms on which it takes place. One aspect could be to prevent investment in undesirable industries while facilitating resources being
channelled towards genuinely green industries. Another aspect could be to
provide financing without interest repayment. Such financing would reduce
pressures on businesses –including pressures to grow because of borrowing
necessitating repayment with interest. In contemporary capitalism, innovative businesses experimenting with local materials and new business models
particularly struggle to obtain funding as they are often perceived as risky.
14
Institutional forms and diversity
41
Green finance (as understood here) without interest could help such businesses and encourage more people to perhaps seek and try such employment rather than employment in ‘bullshit jobs’ in inhumane multinational
corporations. A third aspect of the role the state could play in facilitating
(genuine) green finance concerns the principles of financing. Many people
feel powerless in relation to the current financial system. They are confronted with certain rules of the game which they are required to accept as
something given. For example, if they want to start a business, they have to
promise growth to the financing institution, borrow, repay with interest or
even adjust their business plan (which may go against their original idea) in
order to be granted a loan. Changing these rules of the game, the state could
pave the way for different principles of financing, making it more accessible
to a wider range of people and purposes.
In thinking about money, it is important to recognise that it is not a
homogeneous artefact. Hornborg (2019) distinguishes the currently prevailing form of general-purpose money from special-purpose money. General-
purpose money is underpinned by the notion that anything can be converted
into anything else. Child labour can be bought for money deriving from the
sale of wine gums or guns. ‘In making all values interchangeable’, Hornborg
(2019: 6–7) writes, ‘general purpose money dissolves the kinds of distinctions on which all living systems depend: between the short term and the
long term, the small scale and the large scale, the trivial and the essential’.
The problem with this form of money is that there are no constraints on
what can be bought for it. Consumers, then, are incentivised to search for
the best deal and use the money to purchase the least expensive products
available. That these products are cheap is often a function of how they
were produced in the first place, that is, with little regard for the wellbeing
of employees and nature. Hornborg envisions a reform of the currency system which leads to the introduction of a digital, special-purpose currency
that exists next to general-purpose money. This complementary currency,
which is to be introduced in each country and be distributed to all its citizens
as a basic income, can be used only for local use. That is, the currency can
only be used for purchasing goods and services produced within a certain
geographical radius of the location of the purchase. Key purposes of such
a currency are to limit the damage done by transnational financial speculation and reduce long-distance transportation of goods and the associated
harm done to nature, while increasing local cooperation and integration
(Hornborg 2019: 233–242).
Hornborg’s proposal is appealing but not without challenges. While local
production may sound, and is often presented as, desirable, it is important
to be aware that such production (if at all possible) may itself conceal long
supply chains. That is, as also touched upon above, a locally made product
42
Deep transformations
may still require equipment and ingredients made elsewhere, equipment and
ingredients that may themselves be products requiring long supply chains.
Even locally grown food requires the use of equipment and machines (if not
the chemicals, packaging or energy) made outside the location where it is
grown. If, then, consumers are to be able to make informed decisions with
respect to the purchase of products which are eligible for being bought with
special-purpose currencies, full disclosure of what went into the production
of these products would be necessary. Another noteworthy consideration
is the digital nature of special-purpose currency. While in the minds of the
public the currency may be geographically restricted, enabling its use is far
less geographically limited. For instance, data centres which make data storage possible may be located elsewhere. Digital currencies also require digital/electronic devices which likewise necessitate long supply chains. This is
not to discount the potential value of special-purpose currencies, but rather
to highlight that reduction in, for example, long-distance transportation in
one domain does not necessarily eliminate the issue of long-distance transportation altogether.
The state, the international system and business
The state in capitalist social formations is, unsurprisingly, a capitalist state.
That is, it is a state that in various ways serves to facilitate the capital accumulation process. It does this in a variety of ways, which differ from one
formation to another. In neoliberal capitalism, which primarily serves the
interests of transnational capital, a key function of the state and international
organisations is to serve as promoters of competition both in the corporate
sphere and in society at large. Owing to a deep suspicion of democracy, key
state institutions, such as central banks, are insulated from democratic pressures (Buch-Hansen and Wigger 2011; Harvey 2005). Moreover, even when
it assumes the guise of an ‘environmental state’ that reduces the damage
caused to nature by the working of capitalism, the social relation to nature
remains a grossly violent one.
For degrowth social formations to work, a very different type of state
would be needed. For one thing, the orientation of the ‘degrowth state’
would be profoundly different from that of the neoliberal capitalist state. In
degrowth social formations, state interventions at all scales (local, national,
transnational) would promote gentle social relations to nature and human
needs satisfaction for all. This would be reflected in how tax revenues are
used, namely on sustainable welfare (see Chapter 5), universal basic income
and universal basic services rather than on, say, the military complex and
subsidies for dirty industries. The degrowth state would heavily tax polluters
34
Institutional forms and diversity
43
and income and/or wealth above a certain level and use these and other tax
revenues for subsidising a wide range of degrowth-compatible businesses
and initiatives (see also Latouche 2009). As noted above, many such businesses and initiatives currently have few possibilities for gaining funding
and encounter regulatory obstacles. As such, they would benefit from state
involvement in the form of policies that in various ways support small-scale,
local production, not-for-profit organisations and other alternative forms.
More controversially, to accomplish degrowth on a societal scale, the
state may well have to nationalise dirty sectors, such as conventional monoculture, industries engaged in natural resource extraction and fossil fuels
and companies producing chemicals, metals, mineral products and paper
products.3 The state would do so with a view to taking charge of either
transforming (‘greening’) these sectors or dismantling them altogether
(see Chapter 5). Such steps would have negative consequences relating to
employment, and risk affecting the mental health of individuals employed
in the sectors in question. Many of these individuals would be concerned
about future occupation, pensions, meaning and identity. To alleviate these
consequences, the state would need to proactively facilitate the reskilling of
such employees and ensuring that genuinely green jobs are available.
Aside from reskilling for individuals leaving dirty industries, the degrowth
state would provide free education for all and make available diverse options
of education including higher education and vocational training. Moreover,
the very nature of education would need to be transformed. Currently, the
system of education is geared towards the reproduction of capitalist structures, whereas degrowth would require creating spaces for new imaginaries,
reflection and critical approaches to capitalism and its structures, as well
as emphasising genuine sustainability (Kaufmann et al. 2019). Educational
pursuits of individuals can be facilitated by the state not only by making
education accessible (free) and useful for a more sustainable future, but also
by introducing supporting mechanisms which make education affordable
and possible for everyone. Such mechanisms could include universal basic
income, affordable housing and the provision of free services such as transportation, healthcare and childcare.
In terms of steering, the literature generally envisions degrowth transitions and societies to be profoundly democratic (Schmelzer et al. 2022). For
instance, this may, in addition to representative democracy, involve more
direct participatory decision-making, allowing citizens to be involved in taking decisions affecting their lives. This is relevant, for instance, in relation
to green finance where, as we touched upon above, the state could play a
key role. Its activities in this area could be guided or supported by various democratic forums. Relatedly, some scholars envision citizens’ councils
which facilitate public control over banking and financial regulation (e.g.,
44
Deep transformations
Cahen-Fourot et al. 2022). Similar forums could be involved in deciding
on tax-funded (low or no interest) green investments. Such a democratisation of green investments could be paralleled by steps taken by the state to
reduce the space for investments by angel investors and venture capitalists.
These forms of investment are widespread in capitalism (S. C. Parker 2018).
They commonly entail the investors being entitled to a share in a business
and its profit. Apart from putting immense pressure on the businesspersons to grow their businesses to repay debts, these forms of financing may
alienate businesspersons from their business as a project and an idea since
the investors acquire an opportunity to have a say in its matters. For more
people to come to have a say on decisions in democratic forums, a redistribution (decentralisation) of power from the state to the local scale would be
necessary (cf. Chapters 5 and 6).
As regards scale, degrowth scholarship has mainly focused on the
local and the national levels (albeit see Fritz and Koch 2016; Koch 2015;
Hasselbalch et al. 2023; Babic and Sharma 2023). Treatment of the international dimension has predominantly revolved around the Global North–
Global South distinction, with many scholars arguing that degrowth mainly
or exclusively concerns the Global North. While this is in some respects a
fair argument, in others it is problematic: deep transformations across all
four planes of social being are as relevant in the South as they are in the
North, although the very different contexts are of course essential to take
into consideration. Degrowth scholarship has yet to focus in any depth on
the insertion of local and national scales into a global architecture. This
is unfortunate, as it is difficult to imagine degrowth (national-scale) social
formations functioning –or coming into being in the first place –in the
absence of international coordination (see also Neilson 2020: 104).4 Indeed,
it is hard to envision one country succeeding in pursuing degrowth while all
others remain integrated in the architecture of global capitalism. The state
seems best positioned to ensure such coordination. That is, it makes more
sense to coordinate international degrowth on the state level than the micro
or grassroots level of individuals, businesses and movements. States can
direct transformations in the international spaces and organisations they
form part of (the EU, the OECD, the United Nations etc.).
The prevailing type of organisation of production and service provision
in the growth-based economy is a large and growing business motivated
by profit and owned by shareholders (Johanisova et al. 2013; Roman-
Alcalá 2017). Such organisations are always in pursuit of minimising costs
and maximising profit. They do so by externalising their costs to workers, the environment and future generations and exploiting nature, humans
and non-
humans. The competitive setting in which such organisations
operate further facilitates this externalisation of costs and exploitation.
54
Institutional forms and diversity
45
The whole world is viewed by such organisations as a resource pool and a
market, while humans and nature are reduced to mere factors of production. Human desires for belonging, respect, comfort and so on are utilised
by corporations as a platform for creation of wants. Many have pointed to
multiple problems associated with such an inhuman scale of production and
the inhumanity and alienation which derive from this scale, and called for
human-scale production and production carried out in a humanistic way,
with people and nature in mind (Schumacher 1993; Max-Neef 1991, 1992).
For instance, for Max-Neef (1992), smallness or human scale indicates
transparency, lack of bureaucracy and a relative ease of solving problems as
they become manageable.
For Schumacher (1993), smallness meant lower ecological as well as
social impact. Schumacher suggested that small-scale operations are less
likely to be harmful to the environment than large-scale ones because their
force is smaller in relation to the forces of nature. According to him, people
organised in small units would take better care of natural resources than
‘anonymous companies’ which perceive the universe to be their quarry
(Schumacher 1993: 23). The principles of production and business for a
degrowth society have been known at least since the 1970s. Localisation,
increased self-sufficiency, smallness and production to satisfy genuine human
needs are some of those principles. However, more recently attempts have
been made to more holistically outline what a business should look like in a
degrowth society. While we discuss this in more detail in Chapter 6, here we
briefly summarise the key aspects of degrowth business. First and foremost,
business needs to be transformative of itself as well as the socio-economic
structures of production. Transformations need to unfold in the domains of
the business’s material transactions with nature, people and non-humans
and profit. In a degrowth society, production would be localised and place-
sensitive, and, above all, humane.
It is important to recognise the nuance associated with business and
degrowth transformations. For instance, not all businesses currently operating in the capitalist setting are large and profit-maximising, faceless and
inhumane corporations. There are multiple examples of diverse forms of
organising production (Gibson-Graham 2006). Not all businesses are striving
to maximise their profits, exploit humans and nature and grow indefinitely.
Cases in point are non-growing firms, lifestyle businesses and small-scale
craft and artisanal production. Moreover, it is unrealistic to assume that
degrowth transformation would, at least initially, entail conversion of all
large-scale production into small-scale initiatives. Indeed, large-scale production is likely to remain in a degrowth society, while the principles –the
reasons, ends, means and ownership patterns –under which such production is carried out would need to change substantially (see Chapter 6).
46
Deep transformations
From capitalist diversity to degrowth diversity
A diversity of economies already exists alongside capitalism (Gibson-
Graham 2006). Yet when moving from considering capitalism at an abstract
level to considering its actual forms in specific spatio-temporal settings,
it also becomes clear that capitalism itself continues to take a variety of
forms –despite the pressures for convergence associated with economic
globalisation and neoliberal policies. Aside from changing over time,
institutional forms differ geographically. The field of comparative political economy is devoted to studying this diversity. Starting with the seminal
work of Shonfield (1965), which identified a liberal model of capitalism
typical of Britain, a statist model typical of France and a corporatist model
typical of Germany, a range of typologies have been developed to aid the
study of capitalist diversity. The most well-known examples are Esping-
Andersen’s three welfare regime ideal-types (Esping-Andersen 1990) and
the ‘varieties of capitalism’ approach which distinguishes between coordinated and liberal market economies (Hall and Soskice 2001). Comparative
political economy scholarship brings into focus how advanced capitalist
countries differ with respect to their industrial relations systems, corporate
governance arrangements, competition policy, the generosity of social transfers, and taxation and education systems, to give but a few examples.
Although the environment has generally been neglected by scholarship on capitalist diversity (Koch and Buch-Hansen 2021), such scholarship still provides important insight into the nature of capitalism, insights
constituting a crucial supplement to the considerations of how institutional forms differed in Fordist versus neoliberal capitalism.5 For example,
Keynesian welfare states took a variety of forms, with the social democratic
Scandinavian countries having welfare arrangements exhibiting a higher
degree of decommodification than the conservative regime in Germany or
the liberal one in the US (Esping-Andersen 1990). Fordism itself also varied
among the advanced capitalist countries. For example, whereas Germany
extensively introduced Fordist production techniques, in Denmark it was
mainly the demand side of the Fordist growth model, that is, mass consumption of standardised goods, that manifested itself. In all its forms, however,
Fordism relied on overexploitation of natural resources, not least in developing countries, where Fordism did not materialise. In a similar vein, a variety of competition states can be identified (Genschel and Seelkopf 2015).
When accounting for why different types of capitalism have emerged in
different countries, one of the key factors pointed to by scholars of capitalist diversity are historical legacies of various kinds. For example, welfare
regime scholarship has pointed to the importance of religious roots, noting
that liberal welfare regimes mainly emerged in Protestant countries, whereas
74
Institutional forms and diversity
47
conservative welfare regimes typically appeared in countries dominated by
Catholicism. Such scholarship also notes that the degree to which workers were organised in unions contributed to determining the nature of the
welfare regime that emerged. In a similar vein, scholarship concerning the
post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe points out that institutional and cultural legacies mattered greatly in the transition from ‘communism’ to capitalism (Bohle and Greskovits 2007). Feldmann (2006), for
example, identifies diverging legacies as a major reason why Estonia and
Slovenia witnessed the emergence of fundamentally different varieties of
capitalism.
The implications for degrowth transformations are vast. Aside from
entailing systemic changes (Buch-Hansen and Carstensen 2021), such transformations would also entail incremental changes (Barlow et al. 2022) starting out from current social formations. That is, just as all capitalist societies
took shape on the basis of what came before them, whether that was specific
manifestations of feudalism or communism, so degrowth transformations,
if they were in fact initiated on a wide scale, would to no small extent be
shaped by the diverse structures, including institutional forms, of contemporary capitalism. Certainly, ‘institutions can vary in their degree of path
dependency, such that we can envisage institutions in the Anthropocene
that are able to adapt to a rapidly changing (and potentially catastrophic)
social-ecological context’ (Dryzek 2016: 942). Still, path dependencies and
ideational legacies would mean that instead of simply disappearing, existing forms would be recalibrated via a combination of existing practices and
principles with new ones originating in various strands of thinking, including contemporary degrowth thinking. Within countries transformations
would thus exhibit at least some continuity with the past, guaranteeing that
a degrowth transformation in, say, Iceland would look very different from
a degrowth transition in, say, Poland, Australia or Argentina (Buch-Hansen
2014; Buch-Hansen et al. 2016).
In conclusion
In this chapter the regulation theory concept of institutional forms was
considered, first in relation to Fordist and neoliberal capitalism, then in
relation to degrowth. Whereas institutional forms in capitalist social formations overall serve to facilitate capital accumulation (albeit not always successfully), we envision that under degrowth they would instead be oriented
towards facilitating gentle social relations to nature and the satisfaction of
basic human needs for all. Here we considered visions on the social relation
to nature, the wage–labour nexus, the enterprise form, the nature of money,
48
Deep transformations
the state, and insertion into international regimes in relation to degrowth.
Given that degrowth has yet to materialise on a societal level, and given
that it would vary from one setting to the next, no attempt was made to
outline more than the contours of how the institutional forms could look
in degrowth social formations. Nor was an attempt made to specify their
hierarchy, although it was suggested that, in comparison to under neoliberal capitalism, (gentle) social relations to nature would be placed high in
the hierarchy, whereas the monetary regime would take a less prominent
position.
The idea would be for the various institutional forms to entangle and
produce synergies. For example, the state and international organisations
may oversee green finance, channelling economic resources to degrowth-
compatible businesses, creating meaningful green employment. Participation
in/working for degrowth-compatible businesses, which opens spaces for
deviation from profit maximisation and shorter working hours, would allow
individuals to dedicate more time towards taking part in direct democracy,
thus having an impact on how the state makes decisions and shapes society’s relations to nature. A similar effect of increased participation in direct
democracy can be achieved, for instance, by the state providing universal
basic income. Demonetisation of spaces, such as producing one’s own food
and energy, may require more time spent in and with nature and working with the land and nature more closely, thus deeply transforming and
reshaping social (and individual) relations to nature. In turn, a transformed
relation to nature may encourage people to participate differently in other
spaces such as business and democracy and seek meaningful employment
and education for genuine sustainability.
Notes
1 One strand of critical political economy research speaks, for example, of social
structures of accumulation to denote the set of institutions that serve to stabilise
the capital accumulation process in specific times and places (e.g., McDonough
et al. 2010).
2 In this context it can be noted that in the degrowth literature proposals for both
minimum and maximum incomes are discussed (e.g., Buch-Hansen and Koch
2019; Hickel 2020).
3 On the delay tactics currently used by the petrochemical industry to avoid genuine sustainability transitions, see Tilsted et al. (2022).
4 On how to combine such coordination with localised, human-scale development, cf. Max-Neef (1991).
94
Institutional forms and diversity
49
5 Because mainstream (constructivist and rationalist) comparative political economy scholarship studies capitalism as if nature does not matter, critical issues
become none-issues in such research. This is seen in how economic growth
is viewed, namely in an altogether one-sided (positive) manner. GDP growth
is regarded as the most important measure of economic performance and is
thus widely used as the key parameter for comparing how successful specific
countries are. With inspiration from mainstream economics, ‘good’ institutions are seen as those capable of delivering high GDP and productivity growth
rates, while ‘bad’ institutions are those delivering the opposite (Amable and
Palombarini 2009: 123–124). The massive ecological downsides of capitalist
growth are neglected (Koch and Buch-Hansen 2021; see also Loewen 2022).
Although all forms of capitalism inflict harm on nature, there are still differences in their social relations to nature (Cahen-Fourot 2020). Differences also
pertain to access to nature, ranging from restricted access rights in the UK to
Everyman’s rights in some Scandinavian countries.
3
Theorising deep transformations
Capitalism, with its growth imperative, is a key structure –or rather web of
social structures –that degrowth as an anti-and post-capitalist political project aspires to transform. To initiate the theorisation of how this deep transformation can be accomplished, the present chapter draws on insights from
contemporary political economy scholarship, mainly but not solely research
and theoretical perspectives in the historical materialist tradition. A range of
historical materialist perspectives –including regulation theory (Boyer 1990;
Koch 2012; Staricco 2017), the social structures of accumulation approach
(Gordon et al. 1982; McDonough et al. 2010) and transnational historical
materialism (Cox 1987; Overbeek 2013) –all seek to explain when and why
institutional and societal changes take place. In what follows, we distil various prerequisites for deep transformative change from such scholarship (see
also Buch-Hansen 2018; Koch 2015), supplementing it with insights from,
for example, anarchism and scholarship on diverse economies. We draw
on such additional literatures because degrowth as conceptualised in the
Introduction would entail transformations the depths of which necessitate a
theorisation going well beyond what critical political economy (or any other
single field) can provide. This is the case because degrowth entails metamorphoses not only of social structures and relationships, but also of the inner
being of individuals and the social relation to nature. Moreover, the range
of actors, structures and processes such perspectives ascribe importance to
may not suffice to theorise degrowth transformations in a holistic manner.
The political economy of capitalist transformations
As noted in Chapter 2, the institutional forms making up a mode of regulation stabilise capitalism. They ‘codify the fundamental social relations
that shape a given kind of capitalism. … They stabilize and normalize
social conflicts and power struggles amongst antagonistic social groups
or classes. They embody political compromises between them and ensure
15
Theorising deep transformations
51
the reproducibility of the system until the next major crisis’ (Cahen-Fourot
2020: 3). Far from emerging automatically in response to the ‘needs’ of an
accumulation regime, then, a mode of regulation is the outcome of political conflicts and struggles. When focusing on such conflicts and struggles,
critical political economists ascribe much importance to the social forces
engendered by the capitalist production process, namely fractions of capital
and labour. These social forces are regarded as the most important drivers of
social change. The ‘members’ of a class fraction perform similar economic
functions in the process of capital accumulation and, consequently, tend to
have specific ideological inclinations (van der Pijl 1998). Seen from a class
fraction perspective, Fordist capitalism was underpinned by a ‘historic bloc’
comprising a coalition between the dominant fraction of industrial capital
and bank capital and organised labour (van Apeldoorn 2002: 52).
The outcomes of struggles between class fractions to no small extent
depend on the relative power they command. It is, for instance, far from
coincidental that wage and wealth inequalities in the advanced capitalist
countries were much lower in the 1960s than now: trade unions in Fordism –
in the context of full employment of the (male) workforce and much smaller
geographical capital mobility –were in a much better bargaining position
than is the case in today’s globalised, finance-driven and flexible accumulation regime (Koch 2012; Leonardi 2019). This also goes to show that over
time, social forces undergo transformations through dialectical interplays
with the capitalist system itself, and in this process, power relations change
and socio-economic transformations become possible (Wigger and Buch-
Hansen 2014).
This brings us to the topic of structural crises. Seen from the vantage
point of critical political economy, capitalism is a crisis-prone economic
system. This insight has roots in the works of Marx, the scholar to discover
that capitalism is replete with contradictions causing harm to people, other
species and the planet (Collier 2004). Institutional forms can temporarily
provide a fix to many of these contradictions, but eventually all modes of
regulation break down because they can no longer sustain capital accumulation. Structural crises are crises necessitating the appearance of a new
accumulation regime and mode of regulation to allow for continued capital
accumulation (Boyer and Saillard 2002). Upsetting existing arrangements
and throwing ‘social and class forces into states of flux and reorganization
that involve struggles over hegemony’ (Robinson 2014: 217), such crises
constitute moments when deep change can happen. Ultimately, structural
crises can pave the way for new historic blocs, accumulation regimes, institutional forms and modes of regulation. An example of a structural crisis
leading to such changes was the crisis of Fordist capitalism in the 1970s.
The crisis, which had multiple causes (see e.g., van Apeldoorn 2002; Jessop
52
Deep transformations
2002; Kotz and McDonough 2010), was impossible to resolve within the
framework of existing institutional forms, some of which started (or were
perceived) to undermine the capital accumulation process. The extensive
Keynesian welfare states were cases in point. Eventually a new neoliberal form of capitalism materialised in the Western world and elsewhere.
Neoliberal ideas came to prevail because they were developed into a political project that a powerful constellation of actors came to perceive as in
their interest and thus advocated (Stahl 2019).
Three phases can be delineated in the process of a political project
becoming hegemonic, namely phases of deconstruction, construction and
consolidation (van Apeldoorn and Overbeek 2012). In its deconstructive
phase, neoliberal ideas provided intellectual ammunition for the disruption
of the post-Second World War social order of embedded liberalism/social
democracy. Neoclassical economists and right-wing (organic) intellectuals
such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman played an important role
in questioning existing institutional arrangements such as the Keynesian
welfare state and in devising the emerging neoliberal project (Peck 2010).
Characterised by ‘a mix of liberal pro-market and supply-side discourses
(laissez-
faire, privatization, liberalization, deregulation, competitiveness)
and of monetarist orthodoxy (price stability, balanced budgets, austerity)’
(van Apeldoorn and Overbeek 2012: 5), the neoliberal project provided a
clear alternative to the Fordist type of capitalism and came to be widely
perceived as providing convincing solutions to its crisis.
In the constructive phase, neoliberal ideas increasingly achieved the status of being the only game in town. Countless policies and reforms came
to be shaped by such ideas. Corporate actors played a major role in these
developments. For example, research has documented how, against the
backdrop of economic crises, German and Swedish employers created and
funded think tanks and public relations campaigns that led to neoliberal
reforms of existing institutions (Kinderman 2017). The research finds that
‘these think-tanks have facilitated processes … that have led to a marked
transformation of the German and Swedish social models and of German
and Swedish capitalism over the past decades’ (2017: 590). In the final,
consolidative phase, neoliberal policies had been widely implemented, albeit
with major variations from one country to the next (Brenner et al. 2010).
At this point, the neoliberal project had become hegemonic in most parts
of the capitalist world in that the ideas underpinning it had become ‘common sense’, something to which also subordinate groups lent their consent
(Robinson 2014).
Neoliberal capitalism primarily served (and serves) the interest of the
fraction of transnational financial capital (Overbeek and van der Pijl 1993).
This fraction came to lead a historic bloc which also comprised other
35
Theorising deep transformations
53
leading transnational corporations, the middle classes and even organised
labour (van Apeldoorn and Overbeek 2012: 5). The latter was, however,
in a much weaker position than had been the case under Fordist capitalism, due, for instance, to overseas competition, declining union membership, weaker links to social-democratic parties and changes in the nature of
work. From the late 1970s onwards, the balance of class power gradually
shifted (Baccaro and Howell 2017: 176–177).
What are the implications of the above reflections of capitalist transformations for degrowth? That is, what of value to degrowth transformations
can we learn from critical political economy scholarship on past transformations? As argued elsewhere (Buch-Hansen 2018), at least four prerequisites
for deep socio-economic change can be derived from such scholarship: a
deep crisis, an alternative political project, a comprehensive coalition of
social forces, and public consent. When considering these prerequisites, it
is important to be mindful that degrowth on a societal scale would involve
systemic transformations, that is, transformations that are far more comprehensive and profound than those seen in the context of shifts from one type
of capitalism to another (Buch-Hansen and Carstensen 2021).
Deep crisis
The first prerequisite for socio-economic transformations is deep crisis. As
noted in the previous section, critical political economists use the notion of
a structural crisis to denote crises that cannot be resolved within the existing type of capitalism. For capital accumulation to resume in the face of
such a crisis, a new accumulation regime with a new mode of regulation
is required. Structural crises, then, give rise to transformations within the
framework of capitalism. Yet if degrowth entails systemic change, then a
prerequisite for it to materialise may be a systemic crisis. A systemic crisis
is one that can only be resolved if the economic system itself is changed.
As such, it ‘involves the replacement of a system by an entirely new system
or leads to an outright collapse’ (Robinson 2014: 129). Such a crisis may
also be thought of in terms of a ‘crisis in the dominant mode of production’, implying that ‘no new accumulation regime can emerge, even taking
into account the ability of institutional forms to adapt’ (Boyer and Saillard
2002: 43–44).
As noted in the Introduction to the present book, humanity currently
faces not one but several deep and intertwined crises, including a social crisis, a political crisis and the escalating biodiversity and climate crises. These
crises would seem to constitute something approaching a systemic crisis in
that it is difficult to see how capitalism can survive them. It says quite a lot
54
Deep transformations
when one of the leading social scientists of our time asks not whether but
how capitalism will end (Streeck 2016). In Streeck’s analysis, capitalism is
in its final crisis, partly because it is collapsing from its own contradictions,
partly because it has defeated its traditionally most powerful opponents.
That is, whereas in the past capitalism’s enemies (say, the labour movement)
often forced it to assume a new form, thereby rescuing it from itself, today
its enemies are too weak to push through such changes (2016: 13).
In the Introduction we noted that the climate and biodiversity crises will
eventually undermine capitalism itself. Yet unfortunately capitalism will,
in all likelihood, not end until long after it has made the earth uninhabitable for most human and non-human beings. As Malm (2018: 194) puts
it, ‘there is little evidence that profitability is under any atmospheric sword
of Damocles, but plenty of proof that people with no advanced means of
production occupy such a position’. Consequently, he warns against eagerly
anticipating ‘the imminent climate-induced collapse of the capitalist mode of
production’ (2018: 195). Harvey (2014: 254–255) makes the related observation that capitalism thrives on localised catastrophes caused by climatic
changes. Such catastrophes not only constitute business opportunities, they
also serve to mask that it is capitalism itself, rather than the unruliness and
unpredictability of ‘mother nature’, that is their root cause. If the climate
and biodiversity crises will not in themselves bring about the end of capitalism, the ensemble of crises they form part of may nonetheless contribute to
facilitating such an outcome. Indeed, if deep crisis is a precondition for deep
change, today’s world is certainly a world in which such change ought to
be possible.
The articulation of a political project
The second prerequisite for the degrowth vision to materialise is that it
informs an alternative political project, based on which policymakers and
other agents can interpret reality and act. In the opening paragraph of this
chapter, we referred to degrowth as a political project. Yet whether degrowth
constitutes a political project of course depends on what is understood by
such a project. If we take it to mean a full-fledged political programme with
detailed policies with which all those embracing the concept agree, then
degrowth is not a political project. As mentioned in the introductory chapter, proponents of degrowth neither agree on one definition of the concept,
nor on what it would take for degrowth to materialise on various scales
(the local, national and transnational) in different locations. For example,
as we come back to in Chapter 5, some degrowth advocates are critical
of the state owing to their own political/philosophical convictions, shaped
55
Theorising deep transformations
55
for example by anarchist perspectives (such as anarcho-primitivism). Others
may be anti-or non-state oriented because they have experienced too many
statist barriers to transformations (Liegey and Nelson 2020: 137–138).
Still, most advocates of degrowth seem to take the position that democratically adopted top-down policies are an important precondition for
degrowth transformations to materialise.1 In the literature on degrowth, a
wide variety of policies are being proposed and discussed (Fitzpatrick et al.
2022). To mention but a few, these relate to, for example, promoting work-
sharing and reduced working time (Schor 2015), placing a ceiling on income
and wealth (Buch-Hansen and Koch 2019), taxing high-carbon luxury goods
(Gough 2017), placing limits on flights and reducing the number of planes
and airports (Hassler et al. 2019), providing sustainable welfare benefits,
for instance in the form of universal basic vouchers (Bohnenberger 2020),
banning advertising (Latouche 2009) and introducing regulation compelling companies to introduce extended warranties on products to remove
their incentive to design products with a short lifespan, as well as regulation
making it illegal for companies to produce products that cannot be repaired
(Hickel 2020: 211). Many of the discussed policies are eco-social policies,
that is, policies that simultaneously advance the goals of environmental sustainability and social equity (Gough 2017). For example, train tickets and
other forms of slow travel are unaffordable to many, just as organic foods
are considerably more expensive than inorganic food. As a result, many
people fly and eat inorganic food. Subsidising train tickets and organic food
would serve the purpose of making more sustainable diets and forms of
transportation affordable to all.
In later chapters we return to some of these policies, exploring them in
greater depth. In the present context it suffices to note that if we understand
a political project to denote a general vision of a different society that points
beyond the major crises of our time, a vision that is accompanied by discussion of policies and initiatives that can materialise it, then degrowth does
qualify as a political project (see also Alexander and Gleeson 2022: 59).
Degrowth is, however, a political project in a different sense from how this
notion is often used in critical political economy scholarship, in that this
literature for the most part focuses on political projects aiming to transform
but not move beyond capitalism. Van Apeldoorn and Overbeek (2012: 5)
write that ‘any hegemonic project needs … a more or less coherent accumulation strategy serving the interests of the leading capital fraction and their
immediate allies’. Degrowth is neither premised on benefiting any capital
fraction nor is it a political project that comes with an accumulation strategy. If anything, it offers a vision of ‘de-accumulation’ in many sectors of
the economy and it aspires to benefit not merely humans but also nature and
non-human beings –now and in the future.
56
Deep transformations
Mobilising a comprehensive coalition of social forces
For a political project to shape societal developments, a comprehensive
coalition of social forces with sufficient power and resources needs to
find it attractive and worth fighting for. As noted above, critical political economy scholarship gives primacy to the social forces rooted in the
capitalist production process, that is, representatives of different fractions
of capital and labour. The power balance between these social forces is
regarded as a key determinant of overall societal developments. Degrowth
is, however, different from traditional political projects in that it is not
class-based. Inevitably, those advocating degrowth are rooted in classes,
most of them probably in the middle classes, yet degrowth is not a project
aspiring to promote the interests of this or other classes –or only human
beings. Liegey and Nelson observe that ‘being a degrowth activist sets one
apart from traditional class identities as the movement fights for a class-
free world’ (2020: 128). Currently, the main proponents of degrowth
are grassroots, small fractions of left-wing parties and labour unions, as
well as academics and other citizens who are concerned about the looming eco-social collapse. In other words, those who promote degrowth do
it not because they themselves stand to gain more from its realisation
than would others, but because they believe that it is necessary if the current and future needs of human beings and other species are to be met
(see Chapter 7).
Seen from a critical political economy perspective, the problem is that the
social forces currently supporting degrowth are far from powerful enough
for this project to come to shape wider socio-
economic developments.
Leading political parties, labour unions, business associations and international organisations have yet to embrace degrowth –indeed, they typically
strongly support economic growth, perceiving no desirable alternative to
it. That none of the powerful actors in advanced capitalist societies finds it
appealing has been identified as ‘the weakest spot in the degrowth project’
(Barca et al. 2019: 6). The resources of the degrowth movement are modest,
certainly compared to the resources commanded by those who were successful in promoting projects that became hegemonic in the past. For example,
it is in a far weaker position than was the labour union movement under
Fordist capitalism, and its resources are dwarfed by those available to those
representing corporate interests in contemporary neoliberal capitalism. It is
not just the degrowth project that finds itself in this situation; more generally, no alternative project to the currently still prevailing neoliberal project,
let alone to capitalism as an economic system, enjoys support from a coalition of social forces strong enough to make deep social change a reality.
Indeed, this is the main reason why neoliberalism and capitalism linger on.
75
Theorising deep transformations
57
Streeck (2016: 36) puts it this way: ‘Before capitalism will go to hell … it
will for the foreseeable future hang in limbo, dead or about to die from an
overdose of itself but still very much around, as nobody will have the power
to move its decaying body out of the way.’
