You have no idea how refreshing I find the statement “Sadly I do not have a compelling conclusion”. That plus the fact you finished the post with a question. These are strengths, not weaknesses. Excellent piece with multiple topics to consider. Much of social media, in all fields including energy, has evolved into statements made with absolute certainty about things which are uncertain. If I scream loud enough it must be true.
Like you my observation is that since the advent of modern economics we have only ever been in a growth phase. I don't believe there is any empirical evidence that an economy can stably 'de-grow'. There is a lot of wishful thinking, but I don't believe it is likely to be really possible, given human nature.
You mean that you don't believe stuff like this : "Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, in England, calls on Western countries to shift their economies from mass-market production to local services—such as nursing, teaching, and handicrafts—that could be less resource-intensive."? 😵💫
Ha. I suppose we could revert to a low energy intensity world (powered by Amory Lovins' Soft Path) but it would mean living like we did in 1800. Putting aside the fact that probably no one actually wants this (once they understand what that really means on the ground, for them personally) the question is, how would one get there from here, avoiding war, strife, and famine and mass death in the process? I do not believe it is possible. I am sure there is no actual evidence that this can be achieved.
You have an interesting take on degrowth, quite refreshing as someone else put it.
You mentioned the work around how degrowth would look like. I've reviewed much of the literature on degrowth for personal interest and my observation is that there's absolutely no framework of principles that should guide degrowth. This is perhaps because parts of the term that are at least partially self-contradicting.
One of the most vocal researchers and supporters of the degrowth concept Giorgos Kallis defines the term as 'an equitable downscaling of throughput with a concomittant securing of wellbeing'. Further in the same paper, the authors mention that 'a transition to direct democracy in tandem with decelerating economy is a highly unlikely scenario [...] the scenario of stagnation and an authoritarian drift seems more likely'. So an equitable downscaling is not compatible with democratic, which seems to imply that degrowth is a top-down process rather than a collaborative one. That's incompatible with securing wellbeing because it assumes that the entities directing the degrowth are aware and considering of what wellbeing means for individuals (something that may vary from person to person).
The downscaling aspect of degrowth is consistent with what happens during a recession although degrowth is targetted towards the things that are considered unsustainable (SUVs, beef consumption, private transport, planned obsolescence). At the same time, degrowth seeks to expand universal public goods and services such as healthcare, education, transportation and housing (this is the Hickel argument). There's quite a substantial inconsistency there as first, there's no real way to control which aspects of the economy are degrown (everything is way too interconnected) and it's incredibly difficult to expand public goods and services offering while contracting private goods and services simply because they all rely on the same raw materials and energy sources.
It seems to me that degrowth is intentionally a vague term which allows its incompatibility with existing market-based, free enterprise systems to be obscured. That fundamental incompatibility is that you can't profit maximize while minimizing the factors that maximize profit. If you look at what's happening in the EU, where degrowth appears to be on its way, that incompatibility is apparently resolved in two ways: making goods and services more expensive (hence increasing overall profits on a decreasing production base) and through heavy state subsidies for stimulating certain behaviours in industries (think subsidies for electric vehicle/or heating purchase) - Norway's electric vehicle market is a perfect example of that, i've written about it here: https://foresion.substack.com/p/evs-on-life-support-part-1-norways.
On the medium- to long-term however, it's likely that these issues will become more substantial (as more and more sectors need subsidising and production decreases to levels that are damaging to populations) that governments may need to take over the means of production and regulate outputs to cater for 'wellbeing'.
As a citizen in a former communist country, this sounds somewhat familiar.
Thank you for this fantastic addition to my post (and to my knowledge). Indeed, as I was reading your description of the degrowth objective of targetting unsustainable items whilst promoting the "good" goods and services - I was thinking "central planning" - and your final sentence nails it.
The qualitative proposals for degrowth are always steeped in nice word salads - just like the Net Zero / Energy Transition pundits are great at. Lots of nice outcomes, ignoring any possible pitfalls and downsides...
I think my biggest "fear" is/are several related points:
* growth and the techno-industrial society is an unlikely outcome - one that has been the product of a constant struggle against entropy
* the way up was slow, and steady - the way down may see "tipping points" and could be fast and very chaotic
* and a point you allude to - if freedom is the consequence of growth, then loss of freedom(s) may be the result of degrowth
I highly recommend the work of John Constable on these ideas - not very cheerful and very sobering. An antidote to the many "easy, but wrong" conclusions of the concensus.
I had taken an interest in degrowth since I saw the Club of Rome Meadows' Limits to Growth (LTG) work and was reading the Julian Simon's rebuttal to that book's claims in The ultimate resource (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource). I found it particularly interesting that LTG is based on that very assumption of entropy that you were mentioning. What do you refer to when you talk about the constant struggle against entropy?