In Barca’s analysis, attracting support from ‘ecologically minded’ members of the global middle classes who are willing to consume and work less
does not suffice if the degrowth project is to shape overall societal developments. In her words, the project will ‘remain politically weak unless
it manages to enter into dialogue with a broadly defined global working
class –including both wage labor and the myriad forms of work that support it –and its organizations’ (2019: 214). This is undoubtedly true. Yet
to imagine a coalition powerful enough to bring about degrowth, it is necessary to transcend the class-
based perspectives of historical materialist
critical political economy. No single type of actor is powerful enough to
make it happen. Degrowth transformations can only materialise through
the combined actions of myriad actors positioned in states, civil society and
business. Related to this, diverse economies scholars Gibson-Graham and
Dombroski (2020) place hope in the movements and activism that young
people, women and Indigenous peoples engage in globally. They note, for
instance, that ‘because women are everywhere and therefore always somewhere, change can be enacted in all those many somewheres’ (2020: 20).
Important insights can also be gleaned from anarchist thinking, according
to which the successor project of capitalism is already in the process of being
built within micro-level bottom-up initiatives that exist at the margins of
contemporary neoliberal capitalism, such as cooperatives and sustainable
communities (Chomsky 1999: 138; Wigger and Buch-Hansen 2013; see also
Bärnthaler 2023). Given the depth of change that degrowth transformations
entail, and the speed with which they would need to happen, it is, however,
just as improbable that they could materialise solely through bottom-up,
grassroots initiatives as it is improbable that they can emerge solely via top-
down policies. And just as degrowth cannot be realised without policies
implemented by state apparatuses at the local, national and transnational
scales, so it cannot come about without the involvement of businesses and
large groups of citizens.
In terms of temporality, the various policies that are being discussed in
degrowth circles are unlikely to initiate degrowth transformations; rather,
such policies are more likely to be the outcome of the efforts of social movements and other actors in civil society (Alexander and Gleeson 2022). In the
current ideological environment, it would be political suicide for most political parties to embrace the aforementioned policies. For degrowth transformations to be initiated, a massive civil society mobilisation, combined
with a surge in degrowth-compatible business (Nesterova 2020a, 2020b,
58
Deep transformations
2021a) would be required. If such a mobilisation of growth-critical and
socio-ecological social forces were to gain a decisive momentum, it could
make it attractive, or at least feasible, for political parties and states to pursue degrowth policies (Koch 2022a). The outcome could be ‘a combination
of bottom-up mobilisations and action and top-down regulation, resulting
in a new mix of property forms including communal, state, and individual
property and a new division of labour between market, state, and “commons” ’ (Koch 2020b: 127). The thousands of degrowth-compatible micro-
level civil society and business initiatives that are mushrooming in recent
years may, together with various social movements (Burkhart et al. 2020),
come to provide the basis for a mobilisation of a comprehensive coalition
of social forces.
Building consent
The final prerequisite for degrowth to happen on a wider scale is popular
consent to its overall vision. There are some indications that growth-critical
ideas are gaining ground. A petition run by the European Environmental
Bureau, which inter alia called on the European Union, its institutions and
member states to devise policies for post-growth futures and reconsider
the pursuit of growth as an overarching policy goal, was signed by more
than 90,000 people. Drews et al. (2019: 150) suggest, based on data on
Spain, that ‘a considerable part of the population exhibits sceptical views
about growth’. Even so, it is safe to say that overall there is no consent
to the idea of degrowth in the advanced capitalist countries. In fact, the
vast majority of people in these countries are unlikely to have heard of
degrowth. If this observation is correct, it speaks volumes of just how
marginalised the idea of degrowth remains, even if it has gained traction
over the past decade. But it is not just that many people are unaware of the
idea of degrowth, it is also that it is doubtful that they, if they were to hear
about it, would consider it a good idea to move beyond capitalism to a
system with reduced and different production and consumption. One reason why degrowth may not be intuitively appealing to many people in the
advanced capitalist countries and beyond is that it is incompatible with the
Western norm of consumption (Brand and Wissen 2013; Koch 2012) and
more generally the Western view of nature.2 If degrowth were to materialise, most citizens in the rich countries would have to adapt to a materially
lower standard of living. Limits placed –in one way or another –on car
ownership, flights, accommodation forms, diets and other environmentally damaging aspects of the Western norm of consumption would go
95
Theorising deep transformations
59
against currently prevailing understandings of what constitutes a good life.
As such they would, to put it mildly, not be popular. A further reason why
consent to degrowth would be difficult to achieve is that advocates of the
green growth discourse and other pro-market ideologies have been successful in creating the illusion that companies, markets and new technologies will take care of the problems so that people will not have to change
their lifestyles in major ways.
Nevertheless, there are cracks in the hegemony of the pro-growth discourse. In Germany, a country with strong environmental movements that
have, for instance, advanced sufficiency and reduction of working hours,
labour unions have traditionally sided with business and the state in fighting
for ‘a good life of consumption’ and ‘the right to work’ (Komlosy 2018).
Yet recent research finds that previously hegemonic views are called into
question within major German unions, with counter-hegemonic views as to
what a good life entails being expressed to varying degrees (Keil and Kreinin
2022). Although this obviously does not mean that these unions now consent to degrowth –far from it –it does suggest that there are openings for
consent to other views on work, production and growth than the currently
prevailing view.
The word consent derives from Latin where it means ‘feel together’.
Further to this, consent to degrowth is not something that could be imposed
on individuals or something that can be reduced to a question of social structures and social interactions. Consent would require individuals to feel that
degrowth is a sensible development and welcome degrowth practices in their
everyday life and in society at large. For this to happen, self-transformation
at the level of individuals is required. Such self-transformation could, for
instance, involve taking steps from the ‘mode of having’ to the ‘mode of
being’ (Fromm 2013). As noted in Chapter 1, the mode of having entails
an outlook revolving around possessions, accumulation and status. By
contrast, the mode of being revolves around focusing on who we are as
humans and our capacities for learning, loving, caring, altruism, solidarity,
forgiveness, presence, joyfulness and so on. We deal in greater length with
this matter in Chapter 4. In the present context it suffices to observe that
without such self-transformations it is difficult to imagine that degrowth –
with its logic evolving around gentleness and care for humans, non-human
species and nature more generally –could materialise and work. There is no
single source of transformations of this kind. Rather, various combinations
of a multitude of causal mechanisms could bring them about. These mechanisms could include interactions with people and with social structures and
experiences in and with nature, and involve becoming aware of new and
gentler ways of relating to the world (see also Conclusion, this volume).
60
Deep transformations
In conclusion
Capitalism will never fall on its own. It will have to be pushed. The accumulation of capital will never cease. It will have to be stopped. The capitalist class
will never willingly surrender its power. It will have to be dispossessed.
(Harvey 2010: 260)
Harvey notes that the task of stopping capital accumulation and dispossessing the capitalist class requires a strong social movement with a strong
political vision of an alternative around which a collective political subjectivity can revolve (Harvey 2014). In this chapter, we have pointed to some
of the same prerequisites for degrowth to materialise on a societal scale, yet
pointing also to the importance of consent, self-transformation and crisis.
Although the current economic system finds itself in a deep structural or
even systemic crisis, a key prerequisite for deep social change, it is of course
by no means a given conclusion that such change will take the form of
degrowth. While the current crises facing advanced capitalist democracies
can be seen to have paved the way for progressive social forces, they have
also facilitated the rise of right-wing populism and authoritarianism.
Moreover, as noted in the Introduction, powerful actors (corporations,
governments, international organisations and unions) have so far primarily
responded to the climate and biodiversity crises by embracing the political project of ‘green growth’ –at least at the level of discourse. Beyond its
green rhetoric, the corporate world does not stand united behind this project. Ougaard (2016), for instance, speaks of a conflict line between transnational companies involved in the extraction and processing of coal, oil
and gas, thus having a material interest in the carbon-based economy, and
companies that have a material interest in decarbonisation. Examples of
the latter include ‘producers of equipment for renewable energy production
and companies that stand to lose from the consequences of global warming,
such as insurance companies’ (Ougaard 2016: 467; see also Buch-Hansen
and Carstensen 2021). Within business, then, there is no universal consent
to the green growth project. Going forward, the main challenge for this project is the anomaly at its heart, that is, the lack of evidence to suggest that
it is possible to rapidly and drastically bring down CO2 emissions while the
economy keeps growing exponentially. As the gap between, on one hand,
the green growth discourse and, on the other, the material reality of increasing CO2 emissions, climate emergency and biodiversity loss widens in the
years to come, it may become increasingly difficult to uphold the illusion
that the green growth project delivers a serious response to the predicament
humanity is in. Against this background, degrowth ideas may come to enjoy
wider consent.
16
Theorising deep transformations
61
Notes
1 Or, in the case of anarchists who find it better to side with Marxist than pro-
capitalist views, top-down policies and government involvement are seen as a
necessary evil.
2 Whereas in the Western view nature is seen as composed of objects, under
degrowth, nature would be seen as composed of subjects (cf. Rodman, 1983).
4
Civil society in degrowth transformations
Civil society is where ideas challenging the growth paradigm could come
to prevail and where a shift away from the current consumer culture could
happen. Civil society is a space in which more citizens could come to experiment with alternative, sustainable forms of living. Civil society is the site
of degrowth activism, the site in which the degrowth movement can form
alliances with other movements (Burkhart et al. 2020). And civil society
is the realm in which broad consent to, and a demand for, profound eco-
social transformations could arise, prompting policymakers to adopt more
ambitious policies. Certainly actors in other sites are also of key importance if degrowth is to happen on a societal scale, states (Chapter 5) and
businesses (Chapter 6) being cases in point. Yet on their own they cannot
bring degrowth about. In short, then, changes in –and emanating from –
civil society are an essential part of degrowth transformations. Enriching
the theoretical perspective outlined in the previous chapters, in this chapter
we conceptualise civil society and we reflect on its scales and diversity in
degrowth transformations. Moreover, we highlight the importance of individual self-transformation for civil society to become a sufficiently potent
driving force towards degrowth.
Conceptualising civil society
Civil society is a broad social domain rather than a ‘thing’. It can be defined
negatively by what it is not: it excludes the state and business, though it is
inherently interconnected with them.1 For example, members of civil society
interact with businesses as businesspersons, employees, customers, activists, organisations and so on. The same person can run a business (and
thus belong to the site of ‘business’) and be a member of, say, a degrowth
network or volunteer for a charity (and thus belong to the site of the ‘civil
society’). Some forms of business or organisations involved in production
of goods and services belong to the sites of both civil society and business.
36
Civil society in degrowth transformations
63
This applies, for instance, to consumer-
producer arrangements such as
community-supported agriculture, politically inclined cooperatives and eco-
social enterprises. Still, civil society as a site excludes business.
Civil society can also be defined positively by what it encompasses: a
plenitude of relationships and commitments between humans and various
social structures and entities (civil society organisations) outside the state
and business. This implies that civil society refers to many very diverse
formal and informal ‘social forms’, such as community organisations, networks, trade unions, voluntary associations, non-government organisations
and academia. Often, then, civil society is ‘understood to refer to the realm
of autonomous group action distinct from both corporate power and the
state’ (Cox 1999: 19). Yet the associations, encounters, organisations, networks etc. of civil society rest on the voluntary actions of individuals (Adloff
2021: 151). As such it is important not to separate social forms in civil society from what makes them possible, namely individuals. Thus, we include
human individuals in our contemplation of civil society transformations.
The concept of civil society has a long history. Cox (1999: 7–8) identifies
two broad understandings of civil society in capitalist settings. The first is a
top-down understanding in which civil society is regarded as a site in which
the prevailing social forces form a hegemony, so as to secure the population’s consent to the social order. The other is a bottom-up understanding
which views civil society as a site from which groups and classes can build
a counter-hegemony that can challenge and ultimately replace the previous
hegemonic order.
Further to this, in relation to degrowth transformations we propose
viewing civil society as a site as well as a force of transformations. On one
hand, civil society is a site of transformations due to its existing and potential role of being the space where diverse and multiple emancipatory transformations occur and where new ones begin. Civil society is ‘the realm of
contesting ideas in which the intersubjective meanings upon which people’s
sense of “reality” are based can become transformed and new concepts of
the natural order of society can emerge’ (Cox 1999: 10). Transformations
do not, of course, necessarily point in the direction of degrowth, and it
should also be kept in mind that the activities of individuals and groups can
contribute to reproducing existing ideas and social forms in civil society
rather than transform them. The hegemony of particular ideologies, path
dependencies and material interests are some of the mechanisms facilitating
this outcome. Also, it should not be assumed that actors in civil society are
civilised, democratically minded or tolerant. Forces in civil society can be
uncivil, reactionary, violent etc., and more generally civil society is better
understood as a plural, unequal and sometimes conflicting site than as an
equal and harmonious public sphere (Gready and Robins 2017).
64
Deep transformations
It is thus important not to romanticise civil society, seeing it as the domain
of hope for degrowth while regarding, for example, the state and business
as an enemy thereof. Instead, the ways in which existing civil society forms
can and do contribute to the status quo and even deterioration rather than
to emancipation and degrowth transformations should be recognised.
For instance, academia to a large extent reproduces capitalist structures
(M. Parker 2018). In a degrowth society it would undergo a significant
transformation and would need to adopt a different approach to what it
means and entails to educate and take part in people’s growth as human
beings and citizens. Likewise, some networks and movements within civil
society can organise for and pursue political agendas and worldviews which
are incompatible with degrowth, right-
wing ideologies being an example. Having said that, in civil society one can also find many examples of
empowering, counter-hegemonic social forms (Gibson-Graham 2006; see
also Ehrnström-Fuentes and Biese 2022). They include, for instance, various
alternative social groups, intentional communities and alternative organisations of production.
Civil society is a force of transformation because humans not only reproduce, but also intentionally transform social structures (Bhaskar 1989;
Buch-Hansen and Nielsen 2020; Hartwig 2007). Participation in civil society organisations can entail a step away from the assumption that transformations can be brought about merely individually (for example, by
changing one’s consumption patterns) and exploring and strengthening
various existing non-capitalist and anti-capitalist civil forms together with
one’s fellow humans. Despite its relative separation from the state, civil
society is political. That is, with their activities, civil society organisations,
as well as individuals within civil society, support and manifest particular
worldviews, ideologies, affiliations and visions of the future. Different social
forms in civil society are forces aiming for different kinds and degrees of
transformation. For example, trade unions for the most part operate within
a pro-capitalist, pro-growth horizon and do not seek deep societal transformations. At the other end of the spectrum, the degrowth movement is
an example of a force in civil society which repoliticises topics such as the
primacy of economic growth while aiming for a post-capitalist social order.
The political nature of civil society can also be manifested in implicit
political and ethical commitments such as in everyday and largely degrowth-
compatible activism without an explicit reference to degrowth. For instance,
the voluntary simplicity movement (Elgin 2013) is largely degrowth compatible but not explicitly degrowth oriented. Whether explicitly oriented
towards degrowth or not, important principles for civil society to play a
role in degrowth transformations are cooperation and organisation of, and
in, alternative-to-capitalism arrangements and social forms (Trainer 2012)
56
Civil society in degrowth transformations
65
and realising their benefits for transforming the current society towards one
co-existing harmoniously with nature and within itself. These alternatives
may include networks which advocate degrowth, community organisations,
trade unions and others. Importantly, such initiatives and forms do not have
to be created from nothing. Degrowth-compatible alternatives already exist
in society alongside capitalist structures (Gibson-Graham 2006), contributing to prefiguring a degrowth society.
A prerequisite for civil society coming to act as a stronger force of
degrowth transformations may be that individuals in civil society seek out,
learn about and participate more in such alternatives. Having said that,
it remains essential not to assume that collective actions, though important and necessary, are suitable for everyone. Thus, some members of civil
society may prefer to participate in degrowth transformations without
actively participating in organisations by, for example, pursuing a different way of living focused on solitude or co-presence with non-humans and
nature. Suggesting organising as the solution and organisation as the mode
of participation in degrowth transformations may be alienating, and this
is something degrowth cannot afford, considering the limited support the
movement currently enjoys (Chapter 3).
Civil society never exists in a vacuum. Its nature, and the nature of the
role different social forms in civil society can play in degrowth transformations, varies from one setting to the next. For instance, in countries characterised by the liberal form of capitalism, transformations would likely
arise from social movements, while in countries with coordinated forms
of capitalism, that is, where trade unions are strong and welfare provision ensured, ‘a process of “negotiated de-growth” –involving a societal
compromise between governments and employers’ and employees’ organisations as well as various interest and expert groups –may be envisaged’
(Buch-Hansen 2014: 170). Finally, in countries where capitalism is state
led, degrowth transformations are more likely to originate from the state
while also being influenced by social movements and organisational practices (Buch-Hansen 2014).
Scales and diversity of civil society in degrowth transformations
Civil society varies across different scales as well as across different fields.
Fields can be seen as relatively autonomous societal arenas characterised by
particular activities, strategies, forms of capital and rules (Bourdieu 2014).
What can be done by an individual on their own is different to what can
be achieved by a larger social organisation. The change that can be implemented in, say, academia is different to change that can be manifested in,
66
Deep transformations
say, community organisations. Having said that, there are overlaps, common underlying principles as well as possibilities for different forms of civil
society to work together. Seen from the vantage point of the theoretical
perspective unfolded in the present book, then, no particular social form or
scale of civil society should be given primacy in relation to degrowth transformations. Rather, a prerequisite for such transformations to occur are civil
society activities spanning multiple scales and social forms.
Starting at the micro level, this is where initiatives appear to be potentially
most in line with the eco-anarchist strand of thought within degrowth (e.g.,
Trainer 2012, 2014). Eco-anarchism advocates a highly localised and self-
governing mode of social living. This strand of thought places hope in various small-scale community organisations and requires multiple civil society
organisations. That is, the social life that eco-anarchism envisions must be
practised collectively. Community gardens and orchards, reclaiming of previously industrial spaces, local currencies and repair workshops cannot be
implemented by isolated individuals. Thus, as highlighted by eco-anarchists
within degrowth, a high level of cooperation is required alongside participation and democratic decision-making (Trainer 2012). The eco-anarchist
way of life, in other words, relies fully on civil society and not on the state or
business. The only desired type of businesses are very small-scale, privately
owned companies (Trainer 2012), most likely craft or artisanal producers.
While local initiatives such as community gardens and local currencies
are by definition localised, movements do not have to be constrained to
a certain town, urban space (Schmid 2022) or region. They can span the
globe. As mentioned above, some movements are explicitly degrowth orientated while others are implicitly degrowth compatible. Degrowth itself is
a broad movement within civil society (Buch-Hansen 2021), a movement
embodying a plurality of, in some cases, conflicting views. For instance,
the political alignment of the degrowth movement remains unclear if not
contradictory: while some advocate for eco-socialism, others advocate eco-
anarchism. This diversity has led to the suggestion that it makes sense to
speak about degrowths in the plural rather than of a single degrowth movement (Nesterova 2022b).
Apart from the degrowth movement itself, there are multiple existing
civil society movements which can be degrowth compatible (Burkhart et al.
2020). The Transition movement is a case in point. In the words of its
co-founder Rob Hopkins, it constitutes ‘a social experiment on a massive
scale’ (2011: 16). It was established in 2006 in the English town Totnes, and
subsequently spread rapidly to several parts of the world. The core purpose
of the Transition movement is to address climate change and peak oil by
building community resilience. With a view to reducing carbon emissions
and oil dependence significantly, those involved in Transition initiatives
76
Civil society in degrowth transformations
67
seek to make their communities self-reliant with respect to energy and food
production, waste and transport. Like ecovillages, Transition initiatives differ substantially, owing to varying local conditions and because they build
on community experience and knowledge instead of relying on external
experts or one-size-fits-all recipes. For instance, there are Transition initiatives in villages, towns, cities, universities, neighbourhoods and districts.
Everywhere they are rooted in local cultures. Consequently, ‘Transition in
Brazil, emerging with a distinctly Brazilian flavour, will look very different
from Transition in Edinburgh or in New Zealand’ (Hopkins 2011: 74).
Other movements which are generally degrowth compatible are, for
instance, voluntary simplicity, zero-waste and minimalism. These movements are not without challenges both in terms of their practice and definition. For instance, minimalism can be viewed as a movement driven by
aesthetics rather than by ethics, specific political or philosophical commitments, or respect towards nature. It does not require a non-anthropocentric
philosophical perspective to be practised (on minimalism, see Nesterova
2023). The aspirational zero-waste movement likewise focuses on the level
of personal consumption, though some adherents may participate in political actions and otherwise be involved in civil society organisations. Yet
even in the sphere of personal consumption, the zero-waste movement faces
issues. For instance, you can still practise a zero-waste lifestyle while flying,
as long as you bring your own water bottle and plastic-free snacks with you.
Moreover, such movements which primarily target individual consumption
do not necessarily focus on some vision of a future, such as a society that
exists differently in the world or a worldview which encourages gentleness
and care towards the self, others and nature. In fact, attempting to achieve
such lifestyles may take the attention of individuals away from political
actions, making them focus instead on micromanaging their consumption.
Despite these downsides, such movements remain important allies to the
degrowth movement. They carry the potential of providing humans with a
feeling of being active, of achievement and of hope in the face of ecological
degradation. Moreover, since by definition movements such as voluntary
simplicity (Elgin and Mitchell 1977) and zero waste deviate from consumerism, being part of them may allow more free time for other activities, such
as participating in a community initiative or a trade union or connecting
with nature.
On the large scale, civil society organisations may include NGOs and
trade unions. One strength of an NGO is already implied in its definition: it
is an organisation which operates independently of the government and
which thus may be (but not necessarily is) critical of its ideology. In capitalist social formations, NGOs can create spaces for promoting degrowth-
compatible ideas and transformations (Burkhart et al. 2020). To give but
68
Deep transformations
one example, the degrowth group of environmental NGO Friends of the
Earth Denmark arranges seminars and summer schools about degrowth for
the public and it makes podcasts and publishes books to increase awareness of what degrowth (in Danish: modvækst) is. However, NGOs may also
be –and in many cases are –hierarchical and narrowly focused on a particular interest rather than on the deep transformations needed in every domain
of societal being. Indeed, today many, if not most, NGOs are embedded in
capitalist structures and do not stand in opposition to the growth imperative. In a degrowth society, many of the functions currently performed by
NGOs, such as raising awareness and bringing to the surface inequalities
and instances of social and ecological degradation, would become societal
functions.
As regards unions, they are for the most part married to the idea that
a green form of capitalism is possible and desirable. Their proposals of a
Green New Deal are underpinned by the notion that it is possible to drastically reduce CO2 emissions while the economy grows, increasing the number of green jobs. Barca (2019: 212), however, also points to various cases
exemplifying that ‘there exist, at this historical conjuncture, concrete possibilities for articulating degrowth and labor politics in new ways, via grassroots mobilizations in community unionism and social movement unionism,
pushing labor organizations toward a radical critique of the growth paradigm’. While not degrowth oriented, unions can engage in degrowth-
compatible struggles. For example, Bieler (2021) analyses how various
coalitions between organised workers and other social forces at different
scales have effectively waged struggles against the privatisation of water in
Europe. The result of many of these struggles against the commodification
of the commons have been that water companies have remained publicly
owned. Another case is the International Labour Organization’s ‘just transition’ approach: workers in brown industries should be assisted in finding
employment in greener sectors through reskilling programmes and financial
support. Though originally married to the green growth mainstream, key
organisations such as the European Social Observatory and the European
Trade Union Institute have started to question the growth paradigm and
engage with sustainable welfare and degrowth approaches,2 linking ‘just
transition’ to these approaches (Sabato et al. 2021).
While trade unions could potentially come to play a role as a force of
degrowth transformations, it is important to keep in mind that the political power of this type of civil society organisation has been drastically
weakened, as a result of which its past achievements have to some extent
been rolled back (Chapter 3). Increasingly, unions ‘appear like large but
aging dinosaurs struggling to adapt as the climate changes. The proportion of workers who belong to unions is in decline. Centralized systems of
96
Civil society in degrowth transformations
69
wage-setting are breaking apart. Incentive pay schemes and profit-sharing
arrangements subvert negotiated wage scales’ (Wallerstein and Western
2000: 355). The major unions, then, are far weaker potential allies of the
degrowth movement than would have been the case in the heyday of the
trade union movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Trade unions in many
cases also have shortcomings in addition to those already mentioned. They
may be bureaucratic, and they may have greater concern for their own
interest as an entity than for the interests of their members (or nature).
Here anarchist trade unions may provide an alternative, aimed at ‘working with communities rather than trying to take them over or lead them in
instrumental manner’ (Wilkin and Boudeau 2015: 1338). It is also worth
adding that while unions are in decline everywhere, they are stronger in
some countries than in others. In the Scandinavian countries in particular, trade unions have better bargaining powers than in countries with
liberal forms of capitalism. In the former countries, trade unions would
thus be in a relatively better position to contribute to degrowth transformations should they come to be so inclined (Buch-Hansen 2014). For
instance, they can advocate for better working conditions, contracts and
wages, which would guarantee stability for the workers. Without such
stability, it is difficult to imagine that humans would prioritise degrowth
transformations.
Civil society organisations are diverse, spanning a wide variety of formal and informal organisation on various scales. Again, seen in relation to
degrowth transformations, no particular civil society social form is superior
to all others. To give but a few examples of social forms, within academia,
groups and networks exist which promote the degrowth discourse as well
as broader discourses such as post-growth. Various neighbourhood organisations are compatible with an eco-
anarchist vision of degrowth transformations and degrowth society (Trainer 2012, 2014). Such small-scale
organisations can contribute to degrowth transformations without waiting
for a larger change and the end of capitalism. Organisations of production
(see Chapter 6) such as cooperatives, not-for-profit businesses and eco-social
enterprises may be, theoretically, at the border between civil society and
business. Small-scale organisations of production can provide an answer
to the call within the degrowth discourse for more localisations and place-
sensitivity (Trainer 2012; Nesterova 2022b).
Multiple online communities which likewise can and do participate in
degrowth transformations exist.3 The issue with such communities is their
reliance on technology and the internet. The ever-increasing and intensifying use of technology is problematic for multiple reasons (Heikkurinen
2018). Technology is not neutral; one technology does not exist in isolation from others, the result being the creation of a technological society
70
Deep transformations
(Ruuska and Heikkurinen 2021). Ruuska and Heikkurinen (2021: 13) note
that ‘the technological world is an atomized and detached world which
often leaves people alone and feeling alienated with little or no sense of
agency’. A technologically reliant mode of living is difficult to imagine in
a world in which energy reduction is pursued: high technology requires
energy. Still, some online spaces and organisations can indeed be helpful
for transformations towards degrowth, for instance, in terms of organising political actions for degrowth transformations, sharing knowledge, and
making more effective redistribution of existing goods and services possible.
Currently, many initiatives which target waste reduction and redistribution are based on high technology. For instance, initiatives such as REKO
rings (Hushållningssällskapet 2022), where producers and consumers come
together without intermediaries, require the use of technology: they connect
most often via a popular social media website. Payment is likewise done
using apps.
It is important to stress that while no social form is ‘the best’ in relation
to degrowth transformations, individuals are different and as such they will
always be attracted to different types of civil society organisation depending
on personal worldviews and political commitments (that is, provided they
are at all attracted to such social forms). For instance, adherents of individualist anarchism or anarcho-primitivism are unlikely to be drawn to formal,
bureaucratic and hierarchical organisations. For the adherents of socialism
as a political ideology for a degrowth society, formal organisations such as
trade unions may be more acceptable.
State policies can support civil society organisations, placing them in
a better position to become driving forces in degrowth transformations.
Owing to the wide variety of forms taken by civil society organisations, a
diverse range of policies could be implemented to this end. Many civil society organisations operate on a voluntary basis. People who contribute their
time, energy and skills are often not paid for their efforts. This excludes
many individuals from participation. A suitable policy to increase participation in various civil society organisations is the provision of a universal
basic income or universal basic services: without reliance on a job and an
income, at least partially, people can familiarise themselves with the range
of civil society organisations they can get involved with, or dedicate more
time to the ones they are already part of. Apart from the universal basic
income, increasing monetary support is required for multiple civil society
organisations. For instance, this applies to NGOs, academic groups and
networks involved in researching degrowth transformations, community
initiatives and neighbourhood groups. Some organisations, such as those
involved in the production of food, require policies which support access
to land.
17
Civil society in degrowth transformations
71
Individuals and their self-transformations
In discussing civil society as something singular (for example, as a site or
an entity), it should be remembered that civil society, and everything within
it, emerges from and through the causal powers and actions of individual
human beings (Danermark et al. 2002). For their existence and operations,
as well as their reproduction and transformation, organisations within civil
society likewise rely on the involvement of individuals.
While placing causal powers within the domain of human agency, theorising human beings is essential. Otherwise, it may be asked, what lets us
assume that civil society members would take part in transformations? First
and foremost, it is important to reject the notion of a human being as a
rational utility maximiser, otherwise known as the ‘economic man’ of neoclassical economics. It is difficult to imagine that degrowth transformations
can be carried out by humans if humans are greedy, egocentric and narrowly self-interested (Chapter 1). It is likewise difficult to pursue degrowth
transformations if such ideas of humans are promoted in society, such as in
the system of education. After all, the ‘way in which we think of ourselves –
the picture we form of our essential nature –directly affects the way we
live’ (Midgley 2003: xvi). Neoclassical economics is notorious for misrepresenting human nature (Bhaskar 1998; Eskelinen and Wilen 2019; Gills
and Morgan 2021; Lawson 2019; Schumacher 1993; Söderbaum 2008). In
this school of thought, humans are reduced to materialistic and egocentric
beings (Bhaskar 1998; Lawson 2015; Söderbaum 2008; Spash 2017). Even
if human beings exhibit such characteristics, in reality they are much more
complex than that (see Chapter 7). Moreover, human beings are always in
the process of evolution, becoming and growing. That is, the self of humans
is more akin to a journey than to a fixed entity (Polkinghorne 2015). Thus,
instead of assuming that a human being is an ‘economic man’ with one or
a few particular attributes (Lawson 2019), the notion of a real, unique,
relational and complex human being, capable of transforming the world
around her/himself as well as being capable of self-transformation, should
be embraced. Seeing humans this way is not unusual. For instance, it is a
feature of some strands of heterodox economics (Becker 2006; Spash 2012)
as well as neighbouring sciences and humanities such as human geography
(Tuan 1974, 1998), philosophy (Bhaskar 2012a) and psychology (Schneider
et al. 2015).
Excluding ‘economic man’ as a member of civil society means looking
into other disciplines which may assist in understanding who the members
of civil society are. Human nature has traditionally been a major focus for
philosophy and psychology (Boss 1988). In terms of philosophy, critical realism and existentialism may be helpful in understanding humans in relation
72
Deep transformations
to degrowth transformations (Heikkurinen 2018; Nesterova 2021c). The
philosophy of metaReality (Bhaskar 2012c), which is the continuation of
Bhaskar’s original philosophy of critical realism (Bhaskar 1989, 1998), has
in recent times also become a feature of the degrowth literature landscape
(e.g., Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2021, 2023; Nesterova 2021c). Critical
realism assumes that agents have causal powers and the ability to act on
the world, including themselves (Buch-Hansen and Nielsen 2020; Collier
2003; Danermark et al. 2002). A better society is possible via this causation and human qualities (Nesterova 2021b). Critical realists contend that
humans are naturally concerned about the state of the world around them
(Sayer 2011) and are inherently capable of love, fellow-feeling, care, empathy, creativity and freedom (Bhaskar 2012a, 2012b). Love in this case does
not simply refer to a feeling towards a particular individual. Rather, it signifies an overarching sense of interdependence and togetherness (Bhaskar
2012b). Naturally, being capable of something (such as fellow-feeling and
care) does not mean that these qualities do not require nurturing. Indeed,
wars, violence and exploitation provide evidence of humans being capable
of suppressing or not exercising their humane capacities.
Existentialist philosophers whose works provided inspiration within the
degrowth field include, for instance, Albert Camus and Martin Heidegger.
Existentialist philosophy conceptually places humans into a concrete, but
imperfect and complicated world (Boss 1988; Heidegger 2001; Sartre
2000). That is, while human nature itself is contentious, our being in and
dwelling (belonging) in concrete locations and places is something that cannot be denied. This means that humans are always subject to certain natural
and social structures such as topographies and social, cultural and political
systems (Buch-Hansen 2014; Hägerstrand 2012). Humans’ experiences, circumstances and possibilities for actions differ depending on the constellation of structures within which they exist.
Existentialism views humans as embodied, that is, having a real, physical presence in the natural and the social worlds (Heidegger 2001; van
Deurzen and Adams 2016). Being part of the social world means that even
though humans are singular and unique, we are always co-present with
other humans. Existentialism structures human existence around three or
even four dimensions, hence presenting humans as relational beings. These
relations concern the environment (Umwelt), the social dimension (Mitwelt)
and the personal dimension (Eigenwelt) (Heidegger 2001; van Deurzen and
Adams 2016). The spiritual dimension (Überwelt) can also be included (van
Deurzen and Adams 2016). The nature of every person’s embeddedness in
each and all of those dimensions or worlds is different, as is the experience of humans even within the same structures. For degrowth to come into
being, transformations need to occur in each of these dimensions. That is to
37
Civil society in degrowth transformations
73
say that humans need to transform their relationship with the environment,
within society and with themselves.
While navigating these dimensions or worlds, each human being infuses
their own life with meaning (Camus 2005). Seeking meaning may be the
core function of human consciousness (Frankl 2006). The meaning a human
assigns to their own life and relationships within each of these worlds may
direct their behaviour and the mode of being in the world. Under capitalism,
the meaning of human existence tends to be reduced to the accumulation of
material wealth. Yet various perspectives exist that are better aligned with
human qualities and that emphasise genuine human experiences over materialism. This is reflected, for instance, in the mode of being of Erich Fromm.
As noted in Chapter 1, Fromm (2013) identifies two modes in which a
human being can be: the mode of having and the mode of being. The mode
of having focuses on possessions, profit, status and the material. This mode
is characterised by a utilitarian position towards nature, others and the self,
that is, the self is imagined as a tool for achievement of status. In this mode,
the engagement of humans with civil society organisations may be inauthentic and driven by the pursuit of status or material/financial benefits for
example, rather than human emancipation, care and harmonious coexistence with nature. For instance, one may join a trade union for one’s own
benefits rather than as a political act aimed at human emancipation.
The mode of being, conversely, is the mode of authentic existence, where
empathy, solidarity and generosity are nurtured and thrive. To live in this
mode ‘means to renew oneself, to grow, to flow out, to love, to transcend the
prison of one’s isolated ego, to be interested, … to give’ (Fromm 2013: 76).
In the mode of being, private property and having more generally is of little
importance inasmuch as ownership is not the prerequisite for being able to
use and enjoy something. As Fromm (2013: 99) writes, ‘Nothing unites people more (without restricting their individuality) than sharing their admiration and love for a person; sharing an idea, a piece of music, a painting, a
symbol; sharing in a ritual –and sharing sorrow.’
While it is important that humans step onto the path of being rather
than having, it is likewise important to recognise the uniqueness of everyone’s journey. In placing much value and hope in cooperation (e.g., Trainer
2012), the degrowth discourse overlooks the needs and inclinations of those
who, while remaining part of the civil society, may not desire to organise with others (Nesterova 2022b). For instance, such individuals may find
value in solitude and connectedness with the wider community of life (e.g.,
Thoreau 2016) and not necessarily strive to be part of formal organisations with their fellow humans. Adherents of deep ecology (Næss 2016)
attempt to nurture fellow-
feeling towards other beings beyond humans
(Diehm 2007). This, by definition, widens one’s circle of connection and
74
Deep transformations
relationships. Trees, mountains, rivers and lakes, as well as other beings and
features of nature, become morally and relationally significant. This may
encourage individuals to seek to spend more time in and with nature, adopt
an outdoors-based lifestyle, live in a sparsely populated or rural area and
practise self-sufficiency.
This does not necessarily indicate withdrawal from society (this indeed
would be impossible), but rather expanding the notion of who one’s fellow
beings are far beyond humans. For such individuals, a more isolated mode
of being or small eco-communities may be suitable. While such individuals
may be in the minority (Leopold 1949), they still should be accounted for in
the degrowth discourse. Apart from such cases of individuals who find the
sense of connectedness and belonging in the wider community of life, others, due to their personalities, worldviews or ideological commitments, may
actively strive to organise and participate in social forms in civil society such
as social groups, charities, NGOs, trade unions and others.
In conclusion
In this chapter we have considered civil society in degrowth transformations.
We conceptualised civil society as a site and force of transformations, noting
that it constitutes a space where diverse and multiple transformations occur
and in which a large variety of social forms (organisations, networks etc.)
exist through which individuals can work collectively to pursue different
kinds and degrees of transformation. The chapter also reflected on the scales
and diversity of civil society, noting that degrowth transformations would
require agency spanning multiple scales and social forms. Finally, further
to the importance we ascribe to individuals in our consideration of civil
society, we highlighted the importance of self-transformation. We include
individuals in our contemplation of civil society because neither can civil
society exist without individuals reproducing it individually and collectively
(Bhaskar 1998), nor is any individual unaffected by civil society. The same
observations can be made about the state and businesses, and for this reason
we also touch upon individual self-transformation in these sites in the following two chapters. Still, we decided to devote particular attention to the
matter in the present chapter for the simple reason that whereas individuals
positioned in those other sites are members of civil society, the reverse is not
necessarily the case.
Activism for degrowth may take very different forms in civil society and
thus needs to be understood in broad terms. It does not need to be limited
to participating in political campaigns, protests or strikes. It can take more
personal and subtle, but still important, forms such as adopting different
57
Civil society in degrowth transformations
75
lifestyles and modes of being, creating music, poetry and art, and different
approaches to teaching and knowledge sharing. Despite the focus on the
‘self’ in self-transformations, the journey and the acts of self-transformations
are a social practice since one is always an inseparable part of society. Self-
transformation is at its core an activity whose ultimate aim is to create a
better world while realising that one’s agency is the best place to start. In
this sense, self-transformation is a form of activism for degrowth. Since self-
transformation requires and entails personal growth, it may enhance self-
knowledge (Neisser 1988) and thus help the person to identify the other
kinds of activism that, apart from self-transformation, are best suited for
them as a unique human being.
Notes
1 Whereas in its modern use civil society is different from the state, it was synonymous with the state or political society up until the end of the eighteenth
century (Kumar 1993). In Aristotle’s thinking, for example, civil society is synonymous with the ruling elites of the polis, the Athenian civic community.
2 An example is the commissioning of a chapter on ‘Sustainable welfare,
degrowth and eco-social policies in Europe’ in the annual publication Social
Policy in European Union: State of Play (Koch 2018b).
3 Schmelzer et al. (2022: 217) discuss Wikipedia as a case of global commoning: The world’s largest encyclopaedia developed on the grounds of ‘contribution rather than exchange’.
5
The state in degrowth transformations
In green political thought, including degrowth thought, it is not uncommon
to see the state as part of the problem rather than the solution (Gough 2017).
Nevertheless, most of the eco-social policies that are typically suggested to
initiate and deepen degrowth transformations –be it in relation to respecting
ecological ceilings or social floors (Khan et al. 2022; see Chapter 7) –would
require a great deal of intervention by states and/or international organisations (Cosme et al. 2017). Degrowth advocacy has therefore suffered from
a tension between viewing the state as incapable of initiating transformational change and appealing to it to do precisely that. This tension has, on
occasion, taken the form of passionate arguments between ‘state-orientated’
and ‘state-opposed’ (often anarchist) degrowth advocates such as during
the 2018 6th International Degrowth Conference in Malmö. In the present
chapter, we seek to overcome the tension via a broad theoretical perspective
on the state, a key institutional form (Chapter 2). We first analyse the state’s
roles in the capitalist growth economy, focusing for instance on the welfare
and the environmental state. Subsequently, we turn to the potential role of
the state in degrowth transformations, considering the form and scales of
state intervention, as well as its content in terms of sustainable welfare and
eco-social policies.
State roles in capitalist growth economies
In developing our perspective, we draw on recent degrowth scholarship
which has started to reconcile state-orientated and state-opposed thinking
through a rereading of some classics of state theory (Koch 2020a, 2022a;
see also D’Alisa and Kallis 2020 and Görg et al. 2017). Koch unifies the
state theories of Gramsci (1971), Poulantzas (1978) and Bourdieu (2014).
The three understand the state in relation to wider society, while theorising
corresponding patterns of dominance and subordination. They also bring
together the two most established social science traditions on the subject,
77
The state in degrowth transformations
77
namely the Marxian and the Weberian traditions. Whereas the Marxist
tradition emphasises the interconnection of state policies and the capitalist growth imperative, the Weberian tradition focuses on the socio-historic
processes that led to the modern bureaucratic state. The three theorists are
furthermore united in viewing the state as a relatively autonomous sphere
where dominating and dominated groups represent and struggle for their
interests. Accordingly, existing state policies do not reflect the interests
of any single group of actors. Rather they are outcomes of compromises
between social forces within and beyond the state apparatus.
In capitalism, processes of production and wealth creation are structurally separated from the political processes of exercising coercive power and
administrative control. Marx, in particular, linked the autonomous existence of the state to the structural prerequisites of the market economy. To
be able to exchange goods, individuals must ‘recognize one another reciprocally as proprietors’ (Marx 1973: 243). The state legally facilitates such
exchanges, guaranteeing the legal and economic independence of the owners of commodities, preventing, for instance, the appropriation of commodities by force. In this context, the modern state constitutes an independent
third party that monopolises the legitimate use of physical force (Weber
1991: 78).
Complementing this perspective, Bourdieu introduced the notion of the
state as the monopoly of legitimate symbolic violence. Like Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, symbolic capital is the power of making people see the
world in a specific way, which, if this power is sufficiently strong, appears
as the only possible, universal and natural way. This manifests itself, for
instance, in the state’s power to judge sentences and regulate the rules of
spelling. More than merely shaping peoples’ consciousness, symbolic domination entails bodily aspects being submitted to (state) power (Bourdieu
1994, 2014). State power, then, takes on both physical and symbolic forms.
Because of the strength of symbolic power, the state rarely has to resort to
the use of physical force (Bourdieu 2014: 166). Bourdieu understands state
power as the historical process of concentration of different forms of capital
(including physical force and economic, cultural, informational and symbolic capital). The state is itself a field like others with oppositions such as
that between its ‘left hand’ (public education, health and social welfare) and
‘right hand’ (judiciary, domestic affairs and finance departments). However,
unlike other fields, the state transcends different forms of capital and has
historically played an important role in differentiating civil society into fields
(Chapter 4). With his notion of the ‘integral state’, which combines political
(the formal state apparatus) and civil society, Gramsci (1971) addresses a
similar topic: that contemporary states and civil societies are interlinked in
myriad ways, making them empirically difficult to keep apart.
78
Deep transformations
Symbolic state power becomes embodied and fixed in dispositions and
habits (what Bourdieu refers to as ‘habitus’, see Chapter 7) and affects the
various planes of social being. For example, the school system and other
state institutions often reinforce the view of extractivism as the one and only
possible form of human transaction with nature, and utilitarianism as the
only form of interaction between humans. Nature is here seen as a ‘free gift’
for (economic) capital expansion, and other humans as means to materialist
ends. Capitalist state institutions expose citizens to the ideal of ‘economic
man’ and the corresponding values of competitiveness, individual advancement and short-term gain, paired often with intolerance, racism, sexism and
a general hate of everything and everyone presumed to be different and
‘other’. Further to this, the symbolic power of the capitalist state shapes
peoples’ inner being in the direction of entitlement, materialism and egoism.
In a social formation based on exploitative and exclusionary relationships, pertaining for instance to class, race, religion and gender (Chapter 1),
the state is the main location for the political regulation of conflicts and for
the maintenance of social order (Offe 1984). Since society risks disintegration without such regulation, states ensure the maintenance of a minimum
of social cohesion and, at the same time, the legitimisation of remaining
inequalities. For example, countless sociological studies since Bourdieu and
Passeron (1977) have shown that the existing school system largely reproduces and reinforces inherited inequalities, that is, the children’s original
social differences. Not least by mystifying and naturalising such differences,
the state has proven quite capable of temporarily harmonising conflicting
group interests. Still, state policies do not normally simply follow the interests of dominant classes and groups; they also reflect the interests of the
dominated ones to some extent. Specific state structures and activities, as
well as corresponding modes of governance, are linked to ‘social forces,
practices and discourses, the (changing) societal context as well as the contested functions or tasks of the state in societal reproduction’, including that
of ‘existing societal nature relations’ (Görg et al. 2017: 9).
The state constitutes a relatively autonomous political sphere, where social
classes and groups represent their interests in indirect and mediated ways. As
political parties and civil society groups raise various issues, they sometimes
become the focus of government action, only to be superseded by others at
later points in time. State policies develop, then, as results of the heterogeneity
and changing dynamic of social forces that influence state institutions (Jessop
2002). Once such a coalition of relatively powerful actors has been formed
and has managed to influence the general direction of state policies, it takes
on the character of a relatively homogeneous social force. The more socially
coherent the coalition of forces that influences the state is, the less the contradictions there will be across state policies. Gramsci and Poulantzas referred
97
The state in degrowth transformations
79
to such a coalition of groups capable of temporarily dominating state policies as a ‘power bloc’ (akin to what was called a ‘historic bloc’ in Chapter 3).
To underline the state’s role in securing and stabilising wider societal relations and various social struggles and power asymmetries, Poulantzas (1978)
used the term ‘condensation’. The state, then, is a powerful actor which itself
is created and recreated by social forces.
On the one hand, the state facilitates the stabilisation and maintenance
of the social order via its force, laws, regulations, curricula, resources and
its discourses of legitimation. On the other hand, however, concrete state
strategies are the results of the material and symbolic struggles and tensions
between social forces within and beyond its institutional borders, which
may take the form of contradictions between different state apparatuses
and branches. Different state apparatuses may, in fact, address problems in
different ways. For instance, while one may promote growth and the use of
fossil energy, another may attempt to reduce carbon emissions by reducing
the use of fossil energy (Brand et al. 2011). Social movements can potentially use such contradictions within the state to advance their interests and
turn their projects into hegemonic ones (Görg et al. 2017; Poulantzas 1978).
The post-Second World War welfare state resulted from struggles between
organised labour and capital as well as between factions within the wider
state apparatus. This Western welfare state defined the extent to which
labour power is ‘decommodified’ (Esping-
Andersen 1990). Subsequent
work in comparative social policy was dedicated to national divisions of
labour between markets, states and the third sector, taking the institutional
forms of ‘welfare regimes’ (Arts and Gelissen 2002). It pointed to how
the social-democratic countries in Northern Europe traditionally featured
greater amounts of equality than did liberal (such as the UK) or conservative
(such as Germany) countries.
A further landmark step in the internal differentiation process of the state
in advanced capitalist countries has been the establishment of the environmental state (Chapter 2). Paralleling the development of the welfare state,
the creation of the environmental state can be traced back to struggles
between environmental groups and initiatives against large business and
state interests. Duit et al. (2016: 5) define the environmental state as a ‘set
of institutions and practices dedicated to the management of the environment and societal-environmental interactions’. In addition to being a provider of welfare to a smaller or larger extent, then, contemporary states in
some respects protect nature. In other respects they simultaneously allow
for violence being done to nature and in some cases states directly cause it
themselves. For example, some of the world’s largest oil companies are state
owned (Babić 2023). Just as in the case of the welfare state, the expansion
of the environmental state is not a linear and uncontested development.
80
Deep transformations
A recent example of a drawback of the environmental state is the right-wing
populist Swedish government abolishing the environmental ministry as an
independent department.
Recent scholarship explored the similarities and differences in the historical developments and current roles of welfare and environmental states.
It found that their institutional, political and economic contexts differ
significantly, as does the composition of supporting and opposing social
groupings and associated constellations (Gough 2016). Esping-Andersen’s
welfare regime approach has inspired debates on the environmental state.
According to Dryzek et al. (2003), for example, social-democratic welfare
states are better placed to manage the intersection of social and environmental policies than are liberal market economies and welfare regimes. Social-
democratic welfare regimes generally make a conscious and coordinated
effort to manage this intersection and regard economic and ecological values
as mutually reinforcing (Gough et al. 2008). Yet, although these regimes are
the most equal ones in socio-economic terms, their ecological performance
is not superior (Koch and Fritz 2014; Duit 2016; Jakobsson et al. 2018).
Rather, roughly speaking, the richer a country the worse its environmental
performance (Fritz and Koch 2016; O’Neill et al. 2018).
State regulation is permanently subject to rescaling processes resulting
in new, multi-scalar structures of state organisation and socio-economic
regulation operating on different scales (Kazepov 2010). Particular capitalist growth regimes are oriented towards different scales. The Fordist growth
model, for example, focused on the national level. Eventually, it came under
pressure through various processes of rescaling and deregulation. In this
process, powers were delegated from the national state apparatus to other
scales, such as the subnational, regional and transnational ones (Jessop
2002: 206). Increasingly, transnational processes of capital accumulation
require regulation extending beyond the borders and capacities of individual states. On the one hand, this led governments to create and strengthen
regional and global regulatory systems and institutions such as the EU,
the World Bank and the IMF. On the other hand, in the neoliberal era,
transnational class actors and institutions have become significant sources
of domestic policy ideas and design, and implementation. The contemporary international regulatory sphere constitutes a ‘multi-scalar and poly-
centred system of governance’, where states and international organisations
interact, albeit not on equal terms (Ougaard 2018: 129). Up until now the
interests of the rich countries have largely managed to define the rules of
this international regulatory sphere (Castree 2008; Brand and Wissen 2013;
Hickel 2020).
18
The state in degrowth transformations
81
Scales and diversity of degrowth transformations
We now turn to the potential role played by the state in degrowth transformations. As in previous chapters, what is provided here is not a precise
blueprint. Indeed, no serious treatment of degrowth can deliver this. What
is offered instead is a broader framework for thinking about the state in
degrowth transformations, which builds on the previous section and our
reflections in Chapter 2 on the ‘degrowth state’ as an institutional form. In
what follows, we first consider issues related to scale and form, and then
focus on content by turning to the notion of sustainable welfare and the
eco-social policies that are currently being discussed in degrowth circles.
Many degrowth thinkers advocate strong localist visions (Trainer 2012)
and in this context regard municipalities as key change agents. They envision international networks of towns and cities as driving forces behind
transformations. The local ‘scale of politics is considered ideal for degrowth
as it is in the municipality that people can practise face-to-face political
deliberation’ (Schmelzer et al. 2022: 249).1 As regards the state, it is perceived mainly as a negative force which is, for instance, disrupting the necessary transformations, maintaining borders and acting in authoritarian ways
(2022: 291). In this view, then, there is little room for national states to play
a positive role in degrowth transformations. Such transformations are, it
would seem, mainly to be driven by actors in other sites or state apparatuses on other scales. Our take on degrowth transformations is somewhat
different, in that we find it difficult to imagine how such transformations
could ever come to enjoy the necessary momentum on a societal scale in
the absence of comprehensive state involvement. This is not to turn a blind
eye to the negative aspects of contemporary state activities or to say that
we see the state as the key actor in degrowth transformations; it is to say
that we see national state policies as one very important mechanism that,
alongside action at the local and transnational levels, can facilitate such
transformations.
Further to the observations in the previous sections, it should be recognised that degrowth processes unfold from the starting point of a regulatory architecture that spans several scales. State apparatuses existing on the
local, national and transnational scales may act to block transformations,
but potentially they could also come to play more positive roles. In our perspective, primacy should not be ascribed to state interventions on any one
particular scale. Rather, state activities on various scales are important to
degrowth transformations. Importantly, on each scale, the state would have
different functions.
82
Deep transformations
On the national scale, the state has a key role to play as a provider of
‘sustainable welfare’ (a matter we come back to in the next section) and
more generally as an actor initiating a host of degrowth-compatible reforms
and other activities in collaboration with civil society actors and businesses
to ensure the respect of ecological and social limits in production and consumption patterns. Most eco-social policies, including, for instance, a reduction in working hours, most taxation and many green finance initiatives,
would seem suitable for this scale. State power can also be used to build
transnational networks connecting myriad local economies.
As regards the transnational scale, interstate collaboration would be
important, for instance in the context of international bodies such as the
United Nations, the OECD and the EU. Just as the capitalist national state
would need to gradually be transformed into a degrowth state in order to
come to play a positive role in the transition, international organisations –
the bulk of which currently (at best) promote ‘green growth’ –would also
need to be profoundly reformed. One reason the transnational scale is
important in relation to degrowth transformations is that it is the scale at
which local and national policies can be coordinated. Such coordination
is crucial inasmuch as the adoption of a particular degrowth-compatible
policy, say a tax on pollution, in one country may have no or detrimental
effects if other countries introduce no such tax. In a similar vein, if a policy
such as caps on income and wealth is not to result in capital flight on a
major scale, it would either need to be implemented directly by international
organisations or, if implemented by national states, be closely coordinated
at the transnational level (Buch-Hansen and Koch 2019). Sustainable welfare, for instance, entails that some of the distributive principles underlying existing OECD welfare systems are extended to include people living
in other countries and into the future (Brandstedt and Emmelin 2016). To
make this happen, cooperation at the transnational scale would undoubtedly also be required.
It would also be important for the degrowth state to delegate powers
to the local scale. This is the scale at which direct participatory democracy
(complementing representative democracy) is most feasible and the scale at
which degrowth initiatives tailored to local circumstances can be launched.
As such it is a crucial scale. A range of eco-social policies may well be implemented at the local level, cases in point being policies related to funding of
local degrowth-compatible businesses, many educational activities, transportation and housing provision.
In proposing that state action at multiple scales is important to degrowth
transformations (see also Moore et al. 2014), and in linking the scales with
particular eco-social policies, we do not mean to suggest that the relative
importance of state activities at different scales would not vary over time
38
The state in degrowth transformations
83
and geographically. As regards the temporal aspect, it is conceivable that
state action at the national level would be more important in early stages of
degrowth transformations than later on. An example would be nationalising the currently enormous fossil energy sector as a precondition to a quick
phase-out of the burning of oil, gas and coal2 to retain any chance of meeting the Paris climate targets.3 As a corollary, the state’s wealth and power
would increase in an initial phase, only to decrease again in sync with the
disappearance of fossil energy extraction and the concomitant transition to
renewable energy sources and their communalisation/localisation in a second phase. Smaller states may be acceptable as long as these are embedded
in an economic system that provides relatively egalitarian outcomes and
costs related to inequality, (unhealthy) work-life balances and environmental deterioration. During the transition, state policies would be indispensable to steer just transitions for those currently employed in the fossil fuel
industries (Chapter 4). In the long term, the involvement of the state may be
essential in safely handling technologically complex and expensive operations, such as management of nuclear waste, which cannot be handled by
local communities.
In terms of geography, it is important to keep in mind that transformations start out from currently existing institutional arrangements, arrangements that vary considerably from one place to the next. That is, further to
the observations regarding capitalist diversity and the importance of existing institutions to degrowth transformations that were made in Chapter 2,
divergent non-identical driving forces are likely to initiate degrowth transformations in different countries, transformations that start out from different forms of capitalism. Keeping things simple, we can distinguish between
three varieties of capitalism: a liberal, a state-led and a coordinated variety
(Chapter 4; see also Buch-Hansen 2014). Countries currently characterised
by the market-oriented liberal form of capitalism such as the UK, the US and
Australia are premised on the view that competitive relations between businesses are essential to maximising wealth in society. The state generally does
not intervene directly in markets but sets rules and settles conflicts. In such
countries a broad movement in civil society initiating the transformation
itself is a more likely scenario than it is that the state or a coalition of social
forces cutting across the traditional class divide would initiate it.
Countries with state-led capitalism, in which the state, for example, intervenes in market relations to steer business development, is where the prospects of centrally steered initiations of degrowth transformations are most
likely. Cases in point, at least in some respects, are France, Japan, Russia and
China. State-led degrowth transformations are most likely in countries with
strong social and intellectual movements that support these transformations
and provide inputs to them. Thus, of the countries just mentioned, France
84
Deep transformations
is the more likely candidate to witness this sort of degrowth trajectory. In
countries with coordinated capitalism, in which business relationships tend
to be coordinated and network-based, the state typically does not intervene
directly in the market. In such countries –the Scandinavian countries and
Germany being cases in point –degrowth transformations could conceivably be initiated via broad societal compromise between governments and
employers’ associations and unions, perhaps in alliance with various interest
groups and social movements, such as the environmental movement.4
Our point is not to suggest that the degrowth trajectories just outlined
are currently the most likely scenarios to unfold in the various types of capitalism (it follows from the argument in Chapter 3 that degrowth transformations are currently not very likely to happen on a societal scale). Rather,
the point is that in some contexts, the national state is more likely to play a
prominent role in facilitating such transformations than in others. Because
of the diversity of the institutional frameworks in different types of capitalism, and because degrowth transformations would materialise through
open-ended democratic processes, degrowth would take different forms in
different settings.
Sustainable welfare, eco-social policies and self-transformations
The matter and energy throughput, and the associated ecological footprint
of global society would need to shrink if it is to respect ecological limits.
This concerns, above all, the rich countries, yet the populations of many
developing countries also already live beyond their ecological means (Fritz
and Koch 2016). Reduction of humanity’s ecological footprint, however,
is not the end in itself to be achieved by any means possible. It should
come together with the satisfaction of the basic needs of all. To pursue the
achievement of this dual aim, several frameworks conceptualise a ‘space’
where ecological and social considerations meet (Rockström et al. 2009;
Raworth 2017). Ecological considerations would ensure that the use of
nature’s resources is below the level of planetary limits, while social considerations establish social boundaries whereby basic needs (but not hedonic
wants) of all humans are satisfied. This resonates with the calls for ‘sustainable welfare’, which combines social welfare approaches with sustainability
beyond economic growth (Koch and Mont 2016).
The satisfaction of human needs rather than hedonic wants is central
both to sustainable welfare and degrowth (Koch et al. 2017; Büchs and
Koch 2019).5 Needs differ from wants in that they are non-negotiable and
universal (that is, they do not vary over time and across cultures) and that
failure to satisfy these produces serious harm (Gough 2017). While needs
58
The state in degrowth transformations
85
are universal, how they are satisfied varies geo-historically (Max-Neef 1991;
see also Chapter 7 for an empirical operationalisation based on a combination of academic/codified and practical knowledge). For instance, the need
for food or subsistence was satisfied by hunter-gatherer communities via
foraging, while the same need is most often satisfied by modern societies via
global, industrial production and distribution of food mediated by money.
To achieve the satisfaction of the basic needs of all humans while staying
within the ecological limits of the planet, corresponding policies need to
be introduced. In the literature, state policies are frequently highlighted as
mechanisms of key importance to bring about degrowth (e.g., Fitzpatrick
et al. 2022). Many of the discussed policies are eco-social policies, that is,
policies advancing at once ecological and social goals (Dukelow and Murphy
2022; Gough 2017). For example, slow travel by train may be less affordable than flying and thus unaffordable to many. As a result, many people
fly. Subsidising train tickets can thus simultaneously serve the purpose of
making transportation affordable to all as well as reducing the environmental impact of transportation. Caps on income and wealth, and income and
wealth taxes, are likewise eco-social policies. They can at the same time
reduce economic inequality via redistribution and prevent rich individuals
from overconsuming and leading environmentally unsustainable lifestyles
(Pizzigati 2018).
To ensure that the basic needs of all are satisfied, suggestions have been
made for the introduction of a universal and unconditional basic income
(e.g., van Parijs and Vanderborght 2017), the expansion/introduction of
universal basic services such as housing, education, healthcare and transportation (e.g., Coote and Percy 2020), a voucher system (Bohnenberger
2020), or a combination of these policies (Büchs 2021). Implementation
of such policies is an expensive undertaking which can initially be financed
via greater taxation of wealth or caps on income and/or wealth. Proposals
to place a cap on income usually suggest some quantitative proportion
to minimum incomes such as 10:1 or 20:1 (Concialdi 2018; Martin et al.
2023). Beyond this, 100% taxation would take place. There is, however,
no agreement about where exactly the cap level should be set and which
forms of wealth should be targeted (Buch-Hansen and Koch 2019). Beyond
suggesting income caps and wealth taxation as the policies which target the
ecological aspects of consumption, other ecological policies include decarbonisation of energy supply, carbon rationing and protecting nature and
the commons from the interests of multinational corporations (Büchs and
Koch 2017).
Some policies target the quality of life and wellbeing beyond the satisfaction of basic needs. Working time reduction is an example of such a policy
(Spencer 2022). Reduction of working time, combined with the reassurance
86
Deep transformations
that basic needs of a person are (and will be) satisfied, can free up time
for engaging in, for instance, activism, spiritual pursuits and education.
Education in itself is a sphere in need of reform. Currently, it is often the
case that instrumental views of nature and other humans are promoted by
the education system. Employability, or becoming appealing and useful to
someone else’s pursuits of profit, rather than personal growth and responsibility towards the self, others and nature, is highlighted. Starting from
the very first stages of formal education, environmental and social values
need to be nurtured. This concerns the content of curricula as well as teaching spaces, forms and methods. For instance, nature-and art-based didactical traditions can be utilised alongside more traditional, classroom-based
modes of interaction between teachers and students (Huizinga 1950; Macy
and Johnstone 2022).
It is important to note that the policies identified above should not
be seen in isolation from one another. No single policy can bring about
degrowth transformation on its own. For instance, it may be unaffordable
for governments to implement a universal basic income without wealth taxation in the longer term. Changing school curricula without reforming the
labour market and creating space for a different way of running business
(see Chapter 6) can create a mismatch between the graduates’ skills and
employers’ desires. Enforcing carbon and income caps and thus reducing
the possibilities for consumption would only result in frustration if humans
are not encouraged to relate to the self, others and nature differently from
the beginning of their life.
The challenge to implementing such policies is not a lack of knowledge
about them or a lack of ideas. Yet, as mentioned, financing of a programme
including a multitude, if not all, the policies identified above, would be enormously expensive. In the absence of GDP growth it is very likely that rich
countries would experience tax losses despite the new sources of income
deriving from, for instance, the taxation of wealth (Bailey 2015: 795).
Combining sustainable welfare and deviation from GDP growth thus
remains a challenge (Büchs 2021; Koch 2022b). One way to make financing easier is a new transnationally coordinated system of taxation which
requires cooperation and solidarity between nations. Here, national governments would need to play active roles in achieving this new tax system and
consider the interests of humanity as a whole rather than the interests of
one’s own nation. The issue of financing comes with another challenge, that
of orchestrating the eco-social policy cycle, that is, combining these policies
in such a way which will result in synergies and ultimately in all humans’
needs being satisfied sufficiently and sustainably within nature’s limits (see
e.g., Hirvilammi 2020).
78
The state in degrowth transformations
87
In orchestrating the eco-social policy cycle, it is important to avoid glamorising these policies by assuming a direct and immediate link between their
implementation and human wellbeing. It may well be that the process of
implementation would be riddled with difficulties. Moreover, though basic
human needs can presumably be met during the transition, many individuals may experience decreased subjective wellbeing, at least in the short term
(Koch et al. 2017). Eco-social policies will significantly alter humans’ way
of life. Though the current way of life is not ecologically sustainable or
solidaric, it is familiar. Stepping on a different path may cause anxiety, fear
and ultimately search for a new meaning (Frankl 2006) and one’s place in
the world. Only if members of civil society self-transform are they likely
to embrace a fundamentally different way of life. Importantly, the need
for self-transformation applies well beyond civil society. Although it has
unfortunately so far barely been recognised in the degrowth discourse, the
role of the state regarding self-transformations is not limited to facilitating such transformation of the ‘subjects’ of the state (members of the civil
society). It also includes nurturing self-transformations in individuals positioned within state apparatuses, including, for instance, politicians, judges
and administrators.6
Currently, the green growth discourse continues to shape the worldviews
and hence policymaking of many of these individuals –that is, provided
any ecological and social reflections arise at all, which may typically not be
the case with respect to, for instance, law enforcement and military personnel. Self-transformations of the state ‘from within’ entail largely the same
self-transformations that would need to unfold in all the other members of
society. As we have already discussed this in some detail in Chapter 4, suffice it to say that self-transformations would entail reflecting on one’s being
part of the broader natural and social world. This reflection would involve
acting in and upon the world correspondingly, with genuine concern and
with immaterial values such as love, friendship, care, fellow-feeling, solidarity and empathy guiding one’s actions.
Such self-transformation ‘from within’ the state is necessary if the emergence of new state nobilities, that is, occupants of power positions in various
government and administrative departments, is to be prevented. Even state
philosophies (such as social democracy and communism) which claimed
to have broad human interests in mind repeatedly led to the emergence of
new state nobilities. Rather than tackling ecological and social issues, such
individuals and their groups focused on defending their power against competing groups within the state bureaucracy. While the degrowth discourse
insists on its inherent difference from other approaches and its genuine concern for all humans and nature, it is not immune to a similar unfolding of
88
Deep transformations
power relations. Discussions on how the focus on power can be discouraged beyond the call for self-transformations are important. Proposals may
include limiting public office to a certain number of years and complementing the institutions of representative democracy with the elements of direct
democracy.
In conclusion
In this chapter we have outlined a broad theoretical perspective on the state
and used it to shed light on the state’s role both in capitalist social formations and in degrowth transformations. Our perspective, which seeks
to transcend state-oriented and state-opposed thinking, entails viewing the
state and civil society as strongly interconnected. Consequently, state policy
is regarded as fundamentally shaped by social forces within and beyond
the state. In this view, the state could come to play a positive –indeed crucial –role in degrowth transformations if a comprehensive coalition of
social forces (a power bloc) united around the political project of degrowth
were to gain sufficient momentum. The state can play an important role in
facilitating self-transformations in civil society and business, yet it is equally
important that such transformations occur within the individuals occupying positions in the state itself. It also follows from this perspective that any
strategy for degrowth exclusively targeting civil society and not the state (or
vice versa) is unlikely to be successful (Koch 2022a).
What, then, are the main differences between the capitalist state and the
degrowth state? In capitalist circumstances, the growth paradigm delineates
the limits for state action in economic, social and environmental domains
to a significant extent. Environmental policies are feasible only so long as
these do not undermine the overall growth orientation. Hence, state action is
largely reduced to the facilitation of ‘green growth’. In a degrowth context, by
contrast, the policy priority of achieving economic growth is replaced by the
goal of moving the economy and society into a space where both ecological
and social considerations are met. The economic, social and environmental
policies of the state would be oriented towards minimising matter and energy
throughput and maximising sustainable welfare, specifically the provision of
sufficient need satisfiers for all people now and in the future. Another difference pertains to the nature of steering: although degrowth would probably require many policies oriented towards the national scale as well as
transnational coordination, substantial powers would be delegated from the
national to the local scale, where citizens can shape policies through direct
participation.
98
The state in degrowth transformations
89
Thinking about how different kinds of eco-social policies may be combined to initiate a new virtuous circle of policymaking in degrowth contexts is important (Hirvilammi 2020). Such thinking could be enriched by
considering time and scale as we have done in this chapter. That is, the
achievement of synergy across policies would need to go beyond the general
orientation towards planetary boundaries and social floors and include concrete ideas at what scales (local, national, transnational) particular policies
should be applied and in which temporal sequence.
Notes
1 The primacy ascribed to the local-level steering in much of the literature is
related to the vision of a thoroughly localised economy. That is, localisation
advocates highlight the need to replace the current global production and trade
systems with economies based on cooperative principles and oriented towards
local production and consumption cycles (Dietz and O’Neill 2013). Some local
and voluntary grassroots initiatives have proven quite efficient in environmental terms even though they often face difficulties in sustaining themselves over
time (Howell 2012). While some of the obstacles to local production cycles
could be removed in the context of degrowth, it is still the case that much
production cannot feasibly be made entirely local. For this reason alone, state
activities at different scales would be desirable in degrowth transformations.
2 The alternative, currently favoured by most capitalist states, is to reach agreements with transnational corporations on ‘voluntary’ withdrawals from fossil
fuel energy production. For instance, RWE, historically one of the top 100 individual greenhouse gas emitters, will receive over 2.8 billion euros in compensation from the German government for the exit from coal in 2030. However, in
the meantime, RWE is allowed to expand and intensify the burning of fossil
fuels; hence the struggle about the by-now famous village of Lützerath, below
which lie an additional 280 Mio tonnes of CO2 in the shape of lignite coal.
3 For an analysis of the Paris Agreement, see e.g., Morgan (2016).
4 Though countries with coordinated forms of capitalism have not yet achieved
better ecological results than uncoordinated ones, the governments of the countries with coordinated capitalism may nevertheless be in a better position to initiate a degrowth transformation based on a deprioritisation of growth. In fact,
recent comparative attitude studies (Fritz and Koch 2019; Otto and Gugushvili
2020) show that support rates for ‘sustainable welfare’ (see below) strategies
are the highest by citizens of social-democratic countries.
5 While human needs theories can be traced back to Aristotle (Lamb and
Steinberger 2017), the two most systematic and influential approaches have
been (independently) tabled by Doyal and Gough (1991) and Max-Neef (1991)
in the early 1990s. Doyal and Gough identified adequate nutritional food
and water, adequate protective housing, non-hazardous work and physical
90
Deep transformations
environments, appropriate healthcare, security in childhood, significant primary relationships, physical security, economic security, safe birth control and
child-bearing, and basic education as ‘general characteristics’ to meet the two
basic human needs of ‘physical and mental health’ and ‘autonomy of agency’.
Max-Neef (1991: 32–3) suggested subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creation, identity and freedom as universal
needs, each of which can be expressed through needs satisfiers in the four
dimensions of being, having, doing and interacting.
6 It would be interesting to study if, due to their dominated position within the
state, employees located in what Bourdieu calls its ‘left hand’ (welfare and environmental state, for example) are more susceptible to such self-transformation
than the currently dominating members of the judiciary and financing departments (located on the state’s ‘right hand’).
6
Business in degrowth transformations
Having considered civil society and the state in degrowth transformations, we
now turn to the role of business. In recent years, discussions in the degrowth
literature have increasingly revolved around issues related to ‘degrowth
business’ –or some other combination of the terms ‘degrowth/post-growth’
and ‘business/
organisation’ (Hankammer et al. 2021; Nesterova 2020a,
2020b; Schmid 2018). Such discussions have sought to come to terms with
what business would be like as part of a degrowth society, if it can indeed
be part of it (Nesterova and Robra 2022), and what, if any, roles business
can play in transformations towards such societies. In what follows, we first
provide some general reflections on degrowth and business, explaining why
we regard the latter to be an important actor on the roads to degrowth. As
in the preceding chapters, we then consider various matters related to scale
and diversity before we analyse what practices businesses would need to
implement to render them consistent with degrowth. We end the chapter
with a contemplation of whether a degrowth business is necessarily a non-
growing business –concluding that this is not the case.
A primer on business and degrowth
Within the degrowth discourse, some claim that business in most of its
forms is simply inconsistent with degrowth. The reasoning is that whereas
the business is an inherently capitalist entity established to seek, make and
maximise profit (Nesterova and Robra 2022), degrowth is both anti-and
post-capitalist. Here, Perlman’s logic is followed. Perlman notes that a ‘businessman is a human being whose living humanity has been thoroughly excavated’ (Perlman 1983: 31). Others assume that business can indeed be part
of a degrowth society. Or they assume that at the very least business can be
part of the journey towards such a society, whereas the final elements of a
degrowth society remain obscure (Nesterova 2020a; Trainer 2012).
92
Deep transformations
We agree with the second viewpoint for two reasons. First, businesses
currently exist in large numbers. Thus, a strategy of some kind is necessary
for them to participate in a broader societal transformation –in cooperation with social forms in civil society (Chapter 4) and the state (Chapter 5).
To exclude the domain of business, a large part of the modern economy,
from a theory of degrowth transformations seems unwise. Moreover, while
some businesses are not compatible with degrowth, businesses operating
in destructive sectors being cases in point, there are also forms of business
which can be compatible with and part of a degrowth economy. Moreover,
it seems likely that a time will come when uncomfortable questions such as
‘how about multinational corporations?’ will need to be asked in relation
to degrowth and answered in more sophisticated ways than proposing that
they will not exist in a degrowth society.
Our second reason for viewing business as part of degrowth is the
acknowledgement that human beings are central to business. Individuals
who are currently owner-managers and employees of businesses may not be
opposed to transformations, and in fact be supportive of both sustainability
more broadly and even degrowth as a strand of sustainability thinking if
they (come to) know what it is. Some people may be participating in business due to the absence –or their unawareness –of other choices rather than
because they aim to reproduce the capitalist system and maximise profits by
exploiting fellow humans, non-humans and nature. Ironically, claiming that
a business is necessarily a profit-maximising entity is relying on the same
logic as neoclassical economics, the school of thought from which degrowth
tries to deviate and whose premises it counters.
Making a distinction between business as trade and a business as a social
entity (for example, a company or firm) can be helpful. If degrowth society is seen as a journey rather than as something that can be brought into
existence overnight (Nesterova 2022c), it is to be expected that trade would
remain part of degrowth society, even if such a society were in later stages to
move towards consumers becoming producers, greater self-sufficiency, low
technology, and even barter (Skrbina and Kordie 2021). Yet what are some
of the transformations that business as trade could undergo on journeys
towards degrowth society? For one thing, business as global trade would
need to be reduced, since long supply chains are unsustainable, energetically
and materially intensive, and obscure. More human needs should be satisfied
locally and in a place-sensitive manner, where the meaning of ‘location’ can
be fluid rather than precisely defined (for example, as a town) depending on
a product or service. More alternative forms of business and organisations
would participate in trade (Nesterova and Robra 2022). Moreover, fewer
activities would in general be carried out by ‘doing business’. This includes
less marketisation and less commercialisation. Indeed, in a degrowth society
39
Business in degrowth transformations
93
more space (physical and metaphorical) should be dedicated to other activities outside business, and opportunities should be sought which allow people to produce goods themselves (in households) and collectively via, for
example, community-based organisations (Trainer 2012). In other words, in
a degrowth society not only production and consumption would be reduced,
so would exchange or trade. Instead, other forms of redistribution of both
goods and skills can be employed, such as sharing, gift and provision (for
example, via universal basic services).
Turning to businesses as social entities, ‘degrowth business’ is a term that
has so far mostly been used to refer to a business suitable for a degrowth
society.1 What would business look like in such a society and during transformations towards it? A business can engage in transformations in at least
two ways. First, it can be self-transformed via the intentional efforts of
humans involved in the business, such as businesspersons and even employees, naturally considering the difference in power of those groups as well
as the policy environment in which the business exists. Second, it can be
transformative towards social structures it is embedded in, possibly by collaborating with actors in civil society and the state. These processes are
deeply interrelated. In transforming itself, a business also contributes to
transforming socio-economic structures (Nesterova 2021c), and business-
as-usual becomes less acceptable and less desirable. For instance, nurturing a fellow-
feeling by owner-
managers and employees towards nature
goes against the current norm of exploitation and seeing nature as merely
a resource pool. Such attitudes may find manifestations in the practices of
the business in which these people are involved. Transforming the business
itself may encourage its networks as well as customers to reconsider their
own relationships with nature, prompting them, for instance, to make more
ecological choices and source more sustainable materials. While this may
appear almost unrealistic and a utopian view of business, our own work
with businesspersons shows that often they are normal human beings who
are not any less concerned with the state of the world around them than
are other people (e.g., Nesterova 2020b, 2022c). It is often the case that
businesspersons do not promote or support degrowth because they do not
know about it or were educated or brought up believing that capitalism is
the only system that works.
Theoretically, business can be seen as both an agent in economies and
societies, as well as a structure. Viewing business as a structure places focus
on the transformation of business via the agency of the individuals involved
in business. In this case, the interest is in internal processes, relationships,
hierarchies, power, culture, teams and dynamics. Disambiguating a business
as a structure and considering its internal principles and logics allows one
to appreciate the depth of transformation, which goes all the way to the
94
Deep transformations
psyches of the individuals involved. Viewing business as an agent focuses
on the role of business as a single social entity and how this entity can
participate in transforming the social world as an agent. In this case, the
relationships between businesses, the empowering and constraining structures a business is subject to, are the aspects to consider. Neither focus suffices on its own, and both remain important. For instance, it is challenging
to imagine that a business can become an agent of change if it is not also
transformed as a structure.
Scales and diversity of business in degrowth transformations
In this section we consider various matters related to the scale and diversity
of degrowth business. The first thing to note here is that business comes in
different scales, ranging from micro businesses and sole traders (sole proprietorship), in which case the businessperson is also the business entity, to
large transnational corporations which themselves represent complex structures and systems of ownership and subsidiaries spread across numerous
locations. With degrowth advocating reduced matter and energy throughput, qualitative change, localisation, production for needs and redistribution
of power, it is safe to assume that transnational corporations will not form
part of degrowth societies. The reason for this is that such corporations
are characterised by, for instance, obscure ownership patterns, enormous
power, including the power to shape and direct consumption, and highly
unequal remuneration of workers. The most suitable scales of business for
degrowth are the micro and small scales. Some argue, however, that large-
scale production and service provision such as steelworks and railways
would continue to exist in a degrowth society (Trainer 2012). This is indeed
likely, unless a degrowth society is understood to be a highly localised, low-
technology society (see e.g., Skrbina and Kordie 2021). If such a society
does not seem realistic or even desirable, then degrowth theorists need to
contemplate challenging questions such as what will happen with large-
scale production and transnational corporations on the journey towards
a degrowth society. Moreover, if industries such as the railways industry
and steelworks are deemed desirable, many more industries become necessary. That is, like any other industries, the railways and steel industries do
not exist in a vacuum: they require supply chains, complex machinery and
equipment which, in turn, require large and high-technology factories.
While it may be controversial to see large-scale producers as allies of
degrowth, to exclude them entirely from discussions of transformations
is unwise. Interestingly, degrowth scholars often advocate services provided and made possible by large corporations (such as travelling by train),
59
Business in degrowth transformations
95
while also seeing such companies as not immediately degrowth compatible.
Arguably, other strands of sustainability thinking such as circular economy and green capitalism scholarship –including various corporate social
responsibility discourses –have been more attentive to the sustainability
question of large-scale production and have not shied away from contemplating the role of large corporations in bringing about a sustainable society
and proposing ideas for their participation (for example, business models,
certification). While we do not consider large corporations the ideal form of
degrowth business (or even suitable for degrowth society), focusing mostly
on small firms or alternative organisations and theorising ideal degrowth
organisations does not suffice.
How can large businesses become more degrowth compatible? First and
foremost, the question of (fair and more transparent) ownership may be
reflected upon. In contemporary capitalism it is typically incredibly challenging to understand the structure of a large company’s ownership, especially
because it is common for companies to own and control other companies
as is the case with holding companies. Statements such as the following
from Fair Squared GmbH (2022) are rare: ‘FAIR SQUARED is a limited
company registered in Cologne, Germany. The company is family owned
with no other companies or investors directly or indirectly involved. Our
headquarters and warehouse are located on 700 m² rented space in Cologne
Marsdorf. Additional warehouse capacity is available through logistics providers if and when needed.’ Complicated ownership structures exist for the
purpose of valorisation of capital rather than for the purpose of production for genuine human needs in a society living in harmony with nature.
It remains unclear whether an appropriate path for degrowth is to pursue
nationalisation (public ownership) beyond selected industries. Such a path
may lead to bureaucratic structures and require a strong state able to manage vast resources (see also Chapter 5). A mixture of ownership can also be
pursued, for instance, if only large-scale production and service provision
is run by the state (such as railways or steelworks) while the majority of
other types of production and service provision is owned by communities
or individuals.
Micro and small-scale businesses are more degrowth compatible for several reasons. Such businesses do not possess the same level of power as
transnational corporations and many such businesses are localised in various ways such as with respect to ownership, operation, employment or
sourcing. Localisation is an important aspect of degrowth society (Latouche
2009; Trainer 2014). However, localisation of ownership and operation
is distinct from localisation of supply chains. For instance, even a simple
bar of soap produced in Sweden requires materials from far-away destinations: shea butter from Ghana and essential oil from France. Producing
96
Deep transformations
wine from local wild berries in Northern Sweden (based on an example
from our own research) requires equipment imported from Italy, expertise
from Canada and laboratory services from Denmark. Thus, often the ‘local’
appearance of a company conceals what actually goes into the production
of a certain product.
Small-
scale business can lead to positive outcomes for humans (and
nature). For instance, small businesses can ensure a higher level of control
over the processes of production and responsibility towards a place. They
can also create spaces for psychological wellbeing (Nesterova 2022b). Such
outcomes are due to a small business’s ownership patterns, embeddedness
within their local community and their independence. However, scale does
not in itself qualify a business for a degrowth society. Even a small business
can be hierarchical and a less than pleasant space to work in. Such businesses might also not have dedicated human resources departments which
could assist in, for instance, conflict resolution. Smallness of business also
does not guarantee better practices. A small business can focus on niche
products which are unaffordable for the general public, or common products which are likewise unaffordable precisely due to the small and local
nature of a business. For instance, Russell (1994) mentions innumerable
unnecessary small shops in London that operated for the leisure of the idle
rich. While Russell’s example goes back over 80 years, his critique remains
as relevant today. Businesses in a degrowth economy should focus on the
satisfaction of genuine human needs and do so in a manner which allows
more people to consume the product. In other words, it is important to
contemplate each business individually rather than rely on broad statements
such as ‘small is beautiful’ (Schumacher 1993). It may or may not be –or it
may be for some but not for others.
In a degrowth society, businesses would be likely to assume a diversity of
legal forms. They could, for instance, take the form of private companies,
cooperatives, not-for-profit businesses or (eco-) social enterprises. Crucially,
the form of business, just like the scale of business, in itself does not determine its degrowth compatibility. In other words, a degrowth society would
not be brought about if all existing privately held companies (of various
legal forms such as ‘limited’ in the UK and ‘GmbH’ in Germany) suddenly
became cooperatives. A small privately held company can be a pleasant
place to work in, it can be non-growing and practise ecological orientation
and pro-sociality. A cooperative can be hierarchical, have unhealthy internal dynamics and produce products which are unnecessary.
The best approach to organising production and service provision in a
degrowth society would probably be to allow for a plurality of organisational forms and ways of cooperation. Each form has its positive aspects
and downsides. For instance, private companies can offer a person or a
79
Business in degrowth transformations
97
group of people more control over the company’s operations. This might
be the most suitable form for, say, a small-scale artisanal and craft production firm (Nørgård 2013), as well as for small local cafés and stores.
Such firms can still cooperate with others, for example by sharing resources
and collectively implementing circular economy practices, fulfilling larger-
scale projects in cooperation and establishing formal and informal networks
(Nesterova and Buch-Hansen 2023; see also Savini 2023). Such firms may
allow individuality and relative autonomy –and facilitate a higher level of
wellbeing for those who prefer to operate a small business by themselves or
in cooperation with friends and family. Doing so is not necessarily a sign
of individualism or egocentrism and does not go against the principles of a
degrowth society.
Larger-scale production of food, for example, can be organised in a
degrowth society in the form of a cooperative and, for instance, be owned
by workers. Again, however, this is not the only degrowth-compatible
form such production can take. Food production can likewise be carried out by small-scale independent farmers. In the degrowth discourse,
some have placed hope in cooperatives as a prevalent form of business
in a degrowth society (see e.g., Johanisova et al. 2015). However, while
such a form can be beneficial since it emphasises counter-capitalist values
such as democratic member control, it may not be the most suitable form
for some strands within anarchist tradition (Stirner 2005). For instance,
some may see a democratic structure as constraining, and membership in
a cooperative as an obligation or a pressure to participate. Such an individualist perspective is not necessarily incompatible with degrowth if one
assumes human goodness to be central to human nature (see Conclusion,
this volume).
Apart from cooperatives, (eco-) social enterprises have been proposed
as a form of business for a degrowth society (Johanisova and Franková
2017). Such businesses, as the name suggests, prioritise ecological and
social outcomes over profits. In doing so, they reinvest profits into ecological and social commitments and projects. The distinction between such
forms and a ‘normal’ business is not always clear. While it may be assumed
that a ‘normal’ business prioritises profits and ignores ecological and social
embeddedness, it is not necessarily so in reality. Especially in the case of
small companies, what practices and principles are prioritised depends on
the owner-managers as well as the employees of the business (Nesterova
2021a). Some business owners operate their business less with a view to
pursue profit and more for cultural reasons, as a family tradition and/or as
a commitment to a certain location. In other words, a business can behave
akin to an (eco-) social enterprise without necessarily being one or identifying itself as such.
98
Deep transformations
Above we have considered some of the diverse forms that businesses can
take in degrowth transformations. However, if society were to embark and
progress on degrowth journeys, it is conceivable that the differences between
these diverse forms of business eventually become less prominent. That is,
ultimately, the need for a specific form such as ‘not-for-profit business’,
‘(eco-) social enterprise’, ‘community interest company’ etc. may become
obsolete in a degrowth society where all businesses would deviate from the
primacy of profit seeking and find more freedom to pursue other commitments, many of which businesses are pursuing already.
Degrowth business practices
In this section, we contemplate what practices businesses could implement
to become degrowth compatible. To this end we use the four planes of social
being model (Bhaskar 2020: 116; Bhaskar 1993) outlined in the book’s
Introduction so as to provide a holistic perspective. We suggest that business transformations would pertain to their transactions with nature, relationships between people, social structure and people’s selves (Table 1). For
this reason, elsewhere we identify degrowth business as a business of deep
transformations (Nesterova 2022b). Certainly, it is not always straightforward to assign specific business practices to a specific plane. For instance,
localisation of production can be seen as a degrowth practice of improving humanity’s material transactions with nature. Yet it can also facilitate
a closer connection between the business and the people in the location in
which the business is. Likewise, moral growth, a kind of growth that should
be welcomed and nurtured in a degrowth society, may naturally result in
rethinking of business’s relationship with nature and its practices in this
domain. In other words, the planes are interconnected, a matter we return
to in the Conclusion to the volume.
Starting with material transactions with nature, an overall goal of
a degrowth economy is the reduction in humanity’s matter and energy
throughput. This does not necessarily easily translate to the level of business. Still, businesses can contribute to this pursuit by centring their production around the principle of sufficiency, that is, produce what is needed
and not more. A firm may also be able to decrease the wastes that go into
the environment. This can be achieved, for instance, by revising the process
of production and by working with other businesses that can make use of
the wastes created by a firm. For instance, cardboard waste generated by
one firm may be shredded and used by another firm to package its products (Nesterova 2020b). Here, degrowth business can in both practice and
theory benefit from existing knowledge of how to close matter and energy
99
Business in degrowth transformations
99
Table 1 Degrowth business practices and the four planes of social being
Planes of social being
Practices
Material transactions with nature
Sufficiency in energy and material use
Waste and pollution minimisation
Efficiency in the use of materials/energy,
circularity
Renewable resource/energy use
Durable and repairable products
Localisation of production
Social interactions between people
Non-hierarchy
Democratic decision-making
Wellbeing
Work as a process of learning and growth
Knowledge sharing
Collaboration
Social structure
Appropriate technology
Decreased productivity
Reduction in working hours
Embeddedness within society
Production for needs satisfaction
Plurality of business forms
Working with likeminded businesses,
activists and consumers
Transparent and fair ownership patterns
Inner being
Moral growth
Non-anthropocentrism
Long-term view
Fellow-feeling towards humans and
non-humans
Source: Adapted from Nesterova (2020a, 2021a).
loops in the process of production by implementing circularity as a principle
(Bauwens 2021; Nesterova and Buch-Hansen 2023).
Using renewable material and energy is a degrowth business practice.
However, it is doubtful whether renewable energy can sustain a degrowth
society (Trainer 2022), especially considering the aspirational and theoretical nature of a degrowth society. That is, it remains unclear what such a society will look like and what will be produced in it, how it will be produced
and by whom. In this case, renewable energy use needs to be combined
with other practices, such as sufficient and efficient production. Another
important practice is producing goods which are durable and repairable.
100
Deep transformations
This means deviating from single-use products and packaging (including
near-single-use products such as fast fashion and fast furniture), planned
obsolescence and other common but destructive practices. Production of
durable and repairable items can support the efforts of degrowth-compatible
social movements. As described in Chapter 4, such movements may include
the zero-waste movement as well as minimalism and voluntary simplicity.
Consumers who align themselves with such movements seek to engage in
slower and more mindful consumption and demand durable and repairable
products. In a degrowth society such movements would probably become
the norm.
As mentioned above, yet another important aspect of degrowth business practice is localisation (Nesterova 2022b; Trainer 2012). Localisation
is not only or simply about the shortening of supply chains, thereby improving humanity’s material transactions with nature. It is also about practising responsibility towards places and embeddedness within them. This may
include understanding the local culture, knowing one’s community, understanding the rhythms of local nature and climate, the patterns of topography
and the patterns of the social life. Clarke (2013: 496) notes that ‘localities
are not produced and then fixed in perpetuity, but get made, unmade and
remade over time’. Businesses can participate in this process of making or
transforming localities towards more ecological ones, rendering them better
places to dwell in for humans and non-humans alike.
Turning to social interactions between people, they would undergo a significant transformation in degrowth business. Non-hierarchical organisation can enable democratic decision-making where everyone can participate
in the process of business transformation. Interactions between businesspeople should be aimed at wellbeing, learning and fulfilment in the process
of production rather than competition. Replacing competition with cooperation and collaboration could likewise facilitate knowledge sharing and
mentoring of fellow workers. Improved social interactions between business
and the surrounding community can materialise if a business considers not
only the location where it is, but also the place. The notion of a place goes
far beyond that of a location (Tuan 1979, 2001) in that a place is defined as
a ‘particular location that has acquired a set of meanings and attachments’
(Cresswell 2009: 169). Business, alongside its customers and participants
in networks, can develop a shared meaning, for instance, exemplified in a
collective desire for harmonious coexistence. Also, it can arrange economic
interactions in ways making co-existence possible. This requires expanding
the notion of social interactions beyond the ones internal to business to also
include the interactions between the business and its ‘outside’.
Next, we contrast existing social structures with what could be transformative structures both within and outside business. Usually, social structures
101
Business in degrowth transformations
101
are seen as constraining towards degrowth business. This is indeed so if the
social system is seen as uniformly capitalist and homogeneous. However,
within contemporary societies and economies, a diversity of structures and
practices exists (Chapter 2; see also Gibson-Graham and Dombroski 2020).
Some social structures can be empowering towards degrowth businesses.
Such structures include formal and informal networks as well as the presence of like-minded businesses and customers (or even activists and politicians) who share similar worldviews and are likewise on a journey towards
a society living in harmony with nature. Business as a social structure can
be organised in a variety of forms. As we discussed above, no form is perfect, and the plurality of forms should be highlighted. No matter which
forms a degrowth business assumes, its ownership patterns should be fair
and transparent.
While many businesses exist as abstract and mobile entities in the capitalist system, a degrowth business is embedded within other social structures in
its location. Such embeddedness may be multi-scalar and refer to the business’s own location, the broader region and nature at large. Embeddedness
of a business is unavoidable. Production and service provision by degrowth
businesses should be carried out for the purpose of satisfaction of genuine
needs. Degrowth does not suggest that only basic needs must be satisfied,
although satisfaction of basic human needs of all humans sufficiently is non-
negotiable and should become a priority.
While indeed there is much that businesses can do by themselves, for
example by organising networks or working with suppliers and distributors with similar worldviews, a range of policies could also assist business
participation in the transformation of societal structures. Policies can target
various levels of business. Universal basic income can facilitate the creation
of small businesses engaged in artisanal and craft production. It can offer
humans some ‘breathing space’ to deviate from their current, often meaningless, employment (Graeber 2018) and do something in which they find
meaning and fulfilment, for example, turn their existing hobby into a small
business. The costs, both in terms of identity and income, of quitting a job
and establishing a degrowth-inspired business instead, are rather high. In
the capitalist system, the risk is likewise high. A basic income and the provision of universal basic services can counter some of this risk.
Currently, policies facilitate conventional, capitalist dynamics. For
instance, they aim to support growing businesses which comply with the
capitalist definition of success and that can demonstrate growth aspirations.
Support should be given to a much wider range of businesses, including
those businesses which operate in desirable sectors (such as organic agriculture) and those which do not seek to grow. Below we argue that a degrowth
business is not necessarily a non-growing one, yet non-growing businesses
102
Deep transformations
should receive more recognition. In the capitalist setting, businesses often
seek growth not due to a certain desire to sustain capitalism, but rather to
address the issue of borrowing and debt. This dynamic is externally imposed.
Addressing interest repayment can be a way of facilitating businesses that
are more degrowth compatible. Policies in the current system likewise target
technological innovation and digitalisation. Some argue that in a degrowth
society the focus would be on appropriate and even simplified technology
rather than high technology (Heikkurinen 2018; Heikkurinen and Ruuska
2021; Nesterova 2021b). Further to this, policies can provide support for
businesses which make use of lower technology. Having said that, no consensus exists as regards the relationship between technology and degrowth.
It may be that some technological innovations can serve degrowth transformations, for example by facilitating a more effective sharing of existing
resources, items and food, gifting, borrowing and lending existing goods,
organising for degrowth, learning about degrowth and sharing experiences.
Finally, degrowth business transformations would also pertain to the
plane of inner being. This plane has so far not received much attention in the
field of degrowth (Brossmann and Islar 2020; Buch-Hansen and Nesterova
2023). A reason for this may be that degrowth scholarship seeks to deviate from methodological individualism, that is, explaining what happens in
society with reference to the actions of individual humans. The degrowth
discourse often emphasises social structures and systems and humanity’s material transactions with nature, thus tending to overlook people’s
inner life. Degrowth advocates tend to suggest that to transition towards
a degrowth society, humans need to organise with others, collaborate and
cooperate. While we have no argument with this, it is also important to
recognise that there are differences between individuals. For this reason, it
is important that degrowth business is diverse and allows different people
to choose different forms of business, production and provision which can
be more or less collective, ranging from being self-sufficient to relying on
networks and communities.
We would contend that growth in people’s inner being is universally
required for transformations towards degrowth to become reality. This
applies equally to businesspersons and employees of businesses. Such growth
may signify a shift towards harmonious coexistence between humans and
nature, and hence make the degrowth business practices outlined above
appealing to businesspersons and employees. Orientation towards harmonious coexistence is in stark contrast with what the current capitalist system
promotes: short-term goals, overproduction and overconsumption, monetary gains, power and status seeking, and materialism. Implementation
of degrowth business practices, which often go against the norms of the
capitalist system, is a daunting process. However, growth in people’s inner
301
Business in degrowth transformations
103
being would make this process meaningful and valuable. Such growth is a
journey. Undoubtedly, as indicated above, business transformation should
be seen in a similar way.
It is disempowering and unnecessarily pessimistic to assume that currently businesses are not doing anything to contribute to making degrowth
society reality and that profit maximisation is the only pursuit businesspersons have. Typically, degrowth is not explicitly considered by businesses,
but multiple practices that businesses currently engage in and multiple
principles according to which they operate are degrowth compatible. An
absence of the word ‘degrowth’ or a lack of knowledge about this concept
does not mean that something akin to degrowth is not unfolding in the
pockets and niches of the capitalist system and in the ways agents relate to
the world, including within businesses.
It is important to remember that businesses are communities of humans.
While the degrowth discourse revises every premise of mainstream economics and assumes that ‘economic man’ is a false and misleading model
of a human being (see Chapter 4), it at the same time assumes that those
involved in business, especially owner-
managers, are ‘economic men’
working intentionally towards the reproduction of capitalist structures.
Empirical work reveals that this is not the case, even if it may be the case in
some businesses (e.g., Nesterova 2021a). Individuals are different and they
employ a great diversity of practices in their businesses. Like other humans,
owner-managers and employees are in their own ways trying to navigate the
capitalist landscape and have varying views in terms of personal practice,
politics, and how they relate with others, nature and non-humans. In their
capacity as consumers, hardly any degrowth scholars are able to practise
degrowth fully and live according to the principles we advocate (see also
Ehrnström-Fuentes and Biese 2022). It is likewise unfair to expect that businesses can be fully degrowth compatible in the capitalist system.
In conclusion: growth vs non-growth
In the early development of the degrowth discourse, it was common to
translate the goal of an overall reduction in matter and energy throughput
into the notion that non-growth is necessary at the level of business. The
relationship between humanity’s reduction in matter and energy throughput
and the so-called microeconomic level is, however, much less straightforward. Moving towards an economic system that functions within planetary
boundaries does not mean that no businesses can grow or indeed that consumption cannot increase in some cases. In other words, a degrowth business is not necessarily a business which does not grow (although it can also
104
Deep transformations
be a non-growing business). Imposing non-growth on businesses, especially
micro and small business, is oversimplifying and mathematising the issue –
something that was common in earlier growth-critical scholarship (see e.g.,
Daly and Townsend 1993). It is more fruitful to pay attention to the quality,
nature and journey of a business as a community of individuals who are trying to navigate the capitalist landscape, hopefully towards a better world.
Moreover, mathematising the issue and prescribing, for instance, how many
items a business can produce or how many employees it can have, requires
bureaucratic oversight and top-down control. The questions then arise of
who would be overseeing and enforcing such rules or guidelines, how much
power they would have and whether a market would be created for trading
various permits for quantities. A change in values and culture, whereby individuals internalise non-capitalist pursuits, appears to be a more sustainable
option in relation to a long-term change.
As we noted in the book’s Introduction, growth in some parts of a
degrowth economy is in fact desirable and necessary. For instance, growth
in the number and size of businesses involved in organic agriculture does
not contradict degrowth. Craft and artisanal production is also often highlighted positively in the degrowth discourse (Nørgård 2013; Soper 2020).
It may thus be expected that the number of such businesses would grow,
and that existing businesses of this sort could expand their production and
employ several more people. New possibilities in the built environment
open spaces for alternative buildings and modes of living, thus new businesses may be established in this industry, just as existing ones may grow
(Nesterova 2022a). This does not mean that no limits should be placed on
business. For example, allowing businesses to turn into transnational corporations is counterproductive for a degrowth economy.
Overall, a more holistic approach to business growth needs to be taken.
The scientific community as well as practitioners may consider deviating
from the growth vs non-growth binary and see the question of growth in
more processual terms. For instance, a business may grow in some periods of time when a new and good idea arises but maintain its capacity in
other periods of time. Other businesses may not want to grow (Nesterova
2020b). Some businesses face increasing demand which they cannot satisfy
since satisfaction of this demand comes at a cost of reduced quality of life.
Still others may want to remain a certain size but are forced to expand to
meet their debt obligations. A degrowth economy should offer more space
for creativity and imagination as well as flexibility in engaging in business
ventures. As consumers also transform their ways of relating with the world
towards harmonious co-existence and thus consuming less, some businesses
501
Business in degrowth transformations
105
may naturally reduce their product ranges and even shrink. For such an attitude towards business growth to become reality, culture needs to change.
Currently business growth is seen in hierarchical terms, as necessarily better than non-growth or more creative growth, or growth to a certain limit.
Business growth is seen as a manifestation of success and entrepreneurial
abilities. Transformations towards a degrowth economy require that such
logics are challenged and deconstructed. This has major implications for
business education including that in business schools and economics departments as well as in other fields of knowledge which derive from economics
and business (such as economic geography).
Note
1 By a business we mean a social entity which produces and provides services.
While recently a number of scholars have taken an interest in degrowth organisations (e.g., Vandeventer and Lloveras 2021), we avoid the use of the term
‘organisation’ in this context due to this term being even broader. That is, an
organisation can encompass such greatly diverse social forms as, for example, religious organisations, informal organisations or institutions. A business
can be seen as an organisation of production and service provision, and some
organisations are engaged in business practices, community-supported agriculture being an example.
7
Degrowth transformations –an
empirical study
Though the main contribution of this book is theoretical, it is important
to indicate how our approach may inspire empirical studies into degrowth
transformations. Much theorising would indeed be in vain if it could not
illuminate the gap between theory and practice, which is especially obvious in the case of the climate emergency. For decades, scientists have predicted climate disaster, without this provoking much change in dominant
production and consumption patterns or social practices. Social scientists
are well positioned to shed light on this inertia of social structures, which,
despite all their connections to the natural system, are different from natural
structures. Worse still, remaining on the theoretical terrain risks reproducing what Bourdieu (2000: 51) called the ‘scholastic fallacy’: projecting one’s
‘theoretical thinking into the heads of acting agents’, theorists have too
often mixed up the world as an ‘object of contemplation, a representation, a
spectacle’ with the world as it ‘presents itself to those who do not have the
leisure (or the desire) to withdraw from it in order to think it’.1 In a political
and strategic perspective, too, an empirical investigation into the type and
share of people susceptible and opposed to degrowth transformations may
be an important contribution to such change.
Previous chapters have identified eco-social policies as a key mechanism
for degrowth transformations. Thus, in this chapter, a part of the book’s
theoretical perspective is applied in an analysis of the support for such
policies. Specifically, we reinterpret recent quantitative and qualitative data
from research projects in which Max Koch was involved in Sweden and
relate these data to the four planes of social being. We start with a description of the support in the Swedish population2 towards selected eco-social
policies that degrowth and sustainable welfare scholars identified as important mechanisms of transformational change (see Hirvilammi et al. 2023
for an overview). This is followed by a more in-depth view into the kind
of social groups in favour of and opposed to degrowth transformations.
Finally, we introduce a method that we regard as helpful for the expansion
of alternative societal spaces and thus the support for degrowth. We show
701
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
107
how the codified knowledge of researchers can be combined with the practical knowledge of citizens in the perspective of initiating transformative
change, and present corresponding qualitative data from deliberative citizen
forums on needs satisfaction.
How popular are transformational eco-social policies?
To assess the popularity of key eco-social policies, the present chapter presents and interprets representative survey data from the projects Sustainable
Welfare for a New Generation of Social Policy collected in 20213 and
The New Urban Challenge: Models of Sustainable Welfare in Swedish
Metropolitan Cities (2020).4 Six policy items in Table 2 operationalise the
policies regulating maximum levels of needs satisfaction. These are designed
to respect the ‘ceilings’ or ecological boundaries of the ‘safe and just operating space’ (Chapter 5; Gough 2020; Khan et al. 2022). They include limiting
living space per person, limiting the number of flights per person per year,
introducing a cap on incomes from work and wealth (‘maximum income’),
a tax on wealth and meat consumption, and working time reduction. Five
further items operationalise critical minimum levels or sufficiency ‘floors’ of
needs satisfaction. These include an unconditional basic income (UBI) and
the introduction or expansion of universal basic services (UBS) in the areas
of water, public transport, electricity and internet provision.
Most of the policies designed to limit production and consumption patterns are rather unpopular. Over 70% are against limitations of living space
and almost 60% are against limiting the number of flights a citizen can take
during a year. Over half of the sample is against a tax on meat and a cap on
incomes.5 The somewhat less radical alternative of a wealth tax is, however,
quite popular at 42.5%, and about the same percentage against. This policy
was previously in place and is apparently still part of the Swedish collective
memory. The most popular of the policy items regulating maximum levels
of needs satisfaction is the reduction of working time. This policy enjoys
support from over half of the population, whereas about a third is against it.
The selected policy items regulating critical minimum levels of needs satisfaction via the provision of universal basic services at low fees are very
popular. About 50% are in favour of basic provision of water, 48% of electricity, 45% of internet and 54% of local public transportation. By contrast,
the introduction of a universal basic income is by far the least popular policy
suggestion, with over 70% against it. This should be seen together with the
rather high approval rates for the different universal basic services proposals, indicating path dependency in a country with a tradition of universal
services within a social-democratic welfare regime, especially in the health
newgenrtpdf
Table 2 Support for eco-social policy proposals in Sweden (%)
Policy items regulating maximum levels of needs satisfaction
Policy items regulating critical minimum levels of needs
satisfaction
Limit
Limit
Limit
Tax on Tax on meat
Working
UBI: Basic UBS: Water UBS: Public UBS:
UBS:
living
number
(maximum) wealth
consumption
time
income
low fee
transport
Electricity
Internet
space
of
income
(2020)
(2020)
reduction (2020)
(2021)
in nascent
low fee
low fee
(2021) flights
(2021)
(2020)
area
(2021)
(2021)
(2021)
low fee
(2021)
Against
70.4
59.7
50.7
42.7
52.7
31.4
71.1
25.1
22.6
25.9
24.6
Undecided
21.1
18.8
22.1
14.8
17.1
17.0
17.6
24.7
22.7
25.4
29.0
8.4
21.4
27.2
42.5
30.3
51.6
11.3
50.2
54.7
48.8
46.5
In favour
Sources: Representative surveys conducted within the projects The New Urban Challenge: Models of Sustainable Welfare in Swedish Metropolitan Cities
(2020) and Sustainable Welfare for a New Generation of Social Policy (2021). Respondents were asked to evaluate the above policy suggestions and answered
on five-point Likert scales that contained the following categories: very good and fairly good (‘in favour’), quite bad and very bad (‘against’), neither good nor
bad (‘undecided’).
901
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
109
and care sectors. Further contributing factors include the rather articulated
work ethic in Sweden, according to which full-time employment is expected
for men and women. It seems indeed easier to expand universal basic services in these institutional circumstances than to implement a universal basic
income system with unclear consequences for service provision. However, in
countries with a liberal welfare tradition and correspondingly rudimentary
universal welfare provision, universal basic incomes may well be the quickest and easiest way forward to safeguard basic needs satisfaction (see Koch
2022b and Khan et al. 2022 for more detailed discussions).
Taken together, the survey results point to a considerable gap between
most of the far-reaching measures that sustainability researchers consider
necessary to address the climate emergency and the measures that Swedish
citizens presently support.6 However, approval rates for guaranteeing minimum needs satisfaction levels –universal basic services schemes in particular –are much higher than for measures oriented at introducing maximum
levels. Explanation for the hesitation to implement policies targeting maximum levels of needs satisfaction may include normalisation and naturalisation of the growth imperative in people’s minds and day-to-day social
practices (Koch 2018a). As a corollary, the ‘trickle-down effect’, celebrated
by neoliberal economists, according to which policymakers should not
target the revenues of the rich because some of their gains will automatically benefit the greater good, is deeply anchored in the consciousness of
many people. Welfare systems and multiple other institutions (legal, educational) historically co-developed with the provision of economic growth
and remain coupled to it. The existence of this link is engrained in collective
consciousness, as a result of which any political move beyond the capitalist
growth economy needs to reckon with concerns about wellbeing loss and
social exclusion (Büchs and Koch 2017).
However, not all people are equally disposed to the normalisation of the
capitalist growth imperative. In what follows, we provide an analysis of
how attitudes on eco-social policies and transformational change are linked
to the four planes of transactions with nature, social interactions, social
structures and inner being.
Eco-social dispositions and habitus types
Sociological understandings of the relationship of inertia and change are
linked to positionings in the ‘structure–agency’ debate. The challenge is
to explain how societal structures result as intended and often unintended
consequences of individual practices. Different sociologists have emphasised
either ‘objective’ structures or ‘subjective’ action, or positioned themselves
110
Deep transformations
at different points in a corresponding structure–action continuum (Koch
2020a). At one extreme of this continuum are positions which examine the
whole of society and its institutions as interrelated systems first and then
make their way down to address individuals and small-scale interactions.7
At the opposite end of the spectrum are interactionist approaches that work
their way up from the analysis of individual intentions and small-scale relationships to institutions and entire societies.8
We are drawn to intermediate positions in the structure–agency debate,
represented for example by Marx, Bourdieu, critical realism and ‘social
practice’ approaches (Røpke 2009; Shove et al. 2012; Bhaskar 2016; Büchs
and Koch 2017). These take the position that social structures are –mostly
unintended –results of individual actions. Bourdieu’s theory of practice
(understood as repeated, regular and routinised forms of individual action)
simultaneously distances itself from structuralist (or objectivist) and interactionist (or subjectivist) positions (Bourdieu 1990). He introduces the
habitus as a system of structured and structuring dispositions in terms of
thoughts, perceptions, expressions and actions. Social agents are thought
to be capable of making a difference, but always within the limits set by
the historical period and the social conditions in which they live (Bourdieu
1993; Koch 2020a). This notion recognises that social structures are ‘not
literally internalized by individuals, but only metaphorically, through the
influence they have on our subjectivity’ (Elder-Vass 2007: 345). Following
Bourdieu, it may be assumed that the dispositions of the habitus, acquired
during socialisation in the family and the education system, are durable
and for the most part subconscious. As such it constitutes an objective limitation to our capabilities and possibilities of creating societal alternatives.
Yet human beings should also be considered reflexive and ‘able to critically
evaluate and thus modify our dispositions in the light of our experience, our
reasoning capacities, and our value commitments’ (Elder-Vass 2007: 345).
The possibility of carrying out such reflexive choices is, however, unequally
distributed in a structurally unequal society. In exploring the links between
objective positions and subjective position-takings (Bourdieu 1998), we aim
to understand why positive attitudes towards degrowth transformations
are more likely within certain social contexts and groups than within others.9 While the possibility of acting and initiating social change is generally
limited by the socio-historical conditions of habitus formation, it also varies with one’s position in society. People with more economic and cultural
capital generally have greater impacts than others (Atkinson 2019: 954).
Habitus types are combinations of ‘traits’ (Adorno et al. 1950) or ‘dispositions’ that are developed and occur in specific social contexts (Bremer and
Teiwes-Kügler 2013: 161). It is essential not to schematically apply theoretically constructed habitus types but to generate them from the empirical
111
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
111
material. Fritz et al. (2021) identify the dispositions and the habitus types in
which they appear in the emerging Swedish eco-social field. The study also
relates these dispositions to position-taking on various eco-social policies.
In what follows, we refer to some of the study’s main findings and reinterpret these in relation to people’s susceptibility to degrowth transformations
along the four planes of being.
Fritz et al. (2021) empirically identify eight dispositions that structure the
eco-social field: state redistribution versus liberal market orientation, trust,
self-transcendence versus self-enhancement, sustainable welfare, individualised environmentalism versus preference for traditional welfare policies
(‘red crowding-out’), neoliberal carelessness versus caring responsibility,
‘fossilism’, and power and control.10 Differing significantly with respect to
age, education, gender, income, occupation, religiosity, political orientation,
climate and welfare policy preferences and practices such as flying or eating meat, seven clusters constituting typical combinations of these dispositions are identified below. We elaborate on the characterisation of the seven
groups in Fritz et al. (2021) by commenting on their proximity and distance
from degrowth transformations along the four planes.
The first habitus type, passive anti-ecological conservativism, is prevalent
in about 10% of the sample, especially in the lower regions of social space
and among older and retired persons. Among the employed respondents in
this group, jobs with either a technical or an interpersonal work logic are
frequent. Incomes are the lowest of all respondents, and education levels are
lower than average. While men and women are about equally represented,
religiosity is above average. Passive anti-ecological conservativism features
anti-welfare attitudes and a more general ‘neoliberal carelessness’ (Fritz et al.
2021), which is reflected on all planes of social being, albeit in somewhat
unique ways: in relation to transactions with nature, the view predominates
that environmental protection should not be prioritised over economic
growth. This is related to the perception of oneself as not being affected
by climate change. Regarding social structure, benefits, services and social
policies as means to address structural inequalities are rejected, and this is
embedded in a more general scepticism towards the idea of a potentially
positive role of the state in societal development. However, on the individual
and social interaction planes, people with this habitus display the highest
scores for ‘self-transcendence’ of an ecological kind, expressing concern and
care for future generations as well as other human beings and species –a
sort of care that takes an individualised and anti-collective form. Political
‘position-takings’ in terms of voting preferences reflect a deeply anchored
reluctance towards societal change: the ‘red-green’ parties and the Liberals
are rarely mentioned as preferred options, while the Sweden Democrats
(a populist right-wing party) are overrepresented. The conservative trait of
112
Deep transformations
this habitus manifests itself in very high rejection rates of the statement
that one’s municipality should become ‘more modern’ 15 years from now.
The ‘passive’ element –meaning a low involvement and interest in public
affairs and civil society –is expressed by a low incidence of memberships in
organisations and a reluctance to become active in improving welfare and
the climate. For instance, three-quarters of this cluster ate meat and would
not stop eating meat or flying, and would not join a demonstration.
The habitus trait of self-centred privatism is prevalent in about 8% of
the sample, particularly among those with lower educational degrees and
slightly below-average incomes. It is predominated by older persons, men,
and skilled and unskilled workers. This group distinguishes itself by the
highest scores for ‘self-enhancement’ (the opposite to ‘self-transcendence’).
That is, respondents are concerned with their personal and private matters and do not demonstrate much interest in broader political or societal
issues, let alone transactions with nature, future generations or other human
beings and species. Though this habitus type features a clear political tendency toward the right, with a preference for the Sweden Democrats, the
Social Democrats are nevertheless also mentioned more often than average
as preferred party. The evaluation of climate policies is a bit more negative
than average, but not the worst among all clusters, while opinions about
welfare policies do not differ much from the average. Similar to passive anti-
ecological conservativism, the habitus of self-centred privatism involves a
reluctance to become active in ecological and social matters. For example,
over 70% would not stop eating meat or join a demonstration.
Environmental centralism is prevalent in a relatively large cluster (21%
of the sample) and widespread among persons of average age, born in
Sweden. It enjoys the uppermost socio-economic status due to typical work
positions in the higher service class. Awareness of climate change is greater
than average, indicating an acknowledgement that nature is a necessary
precondition for any kind of social life. State action in this policy area is
appreciated. Yet this is combined with laissez-faire views in relation to inequality and social structures more generally, whereby public welfare policies, particularly directed at economic inequality such as income tax and
maximum and basic incomes, are rejected. There is also a liberal trait dominating perceptions of social interaction with others, expressed in moderate
approval rates of an inclusive multiculturalism. In correspondence with the
predominating upper locations in social space, people with this habitus feel
immune when it comes to environmental risks and display low care for others. Yet in contrast to a plain market liberalism, environmental centralism
is characterised by the highest trust for established institutions such as the
government, political parties and trade unions. The unique combination of
moderate and liberal habitus traits makes this cluster strategically central
311
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
113
and contested. This is reflected in party preferences for the Centre and
Liberal parties, which have in different political constellations joined the
centre-left and centre-right blocs. While there is also some support for the
Social Democrats and Greens, the political extremes (Left party and Sweden
Democrats) are largely rejected. Concerning climate-related political practices, this cluster actively supports environment-friendly lifestyles, indicated
by a greater than average approval of reduced meat consumption and flying.
The relatively large habitus group (16%) of eco-modernist conservativism assembles people of average education, income and socio-economic status. It consists of slightly older than average people, usually born in Sweden
and living in rural areas. Sixty per cent are women. Employment in the
lower service class is widespread, with over 40% having jobs with an interpersonal work logic. This corresponds to relatively high ‘self-transcendence’
scores: people in this group care for nature (also indicated by an advanced
climate-change awareness and a rejection of fossil energy solutions), as well
as other human beings and species. Yet, in relation to social structure, this is
paired with a rather strong liberal market orientation and distrust in institutions, particularly the state. Inequality is, in other words, mostly seen as
just and following from natural and meritocratic differences. Politically,
this group is located on the right, with voting preferences for the Christian
Democrats, Moderates and Sweden Democrats. The support for climate
policies is average when it comes to personal contributions like increased
taxes, but rather high concerning renewable energy and green electricity –measures that do not financially hurt directly and are compatible with
‘ecological modernisation’ and ‘green growth’, that is, market-driven ideas.
Ideas about the ‘autonomous individual’ that should be left in peace by state
and society in the interest of the common good are correspondingly popular
and predominate imaginaries of the inner being.
The trait fossil liberalism is dominant in about 10% of the sample and
typically found among male (over 70%) and urban people with higher
incomes. Self-employment and independent and technical work predominate. The most distinctive disposition of this habitus type is what Fritz et al.
(2021) call ‘fossilism’, the structural opposition to ‘sustainable welfare’,
combining liberal market orientations, an animosity towards all kinds of
climate and welfare policies, and a general lack of trust in institutions, particularly the state. Rejecting climate policies more than any other group,
transactions with nature are interpreted in an almost exclusively instrumental way. Policies towards limiting inequalities within the social structure are
likewise rejected. The individual’s place in society and nature is regarded
as justly deriving from one’s own previous investments in work and educational system. One can conclude that ‘others’, human beings and species, are
seen as mainly means to the end of individual achievement. Politically, this
114
Deep transformations
cluster holds views closest to the right, with party preferences split across
the Christian Democrats, Moderates and Sweden Democrats.
About 19% of the sample feature the habitus of active sustainable welfare, in particular highly educated young people in urban areas, with an
over-
representation of women (57%) and non-
religious persons (42%).
With incomes somewhat below average and employment most often in interpersonal work contexts, and disposing of a maximum of cultural capital but
merely average amounts of economic capital, this is the social group that is
most receptive to degrowth transformations. It features high scores on ‘self-
transcendence’, that is, environmental values indicating non-instrumental
views on transactions with nature, and an advanced feeling of care responsibilities, be it towards other human beings or other species. The high regard
of others and equality is also reflected in the imaginary of the social structure: the group displays the strongest support of egalitarian values and for
welfare via state redistributive policies. As a corollary, the individual self is
here typically perceived as embedded in the social and environmental context. Not surprisingly, this group tends to take political positions at the
opposite pole from ‘fossil liberalism’ and ‘passive anti-ecological conservativism’, with clear preferences for the Greens and the Left Party. It features
not only the strongest support for all kinds of climate and welfare policies
but also the most frequent actual activities (from stopping flying and eating
meat, demonstrating and social media posts, to lobbying politicians).
In contrast, the habitus type moderate traditional welfare includes persons with below average education and slightly below average incomes and
socio-economic statuses (16% overall). It also features the highest share
of persons not born in Sweden (25%) and of people who belong to some
official religion (80%). Though welfare concerns are held in higher regard
than environmental concerns, this group is largely in support of both (the
exception being taxation of meat), featuring the highest scores for caring
responsibility and slightly above average self-transcendence values. Hence,
most people in this cluster neither prioritise economic growth over the environment nor present individual wants over future needs, indicating transformational potential both on the planes of material transactions with nature
and inner being. Yet in relation to social structure, the support for welfare
policies and state redistribution is average. Regarding interaction with others, this group submits to traditional hierarchical social relations and structures. Interestingly, people in this group hold individuals to be responsible
for welfare and ecological degradation. It is politically drawn to the Social
Democrats in combination with a dislike of Christian Democrats and the
Left, taking positions somewhat left of the environmental centralists.
The seven habitus groups described and reinterpreted above in relation
to their susceptibility to degrowth transformations are the empirical results
511
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
115
of a relational approach in which political position-takings in the emerging eco-social field are assumed to be the products of the intersection of
habitus, field and capital. What becomes apparent is the structural habitus
traits that lie behind the attitudes towards policy suggestions that normally
remain unconsidered and/or naturalised. Not only do the objective positions
of the seven groups within society become intelligible, so do their relative
distances, tensions and rupture lines, as well as their structural proximities
and commonalities that complicate or facilitate the formation of political
cross-group coalitions for and against degrowth transformations.
Understood in this relational way, the social structure displays somewhat
contradictory features. On the one hand, climate change and related ecological threats have hitherto been picked up in rather classical and expected
ways, the result being the reproduction rather than transformation of traditional social hierarchies (Fritz et al. 2021). The most ‘progressive’ social
groups, featuring a maximum of cultural capital but finding themselves, in
Bourdieu’s terminology, at the ‘dominated’ end of the ‘dominant’ class, are at
the forefront of degrowth and transformational change (‘active sustainable
welfare’). Meanwhile, the liberal right, characterised by a predominance of
economic capital, is located at the opposite pole, resisting eco-social efforts
(‘fossil liberalism’). Not only do these two groups occupy opposite positions
within the upper regions of social space and share correspondingly different
dispositions and political position-takings (see Figure 2 in Fritz et al. 2021),
they also differ fundamentally in relation to the four planes of social being,
indicating different degrees of susceptibility to degrowth transformations
(Table 3). In fact, these two groups are the only ones that display largely
consistent habitus traits in their diametrically opposed perceptions of material transactions with nature, interactions with others, social structures and
inner being. It is safe to say that a political convergence of the two structural
poles can largely be excluded. Given the long-term inertia of habitus traits,
people with the habitus of fossil liberalism are unlikely to be convinced by
the degrowth movement anytime soon. Fortunately, this is a rather small
group comprising about a tenth of the population.11
On the other hand, the vast majority of people today feature habitus
structures of an inconsistent kind, displaying varying degrees of susceptibility to degrowth on different planes. This makes new coalitions for socio-
ecological transformations at least conceivable. Fritz et al. (2021) consider
the example of a political alliance between representatives of active sustainable welfare and environmental centralism. Such an alliance would not only
be structurally possible, it would also be capable of mobilising sufficient
symbolic and material capital to achieve cultural and political hegemony.
Differences that would need to be overcome lie in the respective views on
the roles of business and social justice in socio-ecological transformations.
newgenrtpdf
Table 3 Degrowth transformational potentials of habitus groups along the planes of social being (O =Open to degrowth;
S =Sceptical towards degrowth)
Passive anti-ecological
conservatism
Self-centred
privatism
Environmental
centralism
Eco-modernist
conservativism
Fossil
Active sustainable
liberalism welfare
Moderate
traditional
welfare
Material
S
transactions
with nature
S
O
O
S
O
O
Interaction
O
with others
S
O
O
S
O
S
Social
structures
S
O
O
S
S
O
S
Inner being
O
S
S
S
S
O
O
711
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
117
Moreover, they lie in the planes of inner being and interactions with others
(see Table 3). Proponents of ‘active sustainable welfare’ envision individuals
as embedded in wider natural and social webs in combination with exhibiting a feeling of care and responsibility towards them, while the liberal trait
within ‘environmental centralism’ produces a tendency towards individualism and low levels of care. Nevertheless, on three of the four planes there is
at least some degree of agreement between the two groups, which political
activism could try to enhance.
Beyond the two just-mentioned habitus groups, people are not entirely
against degrowth. To varying degrees on the different planes of social being
they show some support for it. At this point it is worth remembering that
habitus merely makes certain views and practices more likely than others.
That is, it does not exclude the existence of other causal mechanisms behind
practice, such as rational reasoning. The social sciences can generate knowledge that makes it possible to target specific habitus groups in different
ways, considering their current positions and position-takings relative to the
four planes of being. For example, when engaging with people characterised
by habitus traits of ‘moderate traditional welfare’, one would need to think
of ways to encourage them to contemplate their views on hierarchies and
power. People in the habitus group of ‘passive anti-ecological conservatism’
could be encouraged to reflect on the way they view humanity’s material
transactions with nature. In the next section, we introduce a deliberative
method of interaction between citizens, activists and researchers capable of
facilitating such exchanges.
Deliberating degrowth transformations via citizen forums
Most people feature inconsistent habitus traits, making them more or
less susceptible to degrowth transformations. This susceptibility may well
increase in the current multidimensional crisis of capitalism. Yet whether
the capitalist growth economy will eventually be overcome via a socio-
ecological transformation and degrowth is far from certain. More often
than not, the crisis of an established order has resulted in a new kind of
orthodoxy where dominant interests are defended by replacing democratic
rule by authoritarian rule and the use of force. New types of right-wing
populist movements combine a conservative critique of finance-driven capitalism with chauvinistic and xenophobic slogans and provide the popular
basis for an authoritarian solution to the crisis; that is, one in which the
prevalent way of life in the rich countries is defended by, for instance, using
military power and closing borders (Koch 2020a).
118
Deep transformations
At this juncture, strategies for bottom-up mobilisations are critical. Such
strategies also become possible due to a margin of freedom for political
actions, projects and policies opening up at a time of crisis (Bourdieu 2000).
These political actions and projects could rely on the dispositions of the
habitus that are already susceptible to degrowth transformations, and be
assisted by heterodox centres within academia. Academia can play a role
in the processes of ‘counter training’ (Bourdieu 2000). This entails creation and expansion of spaces where the growth imperative ceases to occupy
people’s minds. Examples of existing spaces include degrowth conferences,
associated local events, and larger-scale initiatives such as Transition towns
(Chapter 4). An additional attempt of collaboration between researchers
and other citizens are deliberative citizen forums, in which the knowledge
of researchers, citizens and local stakeholders is combined to identify the
goods and services necessary for sustainable needs satisfaction within a particular social context.
A framework for imagining and boosting transformational change is provided by the Human Scale Development methodology (Max-Neef 1991).
It introduces a distinction between fundamental human needs, which are
understood as largely universal across time and space, and needs satisfiers, which differ depending on specific historic, social and cultural contexts.
Needs satisfiers may range from characteristics, attitudes, actions and norms
to institutions, policies, physical environment or infrastructures and be
operationalised at different scales and sites (including business, civil society
and the state). Eleven citizen forums were carried out in 2020 on sustainable
needs satisfaction in Sweden.12 In total 84 individuals participated in discussions about how fundamental needs are satisfied today, and how this could
be done in more sustainable ways. Forum participants discussed and distinguished between positive and negative needs satisfiers and then deliberated
on linking satisfiers oriented at actions and measures to achieve an alternative future. In what follows, we relate selected forum data to our theoretical
framework for degrowth transformations. Table 4 displays selected negative
and Table 5 presents positive needs satisfiers as highlighted in the citizen
forums in relation to the four planes of social being and the three sites of
degrowth transformations: business, civil society and state. It is essential to
recognise that any needs satisfier will exist simultaneously on all the four
planes. Yet, it can also be argued that specific needs satisfiers feature more
prominently on selected planes. Thus, in Tables 4 and 5 we assign specific
needs satisfiers to one plane only to serve as examples.
In the site of civil society, participants highlight negative needs satisfiers
such as fossil fuel dependency in transportations systems, limits to participation in democratic processes, privatisation of core infrastructures and
services, and the corporate character of social media. The state is seen by
911
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
119
Table 4 Negative needs satisfiers by sites of degrowth transformations (selection)
Civil society
State
Material
transactions
with nature
Fossil fuel
dependent and
profit-driven
transport system
Overall policy
Monocultures
priority of
economic growth
Transport policies
that complicate
fossil-free ways
of travelling
Social interactions
between people
Limits of
representative
democracy
undermining
social
participation
Reinforces
representative
democratic
systems
Social structures
Privatisation of core Pension policies
infrastructures/
based on
basic services
employment
Standardised
records
teaching practices
in education
system
Growth imperative
Inner being
Corporate social
media
Perfectionism and
productivity
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Illusion of social
differences as
following from
meritocratic
principles
Business
Competitiveness
the participants as prioritising economic growth, reinforcing representative
democratic systems, pursuing employment-based pension policies and promoting anthropocentrism. Finally, as regards business, participants identified negative needs satisfiers such as producing food via monoculture and
promoting the culture of competitiveness, growth orientation, perfectionism, productivity and anthropocentrism.
In contrast to the negative needs satisfiers, the positive needs satisfiers
identified by the participants in the site of civil society include advertisement-
free spaces, renewal of democracy via deliberative citizen forums, public and
localised systems of non-commercial basic welfare provision, local currencies, and life-long learning. The state was envisioned by the participants as
able to provide infrastructure for cycling and walking and life-long learning
120
Deep transformations
Table 5 Positive needs satisfiers by sites of degrowth transformations (selection)
Civil society
State
Business
Material
transactions
with nature
Advertisement-free
zones
Infrastructure
for cycling and
walking
Sufficiency
Localisation
Sharing, repair
and recycling
economy
Social interactions
between people
Democratic renewal
via deliberative
citizen forums
Introduce/strengthen Participatory
deliberative
budgeting
elements in
democratic
institutions
Social structures
Socialised/public and Life-long learning
localised system of
opportunities
non-commercial
for all
basic welfare
Universal basic
provision
income and
Local currencies
universal basic
services
Working time
reduction
Inner being
Life-long learning
Mindfulness,
meditation
Care
Decommodify/
socialise social
media
opportunities for all, and strengthen deliberative elements in democratic institutions and socialise social media. Positive needs satisfiers discussed by forum
participants in relation to the site of business include sufficiency, localisation,
participatory budgeting, reduction in working time and the ethic of care.
In conclusion
A considerable gap exists between what sustainability researchers regard
as necessary behavioural changes to bring production and consumption
patterns within planetary and social limits and what large portions of the
Swedish population are currently prepared to undertake. Reforms designed
to introduce/expand basic services are far more popular than reforms targeting the excessive lifestyles of the rich. This supports previous studies that
have dealt with the ideological effect inherent in the capitalist mode of production. Not only economic categories but also social structures appear as
natural and just (Koch 2018a). Targeting the wealth of rich citizens tends
121
Degrowth transformations – an empirical study
121
to be regarded as motivated by envy and is consequently rejected. This
attitude is, however, not equally featured across social groups. Most people exhibit rather inconsistent habitus structures. Only a small minority is
against degrowth transformations; a larger share of the Swedish population
welcomes such change outright, whereas the vast majority is susceptible to
some elements of bottom-up degrowth strategies while refusing others.
Future research could further explore group-specific habitus formations
in relation to various aspects of degrowth transformations along the four
planes of being in the sites of civil society, state and business. Such theoretically guided empirical contributions potentially constitute important
pursuits in addressing different segments of the population in ‘tailor-made’
ways. Such studies could also be relevant in other countries and provide
comparative data.
Citizen forums and similar deliberative methods are useful in bringing
academic and practical knowledge together. The experiences of the Swedish
forums suggest that it is possible to create conditions where people feel free
to critically reflect on their life, nature, economy and society and share their
thoughts. Even a superficial consideration of the positive needs satisfiers in
Table 5 indicates the arrogance of the idea of leaving core societal tasks such
as policymaking and planning exclusively to experts. The practical knowledge of the dwellers of local communities is indispensable when co-creating
livelihoods with the potential of bringing production and consumption patterns within planetary boundaries while satisfying human needs. We can
only speculate as to whether the public support for the suggested eco-social
policies in Table 2 would increase if a significantly greater share of the population partook in similar deliberative forums and had a chance to collectively reflect. Governments could support such participatory exercises by
enhancing the status of citizen forums and giving them advisory character.
This would echo a range of degrowth proposals for more direct democracy.
Notes
1 Conversely, environmental and social activists sometimes underestimate the
structural power asymmetries they are up against. The results may include
extreme stress and burn-out experiences.
2 The percentage of Swedish residents who are concerned about both welfare
and environmental issues is comparatively high. More than in other EU countries, they tend to be supportive of sustainable welfare and eco-social policies
(Fritz and Koch 2019; Otto and Gugushvili 2020; Zimmermann and Graziano
2020; Emilsson 2022). We therefore consider Sweden an appropriate case to
study people’s susceptibility to degrowth transformations.
122
Deep transformations
3 The final response rate of the survey study was 32% (951 out of 3,000 respondents). See Lee et al. (2023) for more detailed information on data material and
representativity, survey methodology and additional results.
4 The overall response rate in this survey was 31%, that is, 1,529 out of 5,000
(see Fritz et al. 2021, Emilsson 2022 and Khan et al. 2022 for more details on
data material and representativity, survey strategy and additional results).
5 In the 2021 survey the maximum income was set at 2 million euros per year
and person, beyond which 100% taxation would kick in.
6 There are sizeable shares of respondents that neither consider the proposals
positively nor negatively (‘undecided’). One possible explanation is a lack of
more detailed information as to how these policy reforms are to be applied –
how they would be funded, which regulatory frameworks may be used/created
among many other issues –and with what outcomes. Another possibility is that
some of these proposals are simply too novel and/or radical for the respondents
to take any stance. The idea of a maximum income, for example, is not promoted by any political party in Sweden. If this situation changed, it is conceivable that support rates would increase.
7 This position is typically represented by Louis Althusser’s Marxist and Lévy-
Strauss’s anthropological structuralisms, Émile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons’
functionalisms and Niklas Luhmann’s system theory.
8 For this ‘bottom-
up’ approach stand sociologists as different as Erving
Goffman, George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer, as well as Jean-Paul
Sartre’s philosophy.
9 Hence, the insistence on social structures and, as a corollary, statistical likelihoods for certain preferences to be expressed by certain groups, does not at
all deny the distinct existences of human beings within these structures, nor
the empirical cases where individuals develop different subjectivities within the
same social background (Archer 2003).
10 Some of these dimensions have clear-
cut literal oppositions that we made
explicit such as ‘self-transcendence’ versus ‘self-enhancement’. In relation to
other dimensions such as ‘power and control’ there are no direct oppositional
terms. Habitus types were constructed according to the combined scores on
these dimensions.
11 This share may of course be somewhat larger or smaller in other countries but
is unlikely to be a majority.
12 For methodological details and further forum results from the project
Sustainable Welfare for a New Generation of Social Policy, see Lindellee et al.
(2021), Koch et al. (2021) and Lee et al. (2023).
Conclusion: the four planes of degrowth
In the preceding chapters, we have unfolded a theoretical perspective on
degrowth transformations. We contend that for degrowth to materialise on
a societal level, it requires transformations so comprehensive that no single
actor, no single type of process, and no single type of mechanism will suffice to bring it about. In a nutshell, then, the perspective suggests that for
degrowth transformations to occur, actions in the sites of civil society, business and the state are necessary –and they are necessary also on all scales,
including the local, the national and the transnational. For degrowth to
materialise, in other words, activities of agents positioned everywhere are
required. In conceptualising degrowth in terms of deep transformations, we
also highlight that it would necessitate profound changes on all planes of
social being: (a) material transactions with nature, (b) social interactions
between people, (c) social structure and (d) people’s inner being (Bhaskar
1986, 1993).
In this concluding chapter, we connect a number of the key arguments
made in previous chapters and expand on our perspective on degrowth
transformations by relating it more systematically to the four planes model.
In this context, we propose a new, holistic definition of degrowth. We also
elaborate on the view of human beings underpinning our perspective before
we end the book by identifying various issues meriting further contemplation and dialogue.
Less and more: on the dialectics of reduction and growth
Unsurprisingly, given the name that was chosen for it, degrowth is widely
associated with reduction, with less.1 This is unfortunate, because while
degrowth is indeed about reducing various aspects of what currently exists,
it is just as much about expanding other aspects. Degrowth is, in other
words, also about more. Proponents of degrowth frequently call for growth
in wellbeing (Hickel 2020), specific economic sectors (Jackson 2016), moral
124
Deep transformations
agency (Nesterova 2021c) and social justice (Demaria et al. 2013). Further
to the distinction made between positive and negative needs satisfiers
(Chapter 7), degrowth can be seen to entail both less and more on all the
four aforementioned planes of being (Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2023).
In what follows, we first look at features that would need to be reduced on
the various planes before turning to an elaboration of what would need
to grow.
The early chapters of the book outlined how capitalism has adverse effects
on all planes of social being. The capitalist organisation of societies and
the capitalist growth imperative shape humans’ material transactions with
nature. Under capitalism, nature is exploited, commercialised, reshaped
and destroyed more than under any other economic system. Against this,
degrowth aims for a considerably smaller throughput of matter and energy,
with reduced greenhouse gas emissions and less waste and pollution. This
outcome is to be accomplished via, for example, less production and consumption of unnecessary goods and services, less flying and fewer transportation miles (Hassler et al. 2019; Trainer 2012). Prerequisites for these and
other reductions in the ecological footprints of humans, especially materially privileged ones, include a less exploitative and instrumentalist approach
towards nature (Næss 1990) and that nature is to a far smaller extent transformed into industrial sites (such as monoculture plantations of food crops
and forests) and built environments (Nesterova 2022a).
Capitalist structures shape social interactions between humans, as a
result of which they come to be based on, for example, antagonism, competitiveness, instrumentalism and alienation. Degrowth entails that interactions come to be shaped less by these and other intersubjective attitudes
and features, including, for example, racism, sexism, intolerance and climate change denial. Capitalist social structures also produce hierarchies
and deep inequalities within and between societies. Degrowth implies less
competition among companies and other organisations as well as among
individuals. It also implies moving towards socio-economic systems on all
scales with reduced social and economic inequalities, fewer hierarchies and
less bureaucracy. This would involve, for instance, state steering different
from the types prevailing in contemporary capitalism. For example, powers could be delegated from the national to the local scale, the idea being
that this is the scale at which citizens could come to directly participate in
shaping various policies affecting them (Chapter 5). Finally, while people
are impacted differently by capitalism and internalise social structures differently (as seen in the analysis of habitus types in Chapter 7), capitalist
structures instil greed and egoism in the inner being of humans, contributing to nurturing the mode of having orientation (Fromm 2013) towards the
521
Conclusion
125
world. Degrowth, to the contrary, implies an altogether different outlook,
that most people become less egocentric, entitled and hedonistic.
Bhaskar’s diagnosis was that our world finds itself in crises on all the various planes (Bhaskar 2016). On top of the ecological crisis on plane (a), the
crisis of democracy on plane (b) and the inequality crisis on plane (c), comes
an existential crisis on plane (d). While this is certainly a gloomy diagnosis,
in a sense it does not capture the depth of the current crisis. That is, not
only does the world confront a crisis on each plane, several intertwined,
and mutually reinforcing, crises exist on each plane and across the planes.
To give but one example, the climate and biodiversity crises unfolding on
plane (a) amplify one another and have ramifications such as mental health
issues on plane (d) (Cianconi et al. 2020). It follows from what was said in
the preceding paragraphs that, seen from the vantage point of degrowth,
the capitalist organisation of society and the capitalist growth imperative
constitute direct or indirect causes of most of the aspects of contemporary
societies that need to be reduced or altogether abolished if an eco-social collapse is to be avoided.
Yet as we observed above, degrowth is also about growth, expansion,
more. Indeed, it is helpful to see reduction as standing in a dialectical relationship with growth. A smaller throughput of matter and energy (plane [a])
requires not only various forms of reduction, it also necessitates that more
clean energy forms are used and that more behaviour comes to be informed
by respect and regard for non-human beings, biodiversity and life (Næss
1990). This involves, for instance, that more economic activities become
more nature-and place-based, that increasingly the specific constellations
of natural structures existing in specific locations are taken into consideration (Nesterova 2022b). If social interactions (plane [b]) are to be premised
less on antagonism, they need instead to become based more on values and
principles such as tolerance of diversity, respect and concern for others,
empathy, sufficiency, gentleness and care. If social structures are to involve
fewer hierarchies, deep inequalities and competition, they need instead to
involve more flat hierarchies and a more equal distribution of economic and
other resources, as well as more collaborative relations (plane [c]). Finally,
if the mode of having is to become less prevalent, substantial inner growth
is required (plane [d]) so that the mode of being can become more prevalent
(Fromm 2013). Most people would need to change themselves, becoming
more attuned to joy, reflection and mindfulness, becoming more capable of
feeling oneness with the world as a whole (cf. Fromm 2022; Næss 1990).
In Table 6 we summarise some of the items on the four planes that would
entail reduction or growth with degrowth; additional less and more items
can be found in the analysis of, respectively, negative and positive needs
satisfiers in Chapter 7.
Table 6 Less and more on four planes
Less
More
(a) Material transactions
with nature
Matter and energy
Cleaner energy forms,
throughput, extractivism
regard for nature,
and instrumental
preservation of
treatment of nature,
biodiversity and life,
waste, pollution,
place-sensitivity,
greenhouse gas
place-based activities/
emissions, production
localisation, nature-
and consumption of
based economic
unnecessary goods,
activities
transportation/food miles,
built environments
(b) Social interactions
Competitiveness, greed,
Empathy, compassion,
individualism, intolerance,
peacefulness, solidarity,
racism, sexism,
sufficiency, kindness,
climate change denial,
generosity and
homophobia, xenophobia,
tolerance of diversity,
hate, fear, alienation,
spontaneous right
instrumental treatment
action, fellow-feeling,
of humans
respect and concern for
others, care, mutual
learning, democracy
(c) Social structures
Growth imperative,
Collaboration, equal
competition, inequality,
distribution of
patriarchy, rigid
economic and
hierarchies, bureaucracy,
other resources, flat
structures of oppression,
hierarchies
exploitation, domination,
poverty, suffering
(d) Inner being
Egoism and ego-realisation, Love, creativity, oneness,
egocentrism, equating
gentleness towards
the ego with the self,
being and beings,
short-term orientation,
awareness, curiosity,
entitlement, possessiveness
transcending the
and materialism
narrow ego/self, seeing
(‘to have’), hedonism
oneself as part of the
broader existence, self-
realisation, fulfilment,
harmony, joy (‘to be’)
Source: Buch-Hansen and Nesterova (2023).
721
Conclusion
127
An advantage of our ‘less and more perspective’ is its ability to highlight
that, although it implies deep transformations on all four planes, degrowth
would still build on forms, practices, ideas and values that already exist.
Indeed, everything in the ‘more’ column in the above table already exists.
For example, multiple degrowth-
compatible initiatives, movements and
modes of being already can be found alongside or even within capitalist
economies, as well as alongside consumer societies (Burkhart et al. 2020;
Gibson-Graham and Dombroski 2020). Yet they do not yet exist on the
necessary scale. It is paramount for degrowth practice and research to identify niches of such initiatives and modes of being and identify the structural
preconditions within which they may be expanded to become ‘dominant’ in
their own right.
A related advantage of the perspective is that it makes it possible to avoid
viewing degrowth in overly crude and reductionist terms. We come back
to other aspects of this below, but one aspect is that it becomes clearer that
it is not the case that what currently exists will entirely disappear so that
something entirely new can appear instead. Just as the items in the more
column to a (typically limited) extent exist in contemporary capitalism, so
the items in the less column would not right away, if at all, be obliterated in
a degrowth society. For example, a certain matter and energy throughput is
an inevitable part of human existence and activity. Still, degrowth transformations would entail that the balance tips decisively in favour of the items
in the more column.
In Chapter 3 we pointed to various prerequisites for degrowth to materialise on a wide scale. Building on political economy scholarship, we identified a major crisis as a first prerequisite, noting that currently capitalism
finds itself if not in a systemic crisis, then certainly in a multidimensional
structural crisis. As a second prerequisite we pointed to the need for a political project that can inform political decision-making, suggesting that at least
in some important respects degrowth may be considered such a project. In
this context we pointed to some of the many policies that are being discussed in degrowth circles. A third prerequisite we identified was the mobilisation of a comprehensive coalition of social forces (a power bloc) pushing
for degrowth. We suggested that currently no coalition powerful enough
to bring about degrowth exists. We also noted that whereas coalitions are
typically analysed in class-based terms in political economy scholarship,
degrowth entails transformations of a depth and magnitude necessitating
the combined actions of myriad actors positioned in states, civil society
and business. Indeed, just as transformations would require democratically
adopted policies implemented by local, national and transnational state
apparatuses, so they would require a wide range of bottom-up civil society
and business initiatives on the same scales.
128
Deep transformations
As a final prerequisite for degrowth transformations, we highlighted the
need for widespread popular consent to it, something that currently also does
not exist. We observed that such consent would require self-transformation
at the level of the individual, involving that people come to view degrowth
as something desirable and a sensible development. In the absence of such
self-transformation, it is difficult to imagine the rise of a pro-degrowth comprehensive coalition of social forces and electoral majorities consenting to
degrowth policies. Importantly, as the analysis of data collected in Sweden
shows, not all degrowth policies are equally (un)popular. Moreover, different habitus groups exhibit different degrees of susceptibility to degrowth
policies on the various planes of being (Chapter 7).
In our view, for degrowth to materialise on the four planes, pervasive
and sustained gentleness and care for and towards non-
human beings
and nature, other people, society and one’s inner being are required. In
other words, we see gentleness and care as underlying principles that can
guide transformations across the various planes (Buch-Hansen 2021). As
we understand it, gentleness involves a felt sensitivity to the condition and
suffering of humans and non-humans (Bhaskar 1993; Sayer 2011; Næss
1990), a reflective and genuine concern and intentional humanness and
kindness towards being and beings manifested in our actions (see also
Dufourmantelle 2018). As for care, we understand it ‘as a species activity
that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our
“world” so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes
our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web’ (Fisher and Tronto 1990: 40).
Several scholars have pointed to care as an aspect of degrowth, highlighting, for example, care for nature and that care work should be recognised
as work (Spash 1993; Dengler and Lang 2022). Yet we understand care to
be at the heart of what degrowth transformations entail and regard it as
an act or practice that is exercised when gentleness constitutes one’s core
attitude towards the world.
Further to the above observations, we conceptualise degrowth as deep
transformations occurring on all four interrelated planes of social being,
on different scales and in all sites, guided by gentleness and care, towards a
society co-existing harmoniously within itself and with nature.
Plane thinking: avoiding reductionism and binaries
In thinking of degrowth transformations, and in practising degrowth, it is
crucial to avoid reductionism, acknowledge the interconnectedness of the
planes of being and to recognise diversity on each plane.
921
Conclusion
129
Reductionism with respect to the planes consists in giving primacy to one
or more of them while excluding or downplaying the importance of the rest.
Such reductionism should be avoided inasmuch as it leads to superficial and
one-dimensional perspectives, as well as to problematic practices. For example, if human transactions with nature are regarded as the all-important
plane, it may well result in the adoption of policies that inflict harm on the
inner being of human beings. A proposal such as that to introduce ‘birth
permits’ to control population growth (Daly 1991) would be a case in point.
A similarly problematic, indeed distorted, perspective results from giving
primacy to self-transformations on plane (d) of inner being to the exclusion
of consideration of, say, the structural context within which such transformations are to unfold. The point here is that, in relation to degrowth
as well as in relation to any social phenomenon, all four planes should be
recognised as important.
Our point is not to suggest that all research needs to focus equally on
each plane. It may well be the case that particular research questions make it
relevant to focus on particular planes and not others. For example, research
on institutional forms (Chapter 2) and the processes through which they
come into being may focus less on planes (a) and (d) than on (b) and (c), that
is, on social interactions and structures. Yet any institutional form exists
and has effects on all the planes. For example, money –whether taking
the form of physical notes and coins or being digital –entails consumption
of matter and energy and thus involves transactions with nature. And the
extent to which society and markets are organised around money cannot
but affect subjectivities. As such, it is ultimately insufficient (reductionist)
to analyse the monetary regime (or any other institutional form) in terms of
only some of the planes.
Extant degrowth scholarship does typically focus on multiple planes,
albeit without using the plane terminology. Nonetheless, there is also a clear
tendency for it to focus mainly on certain planes, not least those of material transactions with nature (plane [a]) and social structure (plane [c]). The
focus on the former plane is seen in, for instance, research dealing with
questions related to the size of the economy and throughput of matter and
energy, whereas the focus on the latter plane can be seen in, for instance,
works focusing on the need to transcend capitalism and reduce economic
inequality (e.g., Latouche 2009). In particular, the plane of inner being has
received little attention, both in degrowth scholarship (Brossmann and Islar
2020) and sustainability research more generally (Ives et al. 2020; Woiwode
et al. 2021). As we have alluded to several times in this book, this plane
is no less important than the other planes –in fact it is essential to take it
into consideration in relation to degrowth transformations. Deep changes,
indeed massive growth, is needed on this plane.
130
Deep transformations
It is also important to recognise the interconnectedness of the planes.
Initiatives –be it in the site of civil society, the state, business or combinations thereof –resulting in desirable results on one plane do not necessarily
also result in positive outcomes on other planes. Consider, for example,
the well-known definition of degrowth according to which it is ‘an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human
well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level’
(Schneider et al. 2010: 511). By pointing to how changes on plane (a) result
in positive changes on plane (d), this definition recognises the interrelatedness of planes. This image of downscaling being a process leading directly to
a state of wellbeing is very common in the degrowth literature (e.g., Hickel
2020; Trainer 2020). Yet the question is how realistic this scenario is. On
one hand, people would, hopefully, experience degrowth transformations
as meaningful and pleasant in important respects. On the other hand, it
seems very likely that giving up on the mode of having, adapting to a lifestyle with a small ecological footprint, would cause people to have all sorts
of concerns and problems. Observing how moving towards the mode of
being can be challenging, Fromm writes that ‘ “to be” requires giving up
one’s egocentricity and selfishness …. But most people find giving up their
having orientation too difficult; any attempt to do so arouses their intense
anxiety’ (2013: 76–77). It should thus be recognised that it may well be the
case that degrowth-desirable changes on plane (a), such as a downscaling
of production and consumption, does not lead to immediately improved
human wellbeing on plane (d) (see also Koch et al. 2017).
This point is vital to keep in mind when designing and implementing the
various types of policies discussed in degrowth circles (Chapter 5). While
these policies are generally meant to absent or reduce ‘less’ items while promoting the growth of ‘more’ items (Table 6), they may come to have positive effects on some planes and negative on others. When designing policies
aimed to reduce humans’ ecological footprint on plane (a), effects on the
three other planes should be carefully considered. It should also be considered that the same policy may have both positive and negative effects on the
same plane. For example, a policy leading to the outsourcing of dirty production or export of waste may improve material transactions with nature
in one country while making them worse in other countries. Another example is caps on income and wealth. This policy instrument could constitute
a potent way to simultaneously reduce economic inequality (plane [c]) and
undermine the ability of rich people to lead environmentally unsustainable
lifestyles (plane [a]). However, if the revenue from such caps is redistributed to those at the bottom of the income ladder, the result may well be
that aggregate demand is stimulated, leading to environmentally harmful
production, consumption and growth (plane [a]) (Buch-Hansen and Koch
131
Conclusion
131
2019). This suggests that it is necessary to not merely consider any particular policy in relation to each of the four planes, it is also necessary to consider the combined effects of different degrowth policy mixes.
Finally, it is important to recognise diversity on each plane (Nesterova
2022b). Unfortunately, when presenting visions of desired futures, much
degrowth scholarship overlooks that not all individuals treasure the same
forms of social interactions (plane [b]). This can be observed in, for instance,
the context of visions centred around ‘conviviality’, a concept denoting
that human beings enjoy one another’s company while acting in solidarity
(Liegey and Nelson 2020: 2). It is also common to see degrowth scholars
treat human wellbeing in a narrow way, as something that will come about
from living in eco-communities (Cattaneo 2015) or other small communities (Trainer 2020), as well as from engaging in activities like drama, meditation or craft workshops in community settings (Jackson and Victor 2013).
The problem with presenting degrowth visions in this manner is that people are different (plane [d]). Some thrive in settings with convivial interactions, decentralised decision-making, communal living and the like. Others,
for a variety of reasons, by no means thrive in such contexts. For them, wellbeing may be associated with spending time alone or in smaller groups and/
or from engaging with non-human beings and features of nature, say trees
and lakes. In articulating visions of degrowth futures it is thus important to
recognise that wellbeing has different sources for different individuals, and
that one form of life, say a convivial life in an ecovillage, is not necessarily
better than another form of life, say a solitary mode of being (e.g., Thoreau
2016). This is the case in relation to degrowth transformations and it is the
case in general. Degrowth, then, should not be equated with one specific
life form.
Further to this, a nuanced perspective on degrowth transformations
necessitates moving beyond crude binary thinking, that is, thinking in
terms of opposites such as sustainable versus unsustainable, degrowth versus growth, all good versus all bad.2 The problem with describing complex
social processes and entities in such terms is that most processes and entities contain a mixture of positive and negative elements. For example, the
same business can incorporate multiple degrowth-compatible and multiple
unsustainable elements, and over time the constellation of these elements
can change. It is also important to recognise that businesses operate under
different conditions, which may hinder or facilitate their transformations.
For example, the not-for-profit sector is subjected to different company
laws in different settings, even in countries with similar legal traditions such
as the Scandinavian countries (Gjems-Onstad 1996). Again, however, it is
important not to equate not-for-profit businesses with degrowth, the reason
being that such businesses –like for-profit businesses –may incorporate both
132
Deep transformations
degrowth-
compatible and degrowth-
incompatible elements (Chapter 6).
The aforementioned less-and-more dialectic in many ways already exists
within organisations as well as in human lives. Avoiding binary thinking
brings the plurality of practices and complexity to the surface, making it
possible to evaluate the different elements, seeing how each of them can
become more in line with degrowth. Taking such an approach is less likely
to alienate people, businesses and policymakers than the approach of setting
up unrealistic and perfectionistic standards.
Further to the observation that settings differ, it is also important to recognise that neither degrowth policies nor policy mixes can or should be the
same in different locations. There are at least two reasons for this. One is
that policies that come into being via genuinely democratic processes are
unlikely to be identical across different settings. The other is that for policies to have the desired effects, their design and implementation need to be
tailored to the uniqueness of the natural and social settings, people and sectors they cover. To illustrate, the degrowth literature advocates small-scale
organic farming instead of large-scale monoculture and it advocates work
time reduction in the form of shorter workdays or workweeks. Yet it is
important to recognise that organic farming involves working with nature
in accordance with its rhythms rather than in accordance with a schedule.
In some periods, intensive and extensive work is required; in other periods
there is little work to do. As such, policies fixing daily, weekly or monthly
work hours at a particular level could turn out highly counterproductive.
Degrowth policies would also differ depending on the scales at which they
are enacted. Some policies are suitable for the local scale, others for the
national and still others for the transnational. For example, it is difficult
to imagine how a cap on income and/or wealth could work properly in the
absence of extensive transnational coordination.
Hope and humanism: why degrowth is going to happen
The scale and depth of the transformations needed for degrowth to happen
are vast. Only if one adopts a particular view of human beings can it be
assumed that such transformations, despite the various challenges associated with them, will come to be perceived as desirable and be sought after.
This view is overall hopeful, positive and optimistic, corresponding largely
to the ideas and ideals of humanism and fields which draw inspiration from
it, such as humanistic psychology (Schneider et al. 2015) and humanistic
geography (Tuan 2008). Humanism emphasises general human goodness
and human potential for growth and self-realisation, while avoiding naively
equating human goodness with sainthood or perfection. To assume general
331
Conclusion
133
human goodness is not to say that humans are only good. Indeed, it is easy
to find examples of the contrary, manifested in exploitation, aggression and
violence towards fellow humans, non-humans and nature. Moreover, each
human being is a unique individual. Importantly, the emphasis humanism
places on humans does not entail anthropocentrism or a human-centric
approach. Humanism considers it to be within human capacity to experience and enact concern and care towards other beings and nature (Pilisuk
and Joy 2015).
Humanism equally honours our selfhood (but not egoism) and our ability to relate in a healthy and intentional manner with the self, others (fellow
humans and non-humans) and nature. It highlights our human capacities for
intentionality, creativity, love, benevolence, fellow-feeling, empathy, concern and care, as well as our ability, and even inherent need, for growth in
relation to each of those capacities and development as persons. This holistic development, made possible by our human nature (Chapter 1), is self-
transformation. In our view, such self-transformation, though not sufficient,
is necessary for degrowth to materialise. We intentionally avoid singling out
any particular group of agents such as businesspersons or politicians who
need to self-transform. Instead, we suggest that self-transformation should
be a wish, commitment and activity of all humans irrespective of their roles
within societies.
The possibility of self-transformation creates the sense of hope that a harmonious, peaceful and long-term coexistence between humans and nature,
and within humanity, is possible. Self-transformation can be brought about
via a variety of mechanisms relating to the self, others and nature. In terms
of the self, it is helpful to view personal growth as a meaningful and ‘lifelong process’ (Cassis and Birchmore 1985: 38). Personal growth is self-
transformative when it aims at humanist ideals of creativity, love, freedom,
empathy, fellow-feeling, kindness, joy and others. Otherwise, it is illusory,
or is a personal decline, if it is aimed at accumulation, status and other
manifestations of the ‘mode of having’ (Fromm 2013).
Importantly, personal growth is not only a matter of learning about different modes of being and outlining an ecological worldview, but a matter
of living this worldview, bringing it into one’s everyday practice. Indeed, a
‘person can no more learn about humanism by reading about it than he can
learn about music, painting, or teaching by intellectual effort alone. They
must all be experienced to be known’ (Robinson 1977: 636). Since degrowth
is an inherently ecological vision of the future which is acutely mindful of
our interconnection with nature, nurturing one’s relationship with nature is
essential. Connection with nature is self-transformative and helps humans
transcend the feeling of meaninglessness and emptiness of being in a technological and consumerist society (May 2009). Apart from nature, relating
134
Deep transformations
with others can provide opportunities for working together towards a
degrowth future: the scale of transformation required for degrowth is only
achievable if the effort is collective. Yet the notion of ‘others’ does not have
to be limited to humans or ‘others of my kind’ (Heidegger 2001: 156). Being
with more-than-human others such as trees, mountains and rivers can provide inspiration for self-transformations (Softas-Nall and Woody 2017) and
a sense of desire to preserve other beings, their future generations and their
habitats (Regan 1981).
Self-transformations unfold within the frameworks of social systems and
structures. Fromm (2013: 8) observed that ‘a change of the human heart is
possible only to the extent that drastic economic and social changes occur
that give the human heart the chance for change and the courage and the
vision to achieve it’. While it appears natural to emphasise the self and its
becoming when discussing self-transformations, it is thus important to contemplate structural mechanisms which can facilitate growth on the plane of
inner being. Such mechanisms can be, for instance, a transformed system of
education which is orientated towards personal growth and non-utilitarian
and non-anthropocentric philosophies, and eco-social policies which create
spaces and opportunities for such growth. Throughout the book, we have
offered multiple examples of such policies.
Towards new dialogues
Reflecting on all-encompassing and deep transformations is an interdisciplinary endeavour. In this book, multiple fields of knowledge such as philosophy, political economy, sociology and geography, which are outside the
traditional disciplinary groundings of degrowth (that is, ecological economics and political ecology), have provided inspiration and made possible a
deep and holistic theorisation of degrowth transformations. However, many
possibilities for further unfolding our understanding of degrowth transformations remain. While acknowledging that it is impossible to fully capture and outline the multitude of interdisciplinary dialogues that could take
place and be fruitful, in what follows we end the book by indicating some
pathways for further investigations. We focus particularly on some of the
loose ends of contemplations contained in this book.
In terms of pathways for further research, we invite investigations of
problematic and uncomfortable areas where the somewhat idealistic vision
of degrowth meets the existing structures of the real world. Such problematic areas include, for instance, the question of large businesses and long
supply chains, and questions of technology and our societies’ overwhelming
reliance on it. Not only is it difficult to imagine the human world functioning
531
Conclusion
135
while relying on small-scale production and lower technologies, but also the
services and technologies which degrowth celebrates (for example, railway
travel, modern healthcare and education) inherently rely on large-scale production and service provision, large businesses and global supply chains.
Moreover, it may be the case that the ambitious objective of degrowth to
reduce matter and energy throughput requires the use of technology to collect and monitor data. The extent to which the large-scale and global reductions envisioned by degrowth proponents are accomplished should not be
merely intuitive: while transformations should be motivated by a deeply
transformed worldview and ethic, measurement of progress towards them
is necessary. Another problematic area deserving far more attention is the
legal aspects of degrowth. That is, many questions remain unanswered with
respect to the legal implications of degrowth transformations and with
respect to what degrowth-facilitating regulations and legislations may look
like on different scales, in different places, and for different sites.
It appears timely to engage in more serious dialogues with other sustainability fields and ideas such as circular economy and strong sustainability. While ideological, political and philosophical differences between, say,
degrowth and circular economy exist, the common desire for a genuinely
sustainable society can provide a starting point for fruitful collaborations
(Dzhenghiz et al. 2023; Nesterova and Buch-Hansen 2023; Savini 2023).
Circular economy can assist the efforts of degrowth researchers by providing insights into processes and designs which can help achieve more sustainable modes of production and service provision, as well as cases of concrete
industries and examples of legislation. Equally productive dialogues can
take place between degrowth and fields of knowledge which share with
degrowth a deep appreciation of, and care towards, nature and the need for
individual humans and humanity in general to relate with nature differently.
Ecopsychology (e.g., Roszak et al. 1995) and humanistic psychology (e.g.,
Schneider et al. 2015) are such fields.
While in this book we have adopted a critical realist perspective as our
philosophical grounding and commitment, other philosophies may shed light
on deep transformations and open new spaces for new methodologies (ethnographies, sensory and embodied methods etc.) and new lines of inquiry.
For instance, degrowth traditionally focused on human wellbeing and mostly
included non-humans under the label of nature. New materialism (see e.g.,
Coole and Frost 2010; Gamble et al. 2019) can provide an alternative perspective via its focus on agency of matter and more-than-human beings. Deep
ecology (Næss 2016; Sessions 1995) likewise emphasises our unavoidable
connectedness with nature and places, and our own materiality, and encourages us to consider, and relate with, other forms of life and respect their right
to self-realisation. Finally, scholarship on degrowth transformations could
136
Deep transformations
benefit from entering dialogues with other perspectives in the philosophy
of science, constructionism and (moderated) positivism being cases in point
(Buch-Hansen and Nesterova 2021; see also Buch-Hansen 2022).
Apart from new ideas and contents which new dialogues may engage
with and create, it is our hope that new dialogues will emerge in, and in
relation to, other places and contexts. In this book, as well as in our everyday research practice, we emphasise place-sensitivity. Thus, much of our
research, including the research reported in this book, is done in Europe
and more specifically in the Nordics. We invite others to apply the same
and other parts of the perspective we have unfolded here in empirical and
comparative empirical studies in other locations.
While indeed our intention in this section is to present possibilities for
new dialogues in relation to ideas and disciplines, we also emphasise that
a new attitude to such dialogues appears timely. An appropriate guiding
ethos for genuine dialogues and collaborations between degrowth and
other fields can be what Gibson-Graham (2003: 67) calls ethos of engagement: ‘An ethos of engagement is an aspect of a politics of becoming, where
subjects are made anew through engaging with others. This transformative
process involves cultivating generosity in the place of hostility and suspicion.’ Actively and intentionally cultivating generosity, engaging in teamwork despite perceived differences, and thinking together are essential. After
all, deep transformations are not merely a theory of how changes (could)
unfold; they are a practice of (de)growth.
Notes
1 The present and the next section draw on Buch-Hansen and Nesterova (2023).
2 Some events, attitudes and practices cannot be part of degrowth, a case in point
being violence directed towards humans, non-humans and nature.
References
Adloff, F. (2021) ‘Capitalism and civil society revisited or: Conceptualizing a civil,
sustainable and solidary economy’. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and
Society, 34:2, 149–159.
Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., and Sanford, R. N. (1950) The
Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Row.
Alexander, S., and Gleeson, B. (2022) ‘Collective sufficiency: Degrowth as a political
project’. In S. Alexander, S. Chandrashekeran, and B. Gleeson (eds), Post-Capitalist
Futures. Paradigms, Politics, and Prospects. New York: Palgrave, 53–64.
Amable, B. (2000) ‘Institutional complementarity and diversity of social systems
of innovation and production’. Review of International Political Economy, 7:4,
645–687.
Amable, B., and Palombarini, S. (2009) ‘A neorealist approach to institutional
change and the diversity of capitalism’. Socio-Economic Review, 7:1, 123–143.
Archer, M. S. (1995) Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. (2003) Structure, Agency, and the Internal Conversation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arts, W., and Gelissen, J. (2002) ‘Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more?
A state-of-the-art report’. Journal of European Social Policy, 12:2, 137–158.
Atkinson, W. (2019) ‘Time for Bourdieu: Insights and oversights’. Time and Society,
28:3, 951–970.
Babić, M. (2023) The Rise of State Capital: Transforming Markets and International
Politics. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda.
Babic, M., and Sharma, S. E. (2023) ‘Mobilising critical international political economy for the age of climate breakdown’. New Political Economy, 28:5, 758–779.
Baccaro, L., and Howell, C. (2017) Trajectories of Neoliberal Transformation: European
Industrial Relations Since the 1970s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bailey, D. (2015) ‘The environmental paradox of the welfare state: The dynamics of
sustainability’. New Political Economy, 20:6, 793–811.
Barca, S. (2019) ‘The labor(s) of degrowth’. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 30:2,
207–216.
Barca, S., Chertkovskaya, E., and Paulsson, A. (2019) ‘The end of political
economy as we knew it? From growth realism to nomadic utopianism’. In
E. Chertkovskaya, A. Paulsson and S. Barca (eds), Towards a Political Economy
of Degrowth. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 1–18.
138
References
Barlow, N., Regen, L., Cadiou, N., Chertkovskaya, E., Hollweg, M., Plank, C.,
Schulken, M. and Wolf, V. (eds) (2022) Degrowth and Strategy. How to Bring
About Social-Ecological Transformation. London: Mayfly, 342–365.
Bärnthaler, R. (2023) ‘Degrowth and strategy: A critique and ways forward’.
Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4352024 (accessed 31 May 2023).
Bauwens, T. (2021) ‘Are the circular economy and economic growth compatible?
A case for post-
growth circularity’. Resources, Conservation and Recycling,
175, 1–3.
Becker, C. (2006) ‘The human actor in ecological economics: Philosophical approach
and research perspectives’. Ecological Economics, 60, 17–23.
Becker, J., and Raza, W. (2000) ‘Theory of regulation and political ecology: An inevitable separation?’ Économie et Sociétés, 11, 55–70.
Benton, T. (2001) ‘Why are sociologists naturephobes?’ In J. Lopez and G. Potter (eds),
After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism. London: Athlone,
133–145.
Bhaskar, R. (1986) Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London: Verso.
Bhaskar, R. (1989) Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary
Philosophy. London: Verso.
Bhaskar, R. (1993) Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London: Verso.
Bhaskar, R. (1998) The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the
Contemporary Human Sciences, 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (2008) A Realist Theory of Science. London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (2012a) The Philosophy of MetaReality: Creativity, Love and Freedom.
London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (2012b) Reflections on MetaReality: Transcendence, Emancipation and
Everyday Life. London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (2012c) ‘Critical realism in resonance with Nordic ecophilosophy’.
In R. Bhaskar, K. G. Høyer and P. Næss (eds), Ecophilosophy in a World of
Crisis: Critical Realism and the Nordic Contributions. London: Routledge, 9–24.
Bhaskar, R. (2016) Enlightened Common Sense. The Philosophy of Critical Realism.
London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R. (2020) ‘Critical realism and the ontology of persons’. Journal of Critical
Realism, 19:2, 113–120.
Bhaskar, R., Frank, C., Høyer, K. G., Næss, P. and Parker, J. (eds) (2010)
Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change: Transforming Knowledge and Practice
for our Global Future. London: Routledge.
Bhaskar, R., Høyer, K. G., and Næss, P. (eds) (2012) Ecophilosophy in a World of
Crisis: Critical Realism and the Nordic Contributions. London: Routledge.
Bieler, A. (2021) Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe.
London: Bloomsbury.
Bohle, D., and Greskovits, B. (2007) ‘Neoliberalism, embedded neoliberalism and
neocorporatism: Towards transnational capitalism in Central-Eastern Europe’.
West European Politics, 30:3, 443–466.
Bohnenberger, K. (2020) ‘Money, vouchers, public infrastructures? A framework for
sustainable welfare benefits’. Sustainability, 12:2, 596.
Bohnenberger, K. (2022) ‘Is it a green or brown job? A taxonomy of sustainable
employment’. Ecological Economics, 200, 107469.
Bonnedahl, K. J., and Heikkurinen, P. (2019) ‘The case for strong sustainability’. In
K. J. Bonnedahl and P. Heikkurinen (eds), Strongly Sustainable Societies: Organising
Human Activities on a Hot and Full Earth. London: Routledge, 1–20.
931
References
139
Boss, M. (1988) ‘Recent considerations in daseinsanalysis’. The Humanistic
Psychologist, 16:1, 58–74.
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgement and Taste.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice. Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, P. (1993) Sociology in Question. London: Sage.
Bourdieu, P. (1994) ‘Rethinking the state: Genesis and structure of the bureaucratic
field’. Sociological Theory, 12:1, 1–18.
Bourdieu, P. (1998) Practical Reason. Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2014) On the State. Lectures at the Collège de France 1989–1992.
Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu, P., and Passeron, J.-C. (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and
Culture. London: Sage.
Boyer, R. (1990) The Regulation School: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Boyer, R., and Saillard, Y. (2002) ‘A summary of regulation theory’. In R. Boyer
and Y. Saillard (eds), Regulation Theory: The State of the Art. London:
Routledge, 36–44.
Brand, U., and Wissen, M. (2012) ‘Global environmental politics and the imperial mode of living: Articulations of state–capital relations in the multiple crisis’.
Globalizations, 9:4, 547–560.
Brand, U., and Wissen, M. (2013) ‘Crisis and continuity of capitalist society-nature
relationships: The imperial mode of living and the limits to environmental governance’. Review of International Political Economy, 20:4, 687–711.
Brand, U., Görg, C., and Wissen, M. (2011) ‘Second order condensations of societal
power relations: Environmental politics and internationalization of the state from
a neo-poulantzian perspective’. Antipode, 43:1, 149–175.
Brandstedt, E., and Emmelin, M. (2016) ‘The concept of sustainable welfare’. In
M. Koch and O. Mont (eds), Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare.
London: Routledge, 15–43.
Bremer, H., and Teiwes-Kügler, C. (2013) ‘Habitusanalyse als habitus-hermeneutik’.
Zeitschrift für qualitative Sozialforschung, 2, 199–219.
Brenner, N., Peck, J., and Theodore, N. (2010) ‘After neoliberalization?’
Globalizations, 7:3, 327–345.
Brossmann, J., and Islar, M. (2020) ‘Living degrowth? Investigating degrowth practices through performative methods’. Sustainability Science, 15:3, 917–930.
Bruff, I. (2014) ‘The rise of authoritarian neoliberalism’. Rethinking Marxism, 26:1,
113–129.
Buch-Hansen, H. (2014) ‘Capitalist diversity and de-growth trajectories to steady-
state economies’. Ecological Economics, 106, 167–173.
Buch-Hansen, H. (2018) ‘The prerequisites for a degrowth paradigm shift: Insights
from critical political economy’. Ecological Economics, 146, 157–163.
Buch-Hansen, H. (2021) ‘Modvækst som paradigme, politisk projekt og bevægelse’.
Nyt fokus: Fra økonomisk vækst til bæredygtig udvikling, 17 www.nytfokus.nu/
nummer-17/modvaekst-som-paradigme-politisk-projekt-og-bevaegelse/ (accessed
31 May 2023).
Buch-Hansen, H. (2022) ‘Contending philosophy of social science perspectives: A
flexible typology’. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 53:2, 183–199.
140
References
Buch-Hansen, H., and Carstensen, M. B. (2021) ‘Paradigms and the political economy of ecopolitical projects: Green growth and degrowth compared’. Competition
and Change, 25:3–4, 308–327.
Buch-Hansen, H., and Koch, M. (2019) ‘Degrowth through income and wealth
caps?’ Ecological Economics, 160, 264–271.
Buch-Hansen, H., and Nesterova, I. (2021) ‘Towards a science of deep transformations: Initiating a dialogue between degrowth and critical realism’. Ecological
Economics, 190, 107188.
Buch-
Hansen, H., and Nesterova, I. (2023) ‘Less and more: Conceptualising
degrowth transformations’. Ecological Economics, 205, 107731.
Buch-
Hansen, H., and Nielsen, P. (2020) Critical Realism: Basics and Beyond.
London: Bloomsbury.
Buch-Hansen, H., and Wigger, A. (2011) The Politics of European Competition
Regulation: A Critical Political Economy Perspective. London: Routledge.
Buch-
Hansen, H., Pissin, A., and Kennedy, E. (2016) ‘Transitions towards
degrowth and sustainable welfare: Carbon emission reduction and wealth and
income distribution in France, the US and China’. In M. Koch and O. Mont
(eds), Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare. London: Routledge,
143–157.
Büchs, M. (2021) ‘Sustainable welfare: How do universal basic income and universal basic services compare?’ Ecological Economics, 189, 107152.
Büchs, M., and Koch, M. (2017) Postgrowth and Wellbeing: Challenges to
Sustainable Welfare. New York: Springer.
Büchs, M., and Koch, M. (2019) ‘Challenges for the degrowth transition: The debate
about wellbeing’. Futures, 105, 155–65.
Bulfone, F. (2022) ‘Industrial policy and comparative political economy: A literature
review and research agenda’. Competition and Change, 27:1, 22–43.
Buller, A. (2022) The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Burkett, P. (1999) Marx and Nature. A Red and Green Perspective. New York: St.
Martin’s.
Burkhart, C., Schmelzer, M., and Treu, N. (2020) Degrowth in Movement(s): Exploring
Pathways for Transformation. Winchester: Zero.
Cahen-Fourot, L. (2020) ‘Contemporary capitalisms and their social relation to the
environment’. Ecological Economics, 172, 106634.
Cahen-Fourot, L., Aigner, E., and Schneider, C. (2022) ‘Money and finance. An
overview of strategies for social-ecological transformation in the field of money
and finance and the case of the Austrian Cooperative for the Common Good’.
In N. Barlow, L. Regen, N. Cadiou, E. Chertkovskaya, M. Hollweg, C. Plank,
M. Schulken and V. Wolf (eds), Degrowth and Strategy. How to Bring about
Social-Ecological Transformation. London: Mayfly, 342–365.
Camus, A. (2005) The Myth of Sisyphus. London: Penguin Books.
Cassis, C., and Birchmore, D. (1985) ‘Developing human potential –An awakening process’. Canadian Journal of Public Health/Revue Canadienne de Santé
Publique, 76, 38–42.
Castree, N. (2008) ‘Neoliberalising nature: The logics of deregulation and reregulation’. Environment and Planning A, 40:2, 131–152.
Cattaneo, C. (2015) ‘Eco-communities’. In G. D’Alisa, F. Demaria and G. Kallis
(eds), Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era. London: Routledge, 165–168.
141
References
141
Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P. R., Barnosky, A. D., García, A., Pringle, R. M., and Palmer,
T. M. (2015) ‘Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the
sixth mass extinction’. Science Advances, 1:5, 1400253.
Cerny, P. G. (1997) ‘Paradoxes of the competition state: The dynamics of political
globalization’. Government and Opposition, 32:2, 251–274.
Chertkovskaya, E., and Paulsson, A. (2021) ‘Countering corporate violence: Degrowth, ecosocialism and organising beyond the destructive forces of
capitalism’. Organization, 28:3, 405–425.
Chertkovskaya, E., Paulsson, A., and Barca, S. (eds) (2019) Towards a Political
Economy of Degrowth. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Chomsky, N. (1999) Noam Chomsky: The Common Good. Chicago: Odonian.
Cianconi, P., Betrò, S., and Janiri, L. (2020) ‘The impact of climate change on mental
health: A systematic descriptive review’. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 74.
Clarke, N. (2013) ‘Locality and localism: A view from British Human Geography’.
Policy Studies, 34:5–6, 492–507.
Collier, A. (2003) In Defence of Objectivity and Other Essays: On Realism,
Existentialism and Politics. London: Routledge.
Collier, A. (2004) Marx. Oxford: Oneworld.
Concialdi, P. (2018) ‘What does it mean to be rich? Some conceptual and empirical
issues’. European Journal of Social Security, 20:1, 3–20.
Coole, D., and Frost, S. (eds) (2010) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and
Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Coote, A., and Percy, A. (2020) The Case for Universal Basic Services.
Cambridge: Polity.
Cosme, I., Santos, R., and O’Neill, D. (2017) ‘Assessing the degrowth discourse: A
review and analysis of academic degrowth policy proposals’. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 149, 321–334.
Cox, R. W. (1987) Production, Power and World Order. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Cox, R. W. (1999) ‘Civil society at the turn of the millennium: Prospects for an alternative world order’. Review of International Studies, 25:1, 3–28.
Cresswell, T. (2009) ‘Place’. In N. Thrift and R. Kitchen (eds), International
Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 169–177.
Crouch, C. (2016) ‘The march towards post-democracy, ten years on’. The Political
Quarterly, 87:1, 71–75.
Dale, G. (2012a) ‘Critiques of growth in classical political economy: Mill’s stationary state and a Marxian response’. New Political Economy, 18:3, 431–457.
Dale, G. (2012b) ‘The growth paradigm: A critique’. International Socialism,
134, 55–88.
D’Alisa, G., and Kallis, G. (2020) ‘Degrowth and the state’. Ecological Economics,
169, 106486.
Daly, H. E. (1991) Steady-State Economics. Washington, DC: Island.
Daly, H. E. (1996) Beyond Growth. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Daly, H. E., and Townsend, K. N. (eds) (1993) Valuing the Earth: Economics,
Ecology, Ethics. London: MIT Press.
Danermark, B., Ekström, M., Jakobsen, L., and Karlsson, J. (2002) Explaining
Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences. London: Routledge.
Dannreuther, C., and Petit, P. (2006) ‘Post-Fordism, beyond national models: The
main challenges for Regulation Theory’. Competition and Change, 10:2, 100–112.
142
References
de los Reyes, P., and Mulinari, D. (2020) ‘Hegemonic feminism revisited: On the
promises of intersectionality in times of the precarisation of life’. NORA –Nordic
Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 28:3, 183–196.
Demaria, F., Schneider, F., Sekulova, F., and Martinez-Alier, J. (2013) ‘What is
degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement’. Environmental Values,
22:2, 191–215.
Dengler, C., and Lang, M. (2022) ‘Commoning care: Feminist degrowth visions for
a socio-ecological transformation’. Feminist Economics, 28:1, 1–28.
Dengler, C., and Seebacher, L. M. (2019) ‘What about the global south? Towards a
feminist decolonial degrowth approach’. Ecological Economics, 157, 246–252.
Diehm, C. (2007) ‘Identification with nature: What it is and why it matters’. Ethics
and the Environment, 12:2, 1–22.
Dietz, R., and O’Neill, D. (2013) Enough is Enough. Building a Sustainable
Economy in a World of Finite Resources. London: Earthscan.
Dietz, K., and Wissen, M. (2009) ‘Kapitalismus und “natürliche Grenzen”. Eine
kritische Diskussion ökomarxistischer Zugänge zur ökologischen Krise’. Prokla,
39:3, 351–369.
Dittmer, K. (2013) ‘Local currencies for purposive degrowth? A quality check of
some proposals for changing money-as-usual’. Journal of Cleaner Production,
54, 3–13.
Dörry, S., and Schulz, C. (2022) ‘Financing post-growth? Green financial products
for changed logics of production’. In B. Lange, M. Hülz, B. Schmid and C. Schulz
(eds), Post-Growth Geographies. Bielefeld: Transcript, 241–261.
Douai, A., and Montalban, M. (2012) ‘Institutions and the environment: The case
for a political socio-economy of environmental conflicts’. Cambridge Journal of
Economics, 36, 1199–1220.
Doyal, L., and Gough, I. (1991) A Theory of Human Need. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Drews, S., Savin, I., and van den Bergh, J. C. (2019) ‘Opinion clusters in academic
and public debates on growth-
vs-
environment’. Ecological Economics, 157,
141–155.
Dryzek, J. S., Downes, D., Hunold, C., Schlosberg, D., and Hernes, H-K. (2003)
Green States and Social Movements: Environmentalism in the United States,
United Kingdom, Germany and Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dryzek, J. S. (2016) ‘Institutions for the Anthropocene: Governance in a changing
earth system’. British Journal of Political Science, 46:4, 937–956.
Dufourmantelle, A. (2018) Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living.
New York: Fordham University Press.
Duit, A. (2016) ‘The four faces of the environmental state: Environmental governance regimes in 28 countries’. Environmental Politics, 25:1, 69–91.
Duit, A., Feindt, P. H., and Meadowcroft, J. (2016) ‘Greening leviathan: The rise of
the environmental state’. Environmental Politics, 25:1, 1–23.
Dukelow, F., and Murphy, M. P. (2022) ‘Building the future from the present: Imagining post-
Growth, post-
productivist ecosocial policy’. Journal of
Social Policy, 51:3, 504–518.
Dzhenghiz, T., Miller, L., Ovaska, J. P., and Patala, S. (2023) ‘Unpacking circular economy: A problematizing review’. International Journal of Management
Reviews, 25:2, 270–296.
Dziwok, E., and Jäger, J. (2021) ‘A classification of different approaches to green
finance and green monetary policy’. Sustainability, 13:21, 11902.
341
References
143
Eckersley, R. (2004) The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty.
London: MIT Press.
Ehrnström-Fuentes, M., and Biese, I. (2022) ‘The act of (de/re) growing: Prefiguring
alternative organizational landscapes of socioecological transformations’. Human
Relations, 76:11, 1739–1766.
Elder-Vass, D. (2007) ‘Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an emergentist theory of
action’. Sociological Theory, 25:4, 325–346.
Elgin, D. (2013) ‘Voluntary simplicity: A path to sustainable prosperity’. Social
Change Review, 11:1, 69–84.
Elgin, D., and Mitchell, A. (1977) ‘Voluntary simplicity’. Planning Review,
5:6, 13–15.
Emerson, R. W. (2009a) Essays: First Series. Auckland: Floating Press.
Emerson, R. W. (2009b) Essays: Second Series. Auckland: Floating Press.
Emilsson, K. (2022) ‘Support for sustainable welfare: A study of public attitudes
related to an eco-social agenda among Swedish residents’. (PhD thesis, Faculty of
Social Sciences, Lund University.)
Eskelinen, T., and Wilen, K. (2019) ‘Rethinking economic ontologies: From scarcity and market subjects to strong sustainability’. In K. J. Bonnedahl and P.
Heikkurinen (eds), Strongly Sustainable Societies: Organising Human Activities
on a Hot and Full Earth. London: Routledge, 40–57.
Esping-
Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism.
Cambridge: Polity.
Fair Squared GmbH (2022) ‘Principles’. Available at: www.fairsquared.com/en/fair-
squared/principles/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
Feldmann, M. (2006) ‘Emerging varieties of capitalism in transition countries: Industrial relations and wage bargaining in Estonia and Slovenia’.
Comparative Political Studies, 39:7, 829–854.
Fisher, B., and Tronto, J. (1990) ‘Toward a feminist theory of caring’. In E. K. Abel
and M. Nelson (eds), Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives.
Albany: SUNY Press, 35–62.
Fitzpatrick, N., Parrique, T., and Cosme, I. (2022) ‘Exploring degrowth policy
proposals: A systematic mapping with thematic synthesis’. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 365, 132764.
Foster, J. B., Clark, B., and York, R. (2010) The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on
the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Frankl, V. E. (2006) Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon.
Frieden, J. A. (2007) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century.
New York: W.W. Norton.
Fritz, M., and Koch, M. (2016) ‘Economic development and prosperity patterns
around the world: Structural challenges for a global steady-
state economy’.
Global Environmental Change, 38, 41–48.
Fritz, M., and Koch, M. (2019) ‘Public support for sustainable welfare compared: Links between attitudes towards climate and welfare policies’.
Sustainability, 11:15, 4146.
Fritz, M., Koch, M., Johansson, H., Emilsson, K., Hildingsson, R., and Khan,
J. (2021) ‘Habitus and climate change: Exploring support and resistance to sustainable welfare and social-ecological transformations in Sweden’. The British
Journal of Sociology, 72:4, 874–890.
Fromm, E. (1961) Marx’s Concept of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar.
144
References
Fromm, E. (2013) To Have or To Be? London: Bloomsbury.
Fromm, E. (2022) The Art of Being. London: Robinson.
Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., and Nail, T. (2019) ‘What is new materialism?’
Angelaki, 24:6, 111–134.
Genschel, P., and Seelkopf, L. (2015) ‘The competition state’. In S. Leibfried,
E. Huber, M. Lange, J. D. Levy, F. Nullmeier and J. D. Stephens (eds), The
Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 237–252.
Georgescu-
Roegen, N. (1971) The Entropy Law and the Economics Process.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gibson-
Graham, J. K. (2003) ‘An ethics of the local’. Rethinking Marxism,
15:1, 49–74.
Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006) The End of Capitalism (As We Knew it): A Feminist
Critique of Political Economy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gibson-Graham, J. K., and Dombroski, K. (2020) ‘Introduction to the handbook
of diverse economies: Inventory as ethical intervention’. In The Handbook of
Diverse Economies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1–24.
Gills, B., and Morgan, J. (2021) ‘Teaching climate complacency: Mainstream economics textbooks and the need for transformation in economics education’.
Globalizations, 18:7, 1189–1205.
Gjems-Onstad, O. (1996) ‘The legal framework and taxation of Scandinavian non-
profit organisations’. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit
Organizations, 7:2, 195–212.
Glyn, A., Hughes, A., Lipietz, A., and Singh, A. (1990) ‘The rise and fall of the
golden age’. In S. A. Marglin and J. B. Schor (eds), The Golden Age of Capitalism.
Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Oxford: Clarendon.
Gordon, D., Edwards, D., and Reich, M. (1982) Segmented Work, Divided Workers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Görg, C. (2003) Regulation der Naturverhältnisse. Zu einer kritischen Theorie der
ökologischen Krise. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.
Görg, C., Brand, U., Haberl, H., Hummel, D., Jahn, T., and Lier, S. (2017)
‘Challenges for social-ecological transformations: Contributions from social and
political ecology’. Sustainability, 9, 1045.
Gorz, A. (1980) Ecology as Politics. London: Pluto.
Gorz, A. (1989) Critique of Economic Reason. London: Verso.
Gorz, A. (2012) Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology. London: Verso.
Gough, I. (2016) ‘Welfare states and environmental states: A comparative analysis’.
Environmental Politics, 25:1, 24–47.
Gough, I. (2017) Heat, Greed and Human Need. Climate Change, Capitalism and
Sustainable Wellbeing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Gough, I. (2020) ‘Defining floors and ceilings: The contribution of human needs
theory’. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 16:1, 208–219.
Gough, I., Meadowcroft, J., Dryzek, J., Gerhards, J., Lengfeld, H., Markandya,
A., and Ortiz, R. (2008) ‘JESP symposium: Climate change and social policy’.
Journal of European Social Policy, 18:4, 325–344.
Graeber, D. (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and
Wishart.
541
References
145
Gready, P., and Robins, S. (2017) ‘Rethinking civil society and transitional justice: Lessons from social movements and “new” civil society’. The International
Journal of Human Rights, 21:7, 956–975.
Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Virág, D., Kalt, G., Plank, B., Brockway, P., … and
Creutzig, F. (2020) ‘A systematic review of the evidence on decoupling of GDP,
resource use and GHG emissions, part II: Synthesizing the insights’. Environmental
Research Letters, 15:6, 065003.
Hägerstrand, T. (2012) ‘Global and local’. In R. Bhaskar, K. G. Høyer and P. Næss
(eds), Ecophilosophy in a World of Crisis: Critical Realism and the Nordic
Contributions. London: Routledge, 126–134.
Hall, P. A., and Soskice, D. (eds) (2001) Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional
Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hankammer S., Kleer, R., Mühl, L., and Euler, J. (2021) ‘Principles for organizations
approaching sustainable degrowth: Framework development and application to
four B Corps’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 300, 126818.
Hartwig, M. (2007) Dictionary of Critical Realism. London: Routledge.
Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. (2010) The Enigma of Capital. London: Profile.
Harvey, D. (2014) Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hasselbalch, J., Kranke, M., and Chertkovskaya, E. (2023) ‘Organizing for transformation: Post-growth in International Political Economy’. Review of International
Political Economy, 30:5, 1621–1638.
Hassler, A., Dwarkasing, C., Reckmann, E., Sekulova, F., Schneider, F., Iniesta-
Arianda, I., … and Mingorría, S. (2019) Degrowth of Aviation. Reducing Air
Travel in a Just Way. Austria: Stay Grounded.
Hausknost, D. (2020) ‘The environmental state and the glass ceiling of transformation’. Environmental Politics, 29:1, 17–37.
Heidegger, M. (2001) Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.
Heikkurinen, P. (2018) ‘Degrowth by means of technology? A treatise for an ethos
of releasement’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 197, 1654–1665.
Heikkurinen, P., and Ruuska, T. (eds) (2021) Sustainability Beyond
Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for Human Organization.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heikkurinen, P., Lozanoska, J., and Tosi, P. (2019) ‘Activities of degrowth and political change’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 211, 555–565.
Hickel, J. (2020) Less is More: How Degrowth will Save the World. New York:
Random House.
Hinton, J. (2020) ‘Fit for purpose? The role of profit for sustainability’. Journal of
Political Ecology, 27:1, 236–262.
Hirsch, F. (1976) The Social Limits to Growth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Hirvilammi, T. (2020) ‘The virtuous circle of sustainable welfare as a transformative
policy idea’. Sustainability, 12:1, 391.
Hirvilammi, T., and Koch, M. (2020) ‘Sustainable welfare beyond growth’.
Sustainability, 12:5, 1824.
Hirvilammi, T., Häikiö, L., Johansson, H., Koch, M., and Perkiö, J. (2023) ‘Social
policy in a climate emergency context: Towards an ecosocial research agenda’.
Journal of Social Policy, 52:1, 1–23.
146
References
Hopkins, R. (2011) The Transition Companion. Devon: Green Books.
Hornborg, A. (2019) Nature, Society, and Justice in the Anthropocene: Unravelling
the Money-Energy-Technology Complex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Howell, R. A. (2012) ‘Living with a carbon allowance: The experiences of carbon
rationing action groups and implications for policy’. Energy Policy, 41, 250–258.
Huizinga, J. (1950) Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston,
MA: Beacon.
Hunt, E. K. (1975) Property and Prophets: The Evolution of Economic Institutions
and Ideologies. New York: Harper and Row.
Hushållningssällskapet (2022) ‘REKO-ringar i Sverige’. Available at: https://hushall
ningssallskapet.se/forskning-utveckling/reko/(accessed 31 May 2023).
IPCC (2018) Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts
of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global
Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global
Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Efforts
to Eradicate Poverty. Geneva: IPCC.
Ives, C. D., Freeth, R., and Fischer, J. (2020) ‘Inside-out sustainability: The neglect
of inner worlds’. Ambio, 49:1, 208–217.
Jackson, T. (2016) Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of
Tomorrow. London: Routledge.
Jackson, T., and Victor, P. (2011) ‘Productivity and work in the “green economy”: Some theoretical reflections and empirical tests’. Environmental Innovation
and Societal Transitions, 1:1, 101–108.
Jackson, T. D., and Victor, P. (2013) Green Economy at a Community Scale.
Toronto: Metcalf Foundation.
Jakobsson, N., Muttarak, R., and Schoyen, M. (2018) ‘Dividing the pie in the eco-
social state: Exploring the relationship of public support for environmental and
welfare policies’. Environment and Planning C, 36:2, 313–339.
Jaworek, M., and Kuzel, M. (2015) ‘Transnational corporations in the world economy: Formation, development and present position’. Copernican Journal of
Finance and Accounting, 4:1, 55–70.
Jessop, B. (2002) The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity.
Jessop, B., and Morgan, J. (2022) ‘The strategic-relational approach, realism and
the state: From regulation theory to neoliberalism via Marx and Poulantzas, an
interview with Bob Jessop’. Journal of Critical Realism, 21:1, 83–118.
Johanisova, N., and Franková, E. (2017) ‘Eco social enterprises’. In C. L. Spash
(ed.), Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature and Society.
London: Routledge, 507–516.
Johanisova, N., Crabtree, T., and Fraňková, E. (2013) ‘Social enterprises and non-
market capitals: A path to degrowth?’ Journal of Cleaner Production, 38, 7–16.
Johanisova, N., Surinach Padialla, R., and Parry, P. (2015) ‘Co-
operatives’. In
G. D’Alisa, F. Demaria and G. Kallis (eds), Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New
Era. London: Routledge, 152–155.
Kallis, G. (2018) Degrowth. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Agenda.
Kallis, G., Paulson, S., D’Alisa, G., and Demaria, F. (2020) The Case for Degrowth.
Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons.
Kaufmann, N., Sanders, C., and Wortmann, J. (2019) ‘Building new foundations: The future of education from a degrowth perspective’. Sustainability
Science, 14, 931–941.
741
References
147
Kazepov, Y. (ed.) (2010) Rescaling Social Policies: Towards Multilevel Governance
in Europe. Farnham: Ashgate.
Keil, A. K., and Kreinin, H. (2022) ‘Slowing the treadmill for a good life for All?
German trade union narratives and social-ecological transformation’. Journal of
Industrial Relations, 64:4, 564–584.
Khan, J., Emilsson, K., Fritz, M., Koch, M., Hildingsson, R., and Johansson,
H. (2022) ‘Ecological ceiling and social floor: Public support for eco-social policies in Sweden’. Sustainability Science, 18, 1519–1532.
Kinderman, D. (2017) ‘Challenging varieties of capitalism’s account of business
interests: Neoliberal think-tanks, discourse as a power resource and employers’
quest for liberalization in Germany and Sweden’. Socio-Economic Review, 15:3,
587–613.
Klitgaard, K. (2013) ‘Heterodox political economy and the degrowth perspective’.
Sustainability, 5:1, 276–297.
Koch, M. (2011) ‘Poulantzas’s class analysis’. In A. Gallas, L. Bretthauer,
J. Kannankulam and I. Stützle (eds), Reading Poulantzas. London: Merlin,
107–121.
Koch, M. (2012) Capitalism and Climate Change. New York: Palgrave.
Koch, M. (2015) ‘Climate change, capitalism and degrowth trajectories to a global
steady-state economy’. International Critical Thought, 5:4, 439–452.
Koch, M. (2017) Roads to Post-Fordism. Labour Markets and Social Structures in
Europe, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Koch, M. (2018a) ‘The naturalisation of growth: Marx, the regulation approach
and Bourdieu’. Environmental Values, 27:1: 9–27.
Koch, M. (2018b) ‘Sustainable welfare, degrowth and eco-social policies in Europe’.
In V. Varnhercke, D. Ghailani and S. Sabato (eds), Social Policy in the European
Union: State of Play. Brussels: European Trade Union Institute, 35–59.
Koch, M. (2019a) ‘Growth and degrowth in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy’.
In E. Chertkovskaya, A. Paulsson and S. Barca (eds), Towards a Political Economy
of Degrowth. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 69–82.
Koch, M. (2019b) ‘Growth strategies and consumption patterns in transition: From
Fordism to finance-driven capitalism’. In O. Mont (ed.), A Research Agenda for
Sustainable Consumption Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 35–49.
Koch, M. (2020a) ‘Structure, action and change: A Bourdieusian perspective on
the preconditions for a degrowth transition’. Sustainability: Science, Practice and
Policy, 16:1, 4–14.
Koch, M. (2020b) ‘The state in the transformation to a sustainable postgrowth
economy’. Environmental Politics, 29:1, 115–133.
Koch, M. (2022a) ‘State-
civil society relations in Gramsci, Poulantzas and
Bourdieu: Strategic implications for the degrowth movement’. Ecological
Economics, 193, 107275.
Koch, M. (2022b) ‘Social policy without growth: Moving towards sustainable welfare states’. Social Policy and Society, 21:3, 447–459.
Koch, M., and Buch-Hansen, H. (2021) ‘In search of a political economy of the
postgrowth era’. Globalizations, 18:7, 1219–1229.
Koch, M., and Fritz, M. (2014) ‘Building the eco-social state: Do welfare regimes
matter?’ Journal of Social Policy, 43:4, 679–703.
Koch, M. and Mont, O. (eds) (2016) Sustainability and the Political Economy of
Welfare. London: Routledge.
148
References
Koch, M., Buch-Hansen, H., and Fritz, M. (2017) ‘Shifting priorities in degrowth
research: An argument for the centrality of human needs’. Ecological Economics,
138, 74–81.
Koch, M., Lindellee, J., and Alkan-Olsson, J. (2021) ‘Beyond growth imperative and
neoliberal doxa: Expanding alternative societal spaces through deliberative citizen forums on needs satisfaction’. Real-World Economics Review, 96, 168–183.
Komlosy, A. (2018) Work: The Last 1,000 Years. London: Verso.
Kotz, D. M. (2010) ‘The final conflict: What can cause a system-threatening crisis of
capitalism?’ Science and Society, 74:3, 362–379.
Kotz, D. M., and McDonough, T. (2010) ‘Global neoliberalism and the contemporary social structure of accumulation’. In T. McDonough, M. Reich and
D. M. Kotz (eds), Contemporary Capitalism and its Crises: Social Structure of
Accumulation Theory for the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 93–120.
Krippner, G. R. (2005) ‘The financialization of the American economy’. Socio-
Economic Review, 3:2, 173–208.
Kumar, K. (1993) ‘Civil society: An inquiry into the usefulness of an historical term’.
British Journal of Sociology, 44: 3, 375–395.
Lamb, W., and Steinberger, J. (2017) ‘Human well-being and climate change mitigation’. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews-Climate Change, 8:6, 16.
Laruffa, F. (2022) ‘Re-thinking work and welfare for the social-ecological transformation’. Sociologica, 16:1, 123–151.
Lassila, M. M. (2018) ‘Mapping mineral resources in a living land: Sami mining
resistance in Ohcejohka, northern Finland’. Geoforum, 96, 1–9.
Latouche, S. (2009) Farewell to Growth. Cambridge: Polity.
Lawn, P. (2011) ‘Is steady-
state capitalism viable? A review of the issues and
an answer in the affirmative’. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
1219:1, 1–25.
Lawson, T. (2015) ‘The nature of the firm and peculiarities of the corporation’.
Cambridge Journal of Economics, 39:1, 1–32.
Lawson, T. (2019) The Nature of Social Reality: Issues in Social Ontology.
London: Routledge.
Lee, J., Koch, M., and Alkan-Olsson, J. (2023) ‘Deliberating a sustainable welfare–
work nexus’. Politische Vierteljahresschrift (German Political Science Quarterly).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-023-00454-6.
Leonardi, E. (2019) ‘Bringing class analysis back in: Assessing the transformation
of the value-nature nexus to strengthen the connection between degrowth and
environmental justice’. Ecological Economics, 156, 83–90.
Leopold, A. (1949) A Sand County Almanac. New York: Ballantine.
Lessenich, S. (2019) Living Well at Others’ Expense: The Hidden Costs of Western
Prosperity. Cambridge: Polity.
Liegey, V., and Nelson, A. (2020) Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide.
London: Pluto.
Lindellee, J., Alkan Olsson, J., and Koch, M. (2021) ‘Operationalizing sustainable welfare and co-developing eco-social policies by prioritizing human needs’.
Global Social Policy, 21:2, 328–331.
Lipietz, A. (1992) Towards a New Economic Order: Postfordism, Ecology and
Democracy. Cambridge: Polity.
941
References
149
Loewen, B. (2022) ‘Revitalizing varieties of capitalism for sustainability transitions
research: Review, critique and way forward’. Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Reviews, 162, 112432.
Luxemburg, R. (1951) The Accumulation of Capital. New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Macy, J., and Johnstone, C. (2022) Active Hope. How to Face the Mess We’re In
with Unexpected Resilience and Power. Novato: New World Library.
Maddison, A. (2001) The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective. Paris: OECD.
Maddison, A. (2007) Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Malm, A. (2018) The Progress of this Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming
World. London: Verso.
Martin, F., de Wilmars Sybille, M., and Kevin, M. (2023) ‘Unlocking the potential of income and wealth caps in post-growth transformation: A framework for
improving policy design’. Ecological Economics, 208, 107788.
Marx, K. (1875) Critique of the Gotha Programme. www.marxists.org/archive/
marx/works/1875/gotha/ (accessed 31 May 2023).
Marx, K. (1973) Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy
(Rough Draft). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Marx, K. (1977) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. London: Lawrence
and Wishart.
Marx, K. (1990) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. London: Penguin
Classics.
Marx, K. (2006) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 3. London: Penguin
Classics.
Max-Neef, M. (1991) Human Scale Development: Conception, Application and
Further Reflections. London: Apex.
Max-Neef, M. A. (1992) From the Outside Looking in: Experiences in ‘Barefoot
Economics’. London: Zed.
May, R. (2009) Man’s Search for Himself. New York: W.W. Norton.
McDonough, T., Reich, M., and Kotz, D. M. (eds) (2010) Contemporary Capitalism
and its Crises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. H., Randers, J., and Behrens III, W. W. (1972) The
Limits to Growth: A Report to the Club of Rome. New York: Universe.
Mete, S., and Xue, J. (2021) ‘Integrating environmental sustainability and social
justice in housing development: Two contrasting scenarios’. Progress in Planning,
151, 100504.
Midgley, M. (2003) Heart and Mind. London: Routledge.
Mill, J. S. (1848) Principles of Political Economy with Some of their Applications.
Whitefish: Kessinger.
Moore, J. M. (2017) ‘The Capitalocene, Part I: On the nature and origins of our
ecological crisis’. Journal of Peasant Studies, 44:3, 594–630.
Moore, M. L, Tjornbo, O., Enfors, E., Knapp, C., Hodbod, J., Baggio, J. A., … and
Biggs, D. (2014) ‘Studying the complexity of change: Toward an analytical framework for understanding deliberative social-ecological transformations’. Ecology
and Society, 19:4, 54.
Morgan, J. (2016) ‘Paris COP 21: Power that speaks the truth?’ Globalizations,
13:6, 943–951.
150
References
Morgan, J. (2021) ‘Critical realism for a time of crisis? Buch-Hansen and Nielsen’s
twenty-first century CR’. Journal of Critical Realism, 20:3, 300–321.
Mote, F. W. (1989) Intellectual Foundations of China, 2nd ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Næss, A. (1990) Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Næss, P. (2010) ‘The dangerous climate of disciplinary tunnel vision’. In R. Bhaskar,
C. Frank, K. G. Høyer, P. Næss and J. Parker (eds), Interdisciplinarity and
Climate Change –Transforming Knowledge and Practice for Our Global Future.
London: Routledge, 68–98.
Næss, A. (2016) The Ecology of Wisdom. London: Penguin Classics.
Neilson, D. (2020) ‘Bringing in the neoliberal model of development’. Capital and
Class, 44:1, 85–108.
Neisser, U. (1988) ‘Five kinds of self-
knowledge’. Philosophical Psychology,
1:1, 35–59.
Nesterova, I. (2020a) ‘Degrowth business framework: Implications for sustainable
development’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 262, 121382.
Nesterova, I. (2020b) ‘Small business transition towards degrowth’. (PhD thesis,
University of Derby.)
Nesterova, I. (2021a) ‘Small firms as agents of sustainable change’. Futures, 127,
102705.
Nesterova, I. (2021b) ‘Small, local, and low-
tech firms as agents of sustainable change’. In P. Heikkurinen and T. Ruuska (eds), Sustainability Beyond
Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for Human Organization.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 230–253.
Nesterova, I. (2021c) ‘Addressing the obscurity of change in values in degrowth
business’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 315, 128152.
Nesterova, I. (2022a) ‘Degrowth perspective for sustainability in built environments’.
Encyclopedia, 2, 466–472. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010029.
Nesterova, I. (2022b) ‘Business of deep transformations: How can geography contribute to the understanding of degrowth business’. Geography and Sustainability.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2022.03.004.
Nesterova, I. (2022c) ‘Being in the world locally: Degrowth business, critical realism, and humanistic geography’. Frontiers in Sustainability, 3, 829848.
Nesterova, I. (2023) ‘Being of deep transformations: A personal journey inspired by
Clive L. Spash’. Environmental Values (early view).
Nesterova, I., and Buch-
Hansen, H. (2023) ‘Degrowth and the circular economy: Reflecting on the depth of business circularity’. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 414, 137639.
Nesterova, I., and Robra, B. (2022) ‘Business in a strongly sustainable society?’ In
D. D’Amato, A. Toppinen and R. Kozak (eds), The Role of Business in Global
Sustainability Transformations. London: Routledge.
Nørgård, J. S. (2013) ‘Happy degrowth through more amateur economy’. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 38, 61–70.
Offe, C. (1984) Contradictions of the Welfare State. London: Hutchinson.
O’Neill, D. W., Fanning, A. L., Lamb, W., and Steinberger, J. (2018) ‘A good life for
all within planetary boundaries’. Nature Sustainability, 1, 88–95.
Otto, A., and Gugushvili, D. (2020) ‘Eco-social divides in Europe: Public attitudes
towards welfare and climate change policies’. Sustainability, 12:1, 404.
151
References
151
Ougaard, M. (2016) ‘The reconfiguration of the transnational power bloc in the
crisis’. European Journal of International Relations, 22:2, 459–482.
Ougaard, M. (2018) ‘The transnational state and the infrastructure push’. New
Political Economy, 23:1, 128–144.
Overbeek, H. (2013) ‘Transnational historical materialism’. In R. Palan (ed.), Global
Political Economy: Contemporary Theories. London: Routledge, 168–183.
Overbeek, H., and Van der Pijl, K. (1993) ‘Restructuring capital and restructuring hegemony: Neoliberalism and the unmaking of the post-
war order’. In
H. Overbeek (ed.), Restructuring Hegemony in the Global Political Economy.
London: Routledge, 1–27.
Parker, M. (2018) Shut Down the Business School: What’s Wrong with Management
Education. London: Pluto.
Parker, S. C. (2018) The Economics of Entrepreneurship, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Paulsson, A. (2019) ‘The limits of systems: Economics, management, and
the problematization of growth during the Golden Age of Capitalism’. In
E. Chertkovskaya, A. Paulsson and S. Barca (eds), Towards a Political Economy
of Degrowth. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 21–38.
Peck, J. (2010) Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Perlman, F. (1983) Against His-Story, Against Leviathan. Detroit, MI: Black and Red.
Piletic, A. (2019) ‘Variegated neoliberalization and institutional hierarchies: Scalar recalibration and the entrenchment of neoliberalism in New York
City and Johannesburg’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space,
51:6, 1306–1325.
Pilisuk, M., and Joy, M. (2015) ‘Humanistic psychology and ecology’. In
K. J. Schneider, J. Fraser Pierson and J. F. T. Bugental (eds), The Handbook of
Humanistic Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2nd ed. London: Sage,
135–147.
Pizzigati, S. (2018) The Case for a Maximum Wage. Cambridge: Polity.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (2015) ‘The self and humanistic psychology’. In K. J. Schneider,
J. Fraser Pierson and J. F .T. Bugental (eds), The Handbook of Humanistic
Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2nd ed. London: Sage, 87–104.
Poulantzas, N. (1968) Political Power and Social Classes. London: Verso.
Poulantzas, N. (1978) State, Power and Socialism. London: NLB.
Puller, A., and Smith, T. (2017) ‘A critical and realist approach to ecological economics’. In C. L. Spash (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature
and Society. London: Routledge, 17–26.
Purser, R. E. (2019) McMindfulness: How Mindfulness became the New Capitalist
Spirituality. London: Repeater.
Raworth, K. (2017) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-
Century Economist. London: Random House Business.
Regan, T. (1981) ‘The nature and possibility of an environmental ethic’.
Environmental Ethics, 3:1, 19–34.
Robinson, D. W. (1977) ‘The human potential movement’. The Phi Delta Kappan,
58:8, 636–638.
Robinson, W. I. (2004) A Theory of Global Capitalism. Production, Class, and State
in a Transnational World. London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Robinson, W. I. (2014) Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
152
References
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F. S., Lambin, E. F.,
… and Foley, J. A. (2009) ‘A safe operating space for humanity’. Nature, 461,
472–475.
Rodman, J. (1983) ‘Four forms of ecological consciousness reconsidered’. In
D. Scherer and T. Attig (eds), Ethics and the Environment. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall, 82–92.
Roman-Alcalá, A. (2017) ‘Looking to food sovereignty movements for post-growth
theory’. Ephemera, 17:1, 119–145.
Røpke, I. (2004) ‘The early history of modern ecological economics’. Ecological
Economics, 50:3–4, 293–314.
Røpke, I. (2009) ‘Theories of practice: New inspiration for ecological economic
studies in consumption’. Ecological Economics, 68:10, 2490–2497.
Roszak, T., Gomes, M. E., and Kanner, A. D. (eds) (1995) Ecopsychology: Restoring
the Earth, Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club.
Runciman, D. (2018) How Democracy Ends. London: Profile.
Russell, B. (1994) In Praise of Idleness. London: Routledge.
Ruuska, T. and Heikkurinen, P. (2021) ‘Technology and sustainability: An introduction’. In P. Heikkurinen and T. Ruuska (eds), Sustainability Beyond
Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for Human Organization.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1–26.
Sabato, S., Mandelli, M., and Vanhercke, B. (2021) The Socio-Ecological Dimension
of the EU Recovery: From the European Green Deal to the Recovery and
Resilience Facility. Madrid: EUROsociAL Programme, EUROsociAL Collection
No. 24.
Saito, K. (2023) Marx in the Anthropocene. Towards the Idea of Degrowth
Communism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sartre, J-P. (2000) Nausea. London: Penguin.
Savini, F. (2023) ‘Futures of the social metabolism: Degrowth, circular economy and
the value of waste’. Futures, 150, 103180.
Sayer, A. (2011) Why Things Matter to People: Social Science, Values and Ethical
Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmelzer, M. (2016) The Hegemony of Growth: The OECD and the Making of the
Economic Growth Paradigm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmelzer, M., Vetter, A., and Vansintjan, A. (2022) The Future is Degrowth –
A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism. London: Verso.
Schmid, B. (2018) ‘Structured diversity: A practice theory approach to post-growth
organisations’. Management Revue, 29:3, 281–310.
Schmid, B. (2020) Making Transformative Geographies: Lessons from Stuttgart’s
Community Economy. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Schmid, B. (2022) ‘What about the city? Towards an urban post-growth research
agenda’. Sustainability, 14:19, 11926.
Schneider, F., Kallis, G., and Martinez-
Alier, J. (2010) ‘Crisis or opportunity?
Economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability’. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 18:6, 511–518.
Schneider, K. J., Fraser Pierson, J., and Bugental, J. F. T. (eds) (2015) The Handbook
of Humanistic Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Schoppek, D. E. (2020) ‘How far is degrowth a really revolutionary counter movement to neoliberalism?’ Environmental Values, 29:2, 131–151.
351
References
153
Schor, J. (2015) ‘Work sharing’. In G. D’Alisa, F. Demaria and G. Kallis (eds),
Degrowth. A Vocabulary for a New Era. London: Routledge, 195–197.
Schumacher, E. F. (1993) Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People
Mattered. London: Vintage Random House.
Schumpeter, J. (1947) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York and
London: Harper and Brothers.
Sessions, G. (ed.) (1995) Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the
Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. London: Shambhala.
Sewell Jr., W. H. (2008) ‘The temporalities of capitalism’. Socio-Economic Review,
6:3, 517–537.
Shonfield, A. (1965) Modern Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shove, E., Pantzar, M., and Watson, M. (2012) The Dynamics of Social Practice.
Everyday Life and How it Changes. London: Sage.
Skrbina, D., and Kordie, R. (2021) ‘Creative reconstruction of the technological society: A path to sustainability’. In P. Heikkurinen and T. Ruuska (eds),
Sustainability Beyond Technology: Philosophy, Critique, and Implications for
Human Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 254–276.
Skyrman, V. (2022) ‘Industrial restructuring, spatio-temporal fixes and the financialization of the North European forest industry’. Competition and Change, 27:5,
748–769.
Smith, A. (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Söderbaum, P. (2008) Understanding Sustainability Economics: Towards Pluralism
in Economics. London: Earthscan.
Softas-
Nall, S., and Woody, W. D. (2017) ‘The loss of human connection to
nature: Revitalizing selfhood and meaning in life through the ideas of Rollo May’.
Ecopsychology, 9:4, 241–252.
Soper, K. (2020) Post-
Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism. London:
Verso.
Spangenberg, J. H. (2016) ‘The world we see shapes the world we create: How the
underlying worldviews lead to different recommendations from environmental
and ecological economics –The green economy example’. Journal of Sustainable
Development, 19:2, 127–146.
Spash, C. L. (1993) ‘Economics, ethics, and long-term environmental damages’.
Environmental Ethics, 15:2, 117–132.
Spash, C. L. (2012) ‘New foundations for ecological economics’. Ecological
Economics, 77, 36–47.
Spash, C. L. (ed.) (2017) Routledge Handbook of Ecological Economics: Nature
and Society. London: Routledge.
Spash, C. L. (2020) ‘A tale of three paradigms: Realising the revolutionary potential
of ecological economics’. Ecological Economics, 169, 106518.
Spencer, D. A. (2022) Making Light Work: An End to Toil in the Twenty-First
Century. Cambridge: Polity.
Stahl, R. M. (2019) ‘Ruling the interregnum: Politics and ideology in nonhegemonic
times’. Politics and Society, 47:3, 333–360.
Staricco, J. I. (2017) ‘Transforming or reproducing conventional socioeconomic
relations? Introducing a regulationist framework for the assessment of fairtrade’.
World Development, 93, 206–218.
154
References
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M.,
… and Sörlin, S. (2015) ‘Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on
a changing planet’. Science, 347, 6223.
Stirner, M. (2005) The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against
Authority. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Stockhammer, E. (2011) ‘Neoliberalism, income distribution and the causes of the
crisis’. In P. Arestis, R. Sobreira and J. L. Oreiro (eds), The Financial Crisis.
New York: Palgrave, 234–258.
Streeck, W. (2000) ‘Competitive solidarity: Rethinking the European social model’.
Kontingenz und Krise: Institutionenpolitik in kapitalistischen und postsozialistischen Gesellschaften. Frankfurt aM: Campus, 245–262.
Streeck, W. (2016) How will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System.
London: Verso.
Swift, R. (2014) S.O.S.: Alternatives to Capitalism. Oxford: New Internationalist.
Thoreau, H. D. (2016) Walden. New York: Pan Macmillan.
Tilsted, J. P., Mah, A., Nielsen, T. D., Finkill, G., and Bauer, F. (2022) ‘Petrochemical
transition narratives: Selling fossil fuel solutions in a decarbonizing world’.
Energy Research and Social Science, 94, 102880.
Trainer, T. (2012) ‘De-growth: Do you realise what it means?’ Futures, 44, 590–599.
Trainer, T. (2014) ‘The degrowth movement from the perspective of the Simpler
Way’. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 26:2, 58–75.
Trainer, T. (2020) ‘De-growth: Some suggestions from the Simpler Way perspective’.
Ecological Economics, 167, 106436.
Trainer, T. (2022) ‘A technical critique of the Green New Deal’. Ecological
Economics, 195, 107378.
Tuan, Y.-F. (1974) Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and
Values. New York: Columbia University Press.
Tuan, Y-
F (1979) ‘Space and place: Humanistic perspective’. In S. Gale and
G. Olsson (eds), Philosophy in Geography. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 387–427.
Tuan, Y-F. (1998) Escapism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tuan, Y.-
F. (2001) Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Tuan, Y-F. (2008) Human Goodness. London: University of Wisconsin Press.
Tuan, Y-
F. (2013) Romantic Geography: In Search of the Sublime Landscape.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
UN (2015) Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September
2015, United Nations.
van Apeldoorn, B. (2002) Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European
Integration. London: Routledge.
van Apeldoorn, B., and Overbeek, H. (2012) ‘The life course of the neoliberal project
and the global crisis’. In B. van Apeldoorn and H. Overbeek (eds), Neoliberalism
in Crisis. New York: Palgrave, 1–20.
van Parijs, P. and Vanderborght, Y. (2017) Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a
Free Society and a Sane Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
van der Pijl, K. (1998) Transnational Classes and International Relations. London:
Routledge.
van Deurzen, E., and Adams, M. (2016) Skills in Existential Counselling and
Psychotherapy, 2nd ed. London: Sage.
551
References
155
Vandeventer, J. S., and Lloveras, J. (2021) ‘Organizing degrowth: The ontological
politics of enacting degrowth in OMS’. Organization, 28:3, 358–379.
Wallerstein, I. (2000) ‘A Left Politics for the 21st Century? or, Theory and Praxis
Once Again’. New Political Science, 22:2, 143–159.
Wallerstein, M., and Western, B. (2000) ‘Unions in decline? What has changed and
why’. Annual Review of Political Science, 3:1, 355–377.
Weber, M. (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
London: Routledge.
Weber, M. (1991) ‘Politics as a vocation’. In H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds),
From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge, 77–128.
Wigger, A. (2019) ‘The new EU industrial policy: Authoritarian neoliberal structural
adjustment and the case for alternatives’. Globalizations, 16:3, 353–369.
Wigger, A., and Buch-Hansen, H. (2013) ‘Competition, the global crisis, and alternatives to neoliberal capitalism: A critical engagement with anarchism’. New
Political Science, 35:4, 604–626.
Wigger, A., and Buch-Hansen, H. (2014) ‘Explaining (missing) regulatory paradigm
shifts. EU competition regulation in times of economic crisis’. New Political
Economy, 19:1, 113–137.
Wilkin, P., and Boudeau, C. (2015) ‘Public participation and public services in British
liberal democracy: Colin Ward’s anarchist critique’. Environment and Planning
C, 33, 1325–1343.
Woiwode, C., Schäpke, N., Bina, O., Veciana, S., Kunze, I., Parodi, O., Schweizer-
Ries, P., and Wamsler, C. (2021) ‘Inner transformation to sustainability as a deep
leverage point: Fostering new avenues for change through dialogue and reflection’. Sustainability Science, 16:3, 841–858.
Wright, E. O. (1994) Interrogating Inequality: Essays on Class Analysis, Socialism
and Marxism. London: Verso.
Xue, J. (2021) ‘Urban planning and degrowth: A missing dialogue’. Local
Environment, 27:4, 404–422.
Zimmermann, K., and Graziano, P. (2020) ‘Mapping different worlds of eco-welfare
states’. Sustainability, 12:5, 1819.
Index
academia 64, 69, 105, 118
accumulation of capital
capitalism 16, 19, 24, 25, 30
modes of regulation 51
neoliberalism 32
state role 42
structural crises 51
transnational processes 80
active sustainable welfare 114,
116, 117
agency 8–10, 22–3, 71, 93
alienation 18–19, 21, 24, 27, 38, 45,
65, 124
Amable, B. 31, 49n.5
anarchism 7, 50, 55, 57, 69, 70, 97
Anthropocene 26, 47
anthropocentrism 10, 118, 133
anti-capitalism 6, 35, 50, 64, 91
anti-reductionist ontology 8, 10, 128–32
anti-statism 55
appropriation 15, 24, 33, 77
Aristotle 75n.1, 89n.5
artisanal production 5, 38, 40, 45, 66,
97, 101, 104
authoritarianism 1, 60, 81, 117
Barca, S. 36, 56, 57, 68
bartering 37, 39, 92
basic income see universal basic
income (UBI)
basic needs see also universal basic
services (UBS)
business 96, 101
capitalist growth imperative 17, 22
coalition of social forces 56
critical minimum levels of 107
institutional forms 36, 39, 45
maximum levels of need
satisfaction 109
sustainable welfare 84–5, 87
Becker, J. 33
being 19, 22–3, 59, 73, 133 see also
inner being
Benton, T. 10
Bhaskar, R. 6, 8, 9–10, 11–12, 37, 64,
71, 72, 98, 123, 125, 128
Bieler, A. 68
biology 22, 26
Bohnenberger, K. 38, 55, 85
Bonnedahl, K. J. 7
borrowing, costs of 40, 41, 102
bottom-up initiatives 57, 58, 89n.1,
118, 127
Boudeau, C. 69
Bourdieu, P. 8, 9, 19, 65, 76, 77, 78,
90n.6, 106, 110, 115, 118
Boyer, R. 30, 31, 32, 50, 51, 53
Brossmann, J. 102
Buch-Hansen, H. 3, 5, 6, 8, 16, 26, 27,
28, 30, 33, 35, 42, 46, 47, 49n.5,
50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 60, 64, 65, 66,
69, 72, 82, 97, 99, 106, 124, 126,
128, 130, 135
Büchs, M. 17, 22, 84, 85, 86, 109
‘bullshit jobs’ 18, 41
Burkett, P. 25
Burkhart, C. 9, 58, 62, 66, 67, 127
business 7, 11, 91–105
Cahen-Fourot, L. 33, 39, 44, 49n.5, 51
Camus, A. 72, 73
capitalism see also neoliberalism
751
Index
alternatives to 64–5
capitalist social structures 124
complex system 15, 27
crisis-prone system 51–2
end of capitalism 54, 56–7, 60
growth as engine of 1–2
growth imperative 14–29
holistic understandings of 14–15
lack of current alternative 56–7
myths 12
and nature 2, 3, 23–6, 124
role of the state 76–80
as root cause of current crises 1–2
societal institutions 30–49
Capitalocene 26
caps on income and wealth 82, 85, 107,
108, 132
care 37, 72, 87, 128, 133 see also
gentleness and care
Carstensen, M. B. 47, 53, 60
Chertkovskaya, E. 6, 36, 39
China 4, 83
circular economy 95, 97, 99, 135
citizen forums 117–20, 121
citizen’s councils 43
civil society 11, 57–8, 62–75, 77, 83,
88, 127
Clarke, N. 100
class-based societies 14, 18, 19,
53, 56, 78
class fractions 51
climate and biodiversity crises 2, 3, 34,
39–40, 53, 60, 111–12, 125
CO2 emissions 2, 27, 34, 40, 60,
68, 89n.2
coalition of social forces 56–8, 127
Collier, A. 21
colonialism 37
commercialisation 5, 25
commodification 15, 21, 22, 24, 25, 37
common good 40
communal modes of living 37
communism 29n.9, 47
community organisations 65, 66, 93
community resilience 66
community unionism 68
comparative political economy 46
competition 16, 18–21, 32–3, 44,
53, 124
157
‘condensation’ of social forces 79
consent 58–9, 128
conservativism 111–12, 113
consumerism 19, 22–3, 67, 102–3, 133
consumer-producer arrangements 63
consumption 2–3, 5, 12, 17–20, 34, 58,
67, 104–5
conviviality 131
cooperation 5, 41, 66, 73, 97, 100,
102, 125
cooperatives 5, 37, 57, 63, 69, 96, 97
coordinated capitalism 84
corporatism 46
counter-hegemony 59, 63, 64
counter training 118
Cox, R. W. 63
craft production 38, 45, 66, 97, 101, 104
creativity 18, 72, 75, 104
Cresswell, T. 100
critical political economy 50, 51,
53, 56, 57
critical realist philosophy 4, 6, 8–12,
72, 110, 135
critical scholarship 3–4
cultural beings, human agents as 10
cultural capital 110, 114, 115
culture 10, 19, 22
Dale, G. 23
Daly, H. E. 6, 23, 25, 26, 104, 129
Danermark, B. 10, 71, 72
Dannreuther, C. 32
de-accumulation 55
debt 34, 39, 102, 104
debt-for-nature swaps 40
decarbonisation 60, 85
decommodification 79
deep crisis 53–4
deep ecology 13n.3, 73
deep transformation 129
degrowth
anti-capitalism 6
definition 3, 4–8, 123–36
degrowths versus degrowth 66
emergence of term 4–5
international social movement 5, 7
literature 3
not opposed to growth per se
5, 123–36
158
Index
degrowth businesses 98–104
degrowth-compatible businesses 40, 43,
48, 57–8, 93, 132
degrowth-compatible civil society 65,
66–7, 68
degrowth-compatible movements 7
degrowth-compatible policies 82
‘degrowth state’ 42–3, 81, 82, 88
deindustrialisation 32
de los Reyes, P. 16
democracy
cooperatives 97
and degrowth 43, 48
deliberative citizen forums 117–20
direct democracy 82, 88
localisation 82
participatory decision-making 43,
82, 88, 100
post-democracy 1
state institutions 42
democratisation 39, 44
demonetisation 39, 48
Dengler, C. 6
Denmark 46, 68
deregulation 32, 38, 80
dialectical relationships 24, 51
digital currencies 41–2
dirty sectors 42, 43
distinction 19, 20
diverse economies approach 5, 6,
13n.3, 36–7, 46–7, 50, 57
division of labour 14, 17
Dombroski, K. 13n.3, 36, 57, 101, 127
dominant/elite classes 19, 26, 78, 115
Douai, A. 33
Doyal, L. 25, 89n.5
Drews, S. 58
Dryzek, J. S. 47, 80
Duit, A. 79, 80
Dziwok, E. 39, 40
eco-anarchism 66, 69
eco-communities/ecovillages 67,
74, 131
ecological ceilings 25, 76, 82, 84–5, 107
ecological economics 6, 11, 25–6
eco-modernist conservativism 113, 116
‘economic man’ 9, 20, 71, 78, 103
eco-social dispositions and habitus
types 109–17
eco-social enterprises 63, 69, 96, 97
eco-socialism 7, 55, 62, 66
eco-social policies 76, 82, 84–8, 106,
107–9, 111–17
ecosystems 24
education 43, 86, 105
efficiency 16, 19
egoism and greed 14–15, 20, 21, 22,
27, 124–5
Elder-Vass, D. 110
emancipation 37, 63
emancipatory social science 11–12
Emerson, R. W. 4
empathy 72, 73, 87, 133
empirical studies 106–22
energy
business’s material transactions
with 98–9
capitalism 23, 25, 27
degrowth entails more clean
energy 125
demonetisation 39
and GDP 29n.11
institutional forms 33
neoclassical economics 23
renewable energy 35, 40, 60, 83, 99
supply chains 35
Transition movement 67
enterprise forms 31, 32
environmental centralism 112–13,
116, 117
‘environmental services’ 2
environmental state 34–5, 79–80
Esping-Andersen, G. 46, 79, 80
European Environmental Bureau 58
exchange relations logic 15, 23, 24
existentialism 6, 72, 125
exploitation 2, 5, 26, 28n.5, 34, 38, 44,
78, 92, 124
externalisation of costs 44
extraction of resources 34, 43, 60, 78
false knowledge 12
fear 20, 87
Feldmann, M. 47
feminism 6, 37
feudalism 16, 37, 47
finance
coordinated taxation 86
costs of borrowing 40, 41, 102
951
Index
financial deregulation 32, 38
financialisation 32, 51, 52
global financial system 32
green finance 39–41, 43, 82
raising 41, 43, 44
flights, limiting 55, 58, 107, 108,
112, 113
food
cooperatives 97
demonetisation 39, 48
local 42
local currencies 41–2
needs 85
state policy 70
subsidising organic 55
Transition movement 67
forces of transformation 64
Fordism 31, 34, 46, 51, 56, 80
foreign direct investment (FDI) 32
fossil fuels 25, 34, 43, 79, 83
fossil liberalism 113–14, 115, 116
four planes of degrowth 123–36
four planes of social being model 8,
9–11, 98–103, 106, 111, 125–6,
128–9
France 46, 83
freedom 16, 17, 20, 72
Frieden, J. A. 32
Friedman, M. 52
Friends of the Earth 68
Fritz, M. 27, 34, 44, 80, 84, 111, 115
Fromm, E. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29n.7,
59, 73, 124, 130, 133
GDP 6, 49n.5, 86
gender 37, 78
gentleness and care 35, 38, 42, 59,
125, 128
geography 6, 11, 71, 83, 132
Georgescu-Roegen, N. 25
Germany 46, 52, 59, 79, 84
Gibson-Graham, J. K. 13n.3, 27, 36,
45, 46, 57, 64, 65, 101, 127, 136
Giddens, A. 8
gift economies 93, 102
globalisation 2, 32, 34, 44, 51, 80, 92
Global South 34, 44
‘good life’ 23, 59
Görg, C. 27, 76, 78, 79
Gorz, A. 4–5, 18, 19, 24
159
Gough, I. 25, 55, 76, 80, 84,
89n.5, 107
Graeber, D. 18, 101
Gramsci, A. 76, 77, 78–9
grassroots initiatives 44, 56, 57,
58, 89n.1
green capitalism 95
green/environmental state 34–5, 79–80
green finance 39–41, 43, 82
green growth 2, 60, 87, 88, 113
greening dirty industries 43
green investment 44
green jobs 43, 68
Green New Deal 68
greenwashing 2–3
growth-critical scholarship 104
habitus 78, 110–17, 121, 128
Hall, P. A. 46
Hankammer, S. 7
harmonious coexistence 7, 102–3,
104–5
Harvey, D. 17, 25, 42, 54, 60
having, mode of 19, 20, 22, 59, 73, 133
Hayek, F. von 52
health 23 see also mental health
hegemony 2, 51, 52, 55, 56, 59, 63, 77
Heidegger, M. 72, 134
Heikkurinen, P. 7, 13n.3, 39, 69, 70,
72, 102
hierarchy
business growth as 105
cultural hierarchies 19
inherent in capitalism 14, 124
institutional forms 31, 32
institutional forms in degrowth
social formations 48
move to flatter social structures 125
nature and society 25–6
non-hierarchical organisations 100
of violence 24
Hirsch, F. 19
historical materialism 6, 50, 52, 57
historic blocs 51
homo economicus 9, 20, 71, 78, 103
Hopkins, R. 66, 67
Hornborg, A. 26, 41
household work 37
human consciousness 73
humanism 132–4
160
Index
human nature 20–3
human needs theory 22
Human Scale Development
methodology 118
human-scale production 45
Hunt, E. K. 14, 20
Koch, M. 2, 6, 7, 8, 15, 17, 19, 23, 27,
28n.1, 30, 32, 33, 34, 44, 46,
49n.5, 50, 51, 55, 58, 76, 80, 82,
84, 86, 87, 88, 106, 109, 110,
117, 130
Kuznets, S. 29n.8
income caps 82, 85, 107, 108, 132
income tax 43
Indigenous peoples 57
individualism 20, 97, 102
individual self-transformation 71–4, 75,
84–8, 133–4
Industrial Revolution 16–17, 18
inequalities 15–16, 51, 80, 83, 85, 110,
112, 113, 114
infrastructure industries 94
see also universal basic
services (UBS)
inner being 4, 9, 21–3, 26–7, 50, 78,
99, 102, 129
innovation 18, 40–1
institutional forms 31–3, 81, 129
instrumentalism 24, 86, 124
‘integral state’ 77
interconnectivity 72, 98, 128–9,
130, 135
interdisciplinarity 4, 6
interest 40, 41, 102
international capital flows 32
International Degrowth Conferences
5, 7, 76
international financial system 39
International Labour Organization 68
international social movement 5, 7
international system 31, 35, 42–5
intersectionality 16
investment 16, 32, 39, 40, 44
Islar, M. 102
labour
‘bullshit jobs’ 18, 41
division of labour 14, 17
employability 86
flexiblisation of labour 32
labour markets 15, 51, 86
meaningful employment 48
unpaid labour 15, 24, 27, 37
wage-labour nexus 15, 16, 31,
32, 36–8
land 24, 70
Laruffa, F. 34
Lassila, M. M. 34
Latouche, S. 2, 5, 43, 55, 95, 129
Lawn, P. 17
left-wing parties 56, 113, 114
legal aspects of degrowth 135
Leibig, J. 24
Leonardi, E. 6
liberalisation 32
liberalism 46, 52, 65, 80, 83, 109, 112,
113, 115, 117
liberation from/of work 36
Liegey, V. 55, 56, 131
lifestyle businesses 45
lifestyles 38
Lipietz, A. 27, 31
living space limitations 7,
107, 108
local currencies 39, 41, 66
localisation
business 94, 95–6, 98, 100
civil society 66, 69
institutional forms 41, 45
state roles 89n.1, 92
local scale 81, 82
Jackson, T. 36
Jäger, J. 39, 40
Jessop, B. 30, 31, 32, 51, 78, 80
Johanisova, N. 44, 97
‘just transition’ approach 68
Kallis, G. 22
Kaufmann, N. 43
Keynesianism 31, 32–3, 52
Khan, J. 76, 107
Maddison, A. 17
Malm, A. 13n.2, 54
Marx, K. 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21,
23–4, 27, 51, 77, 110
material growth 5
materialism 25, 73, 78, 135
161
Index
material transactions with nature 9–10,
11, 26, 45, 98–100, 102, 114,
117, 123
maximum incomes 55, 107, 108
Max-Neef, M. 22, 25, 45, 85,
89n.5, 118
M-C-M' cycles 15, 18, 24
meaning, seeking 24, 73, 101, 133
meaningful employment 48
meat consumption 107, 108, 112, 113
mental health 23, 38, 43
meritocracy 27, 113
metaReality 10, 72
Mete, S. 7
micro-level 44, 57–8, 66, 94, 95–6
see also bottom-up initiatives;
grassroots initiatives
middle classes 19, 53, 57
Midgley, M. 71
Mill, J. S. 4
mind-body dualism 10
minimalism 67, 100
minimum incomes 48n.2, 85 see also
universal basic income (UBI)
mode of having versus mode of being
19, 20, 22, 59, 73, 133
moderate traditional welfare 114,
116, 117
modernity 29n.10
monetarism 52
monetary regimes 31, 32, 33, 38–42
monetisation 25
money 41, 129
Mont, O. 34
Montalban, M. 33
Moore, J. M. 26
moral growth 98
more, degrowth involves 123–4, 125
Mulinari, D. 16
multidimensional degrowth
transformations 11
multinational corporations 85, 92
Næss, A. 10, 13n.3, 23, 73, 124, 125,
128, 135
nationalisation 43, 83, 95
natural differences 19
nature
access rights 49n.5
alienation from 18
161
business’s material transactions
with 98–9
and capitalism 2, 3, 23–6, 124
capitalist diversity 46
demonetisation 39, 48
as ‘free gift’ 78
institutional forms 33–6
instrumentalism 86
interconnection with 10, 135
natural resource extraction 23, 25,
34, 35, 43, 45
nature/culture 10
as resource 10, 35, 45, 78
self-transformation of businesses 93
social relation to nature 33–6
Western viewpoints 58
needs see basic needs; universal basic
services (UBS)
negative needs satisfiers 118–19, 124
negotiated de-growth 65
Neilson, D. 31, 34, 44
Nelson, A. 55, 56, 131
neoclassical economics 6, 20, 23, 71, 92
neo-imperialism 26
neoliberalism
capitalist diversity 46
emergence of 52
financial deregulation 32, 38
institutional forms 31–2
lack of current alternative 56–7
and nature 34
phases of 52
state roles 42
transnational actors 80
‘trickle-down’ 109
Nesterova, I. 3, 5, 6, 7, 26, 28, 35, 40,
57, 66, 67, 72, 91, 92, 93, 96, 97,
98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 106,
124, 125, 126, 131, 135
networks 65, 93, 101
New Urban Challenge: Models of
Sustainable Welfare in Swedish
Metropolitan Cities (2020)
107, 108
NGOs 67–8
Nielsen, P. 8, 64
non-growing businesses 101–2, 104
non-growing firms 45
non-humans 4, 7, 35, 45, 74, 125, 128,
134, 135
162
Index
non-material growth 5, 6
non-profit work 37
normativity 11–12
not-for-profit organisations 43, 69,
96, 131
nuclear waste 83
objective-subjective
positionings 109–10
oil companies 79
online communities 69–70
ontological underpinnings 4, 6, 8–12
organic agriculture 5, 24, 37–8, 104
Ougaard, M. 60, 80
Overbeek, H. 50, 52, 53, 55
ownership forms of businesses 95, 101
Palombarini, S. 49n.5
Paris climate targets 83
participatory decision-making 43, 82,
88, 100
passive anti-ecological conservativism
111–12, 116, 117
path dependencies 47, 107
Paulsson, A. 36, 39
personal growth 18, 75, 86, 133
‘personality market’ 21–2
Petit, P. 32
Petty, W. 24
philosophy 71–2
place-sensitivity 10, 92, 100, 126, 136
planetary boundaries 1, 27, 84, 89,
103, 120–1
political ecology 6
political economy 6, 11, 23, 50–3, 127
political project, degrowth as 7, 54–5,
56–8, 60
pollution 37, 42–3, 124
population growth 17, 129
positional goods 19
positive needs satisfiers 119–20, 124
post-capitalism 35, 38, 50, 64, 91
post-growth discourses 69, 91
Poulantzas, N. 27, 76, 79
power see also hegemony
in capitalist growth economies 77
coalition of social forces 56
power asymmetries 121n.1
power blocs 79, 88, 127
power redistribution 44, 51
symbolic capital 77
symbolic power 77–8
transforming state power 87–8
transnational organisations 94
practice, theory of 110
precarious work 37
private companies 96–7
private property 19, 73
privatisation 25
production processes
and the climate crisis 54
forms of production, diversity in 5
globalisation 32
localisation 45
local production 41
means of production 14
modes of production 27, 53–4,
120–1
production relations 20
productivity 16, 21, 36
profit 15, 16, 44, 92, 103
pro-market economics 52, 59
psychology 11, 71–2, 132
public assets/utilities 28n.3
public control of money 39
race 78
rainforests 27
rational utility 9, 18–19, 71
raw materials 24, 35
Raza, W. 33
reciprocal labour 37
redistribution 10, 44, 70, 85, 93, 114
regulation 55, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 104
regulation theory 30, 33, 39, 50
REKO rings 70
renewable energy 35, 40, 60, 83, 99
repairability of products 100
repair workshops 66
reproductive care work 37
rescaling processes 80
reskilling 43, 68
Ricardo, D. 23
right to work 59
right-wing ideologies 64, 80, 111, 113,
114, 117
Robinson, D. W. 133
Robinson, W. I. 32, 33, 51, 52, 53
Robra, B. 91, 92
Røpke, I. 25
361
Index
Russell, B. 96
Ruuska, T. 13n.3, 70, 102
Saillard, Y. 30, 31, 32, 51, 53
Saito, K. 17
Schmelzer, M. 43, 75n.3, 81
Schmid, B. 6, 7, 66
‘scholastic fallacy’ 106
Schumacher, E. F. 25, 28n.6, 45, 96
Schumpeter, J. 16
Seebacher, L. M. 6
self-centred privatism 112, 116
self-employment 37
self-transformation of businesses 93
self-transformation of individuals 59,
71–4, 75, 84–8, 133–4
Sewell Jr., W. H. 18
shareholders 44
Shonfield, A. 46
shortening of working time 107,
108, 132
single-use products 100
Skyrman, V. 32
slow travel 55, 85
smallness 45, 94, 95–6
Smith, A. 20, 23
social democratic societies 46, 52, 53,
79, 80, 107
social floors 76
social interactions 4, 9–10, 26–7, 59,
99, 100, 111–12, 119–20, 123
social media 70
social movements 5, 7–8, 57–8,
60, 65, 79
social movement unionism 68
social ontology, reason for focus on 8
‘social practice’ approaches 110
social relation to nature 33–6
social sciences, position of
degrowth in 7–8
social structures/individual actions
continuum 8–10
societal institutions 30
sociology 6, 9, 11, 78, 109
solidarity 33, 73, 87, 131
Soper, K. 22, 23, 26, 38
Soskice, D. 46
Spash, C. L. 17, 25–6, 71, 128
special-purpose currencies 41–2
Spinoza, B. 29n.7
163
state
in capitalist growth economies 76–80
capitalist versus degrowth 88
in degrowth social formations 42–3
degrowth transformations 76–90
international system and
business 42–5
positive roles in degrowth 81
scales 81–4
self-transformation of
individuals 87–8
as site of transformation 11
state forms 32–3, 34–5
state policy 70, 78–9
state-owned enterprises 79
statism 46, 55, 65
Stockhammer, E. 32
Streeck, W. 3, 16, 25, 33, 54, 57
structural crises 51–2, 53
structure-agency relationship 8–10,
109–10
subjectivities 10
sufficiency-based models 35, 45, 92, 98
supply chains 35, 41–2, 92, 94,
95–6, 100
supply-side economics 52
supranational organisations 33,
44, 80, 82
survival urge 22
sustainability 13n.1, 38, 43, 55,
68, 94–5
sustainable communities 57
‘sustainable welfare’ 82, 84–8
Sustainable Welfare for a New
Generation of Social Policy
107, 108
Sweden 52, 80, 106, 107, 108, 111,
118, 128
Swift, R. 7
symbolic capital 77
symbolic power 77–8
synergies 48, 86, 89
systemic crisis 53
systemic transformations 53
tax 42–3, 44, 55, 82, 85, 86, 113
technology 7, 13n.3, 18, 32, 38, 69–70,
94, 102, 134–5
theorisation of deep
transformation 50–61
164
Index
theory, purpose of 4
think tanks 52
time banks 39
tiny house movement 7
top-down policies for degrowth 55, 58
trade 16, 92–3
trade unions see unions
Trainer, T. 3, 7, 39, 64, 66, 69, 73, 81,
91, 93, 94, 95, 99, 100, 131
Transition movement 66–7, 118
transnational capital 42
transnational corporations (TNCs) 32
transnational finance 52
transnational historical materialism 50
transnationalisation 32, 82
transnational networks 82
transnational organisations 33, 44, 53,
60, 80, 82, 94, 104
transparency 45
transport 41, 55
typologies of capital economies 46
unemployment 36
unions 37, 47, 51, 53, 56, 64, 65, 68–9
United Nations (UN) sustainability
goals 13n.1
universal basic income (UBI) 36, 41,
42, 43, 55, 70, 85, 101, 107,
108, 109
universal basic services (UBS) 42, 70,
85, 93, 101, 107, 108, 109
unpaid labour 15, 24, 27, 37
US 46, 83
use values 24
utilitarianism 78
valorisation processes 18, 95
van Apeldoorn, B. 51, 52, 53, 55
‘varieties of capitalism’ 46, 83
venture capitalists 44
Victor, P. 36
violence 24, 34, 35, 38, 42, 63,
72, 77, 79
vocational training 43
voluntary simplicity 7, 64, 67, 100
wage-labour nexus 15, 16, 31,
32, 36–8
Wallerstein, I. 16
wants 45, 84–5
warranties 55
waste reduction initiatives 70, 98 see
also zero-waste movement
water companies 68
wealth caps 82, 85, 107, 108, 132
wealth tax 43, 85, 86, 107
Weber, M. 16, 77
welfare regime types 46–7, 79, 80
welfare state 31, 32–3, 52, 55, 65,
79, 109
wellbeing 5, 85–7, 96, 97, 100, 104,
109, 131, 135
Western viewpoints 58
Wigger, A. 16, 33, 42, 51, 57
Wikipedia 75n.3
Wilkin, P. 69
women 37, 57
work see also labour
commodification under capitalism 15
and consumption 17–20
flexiblisation of labour 32
human nature 21
link between nature and human
beings 23–4
Marxism 21
transforming 36, 38
wage-labour nexus 36–8
working time reduction 17, 48, 55,
57, 82, 85–6, 107, 108, 132
worker-led organisations 39
working classes 18
working time reduction 17, 48, 55, 57,
82, 85–6, 107, 108, 132
work-sharing 55
Xue, J. 7
yield 16
young people 57
zero-waste movement 7, 67, 100
Hubert Buch-Hansen