I'd probably turn the third assertion on its head, growth is a consequence of freedom. The ability to take something (e.g., the internet, personal vehicles, agricultural tools, social media) and use if in any possible way imaginable tends to facilitate growth. Conversely, lack of freedom acts to strangle growth. This is most evident in industries that are overly regulated to the point to which regulation becomes a moat for new competitors (the banking system in the US is perhaps one of the best examples, social media and AI close seconds). If this causal link between growh and freedom holds then we circle back to the central planning conclusion which i think we both agree on.
How do you see the evolution of energy security in the context of degrowth, whatever that may look like? I had a feeling that, at least from an energy perspective, slowing down growth could have helped stabilise energy systems.
You have no idea how refreshing I find the statement “Sadly I do not have a compelling conclusion”. That plus the fact you finished the post with a question. These are strengths, not weaknesses. Excellent piece with multiple topics to consider. Much of social media, in all fields including energy, has evolved into statements made with absolute certainty about things which are uncertain. If I scream loud enough it must be true.
Thank you. Very appreciated.
Like you my observation is that since the advent of modern economics we have only ever been in a growth phase. I don't believe there is any empirical evidence that an economy can stably 'de-grow'. There is a lot of wishful thinking, but I don't believe it is likely to be really possible, given human nature.
You mean that you don't believe stuff like this : "Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, in England, calls on Western countries to shift their economies from mass-market production to local services—such as nursing, teaching, and handicrafts—that could be less resource-intensive."? 😵💫
Ha. I suppose we could revert to a low energy intensity world (powered by Amory Lovins' Soft Path) but it would mean living like we did in 1800. Putting aside the fact that probably no one actually wants this (once they understand what that really means on the ground, for them personally) the question is, how would one get there from here, avoiding war, strife, and famine and mass death in the process? I do not believe it is possible. I am sure there is no actual evidence that this can be achieved.
You have an interesting take on degrowth, quite refreshing as someone else put it.
You mentioned the work around how degrowth would look like. I've reviewed much of the literature on degrowth for personal interest and my observation is that there's absolutely no framework of principles that should guide degrowth. This is perhaps because parts of the term that are at least partially self-contradicting.
One of the most vocal researchers and supporters of the degrowth concept Giorgos Kallis defines the term as 'an equitable downscaling of throughput with a concomittant securing of wellbeing'. Further in the same paper, the authors mention that 'a transition to direct democracy in tandem with decelerating economy is a highly unlikely scenario [...] the scenario of stagnation and an authoritarian drift seems more likely'. So an equitable downscaling is not compatible with democratic, which seems to imply that degrowth is a top-down process rather than a collaborative one. That's incompatible with securing wellbeing because it assumes that the entities directing the degrowth are aware and considering of what wellbeing means for individuals (something that may vary from person to person).
The downscaling aspect of degrowth is consistent with what happens during a recession although degrowth is targetted towards the things that are considered unsustainable (SUVs, beef consumption, private transport, planned obsolescence). At the same time, degrowth seeks to expand universal public goods and services such as healthcare, education, transportation and housing (this is the Hickel argument). There's quite a substantial inconsistency there as first, there's no real way to control which aspects of the economy are degrown (everything is way too interconnected) and it's incredibly difficult to expand public goods and services offering while contracting private goods and services simply because they all rely on the same raw materials and energy sources.
It seems to me that degrowth is intentionally a vague term which allows its incompatibility with existing market-based, free enterprise systems to be obscured. That fundamental incompatibility is that you can't profit maximize while minimizing the factors that maximize profit. If you look at what's happening in the EU, where degrowth appears to be on its way, that incompatibility is apparently resolved in two ways: making goods and services more expensive (hence increasing overall profits on a decreasing production base) and through heavy state subsidies for stimulating certain behaviours in industries (think subsidies for electric vehicle/or heating purchase) - Norway's electric vehicle market is a perfect example of that, i've written about it here: https://foresion.substack.com/p/evs-on-life-support-part-1-norways.
On the medium- to long-term however, it's likely that these issues will become more substantial (as more and more sectors need subsidising and production decreases to levels that are damaging to populations) that governments may need to take over the means of production and regulate outputs to cater for 'wellbeing'.
As a citizen in a former communist country, this sounds somewhat familiar.
@Mihai -
Thank you for this fantastic addition to my post (and to my knowledge). Indeed, as I was reading your description of the degrowth objective of targetting unsustainable items whilst promoting the "good" goods and services - I was thinking "central planning" - and your final sentence nails it.
The qualitative proposals for degrowth are always steeped in nice word salads - just like the Net Zero / Energy Transition pundits are great at. Lots of nice outcomes, ignoring any possible pitfalls and downsides...
I think my biggest "fear" is/are several related points:
* growth and the techno-industrial society is an unlikely outcome - one that has been the product of a constant struggle against entropy
* the way up was slow, and steady - the way down may see "tipping points" and could be fast and very chaotic
* and a point you allude to - if freedom is the consequence of growth, then loss of freedom(s) may be the result of degrowth
I highly recommend the work of John Constable on these ideas - not very cheerful and very sobering. An antidote to the many "easy, but wrong" conclusions of the concensus.
Again, thanks for this outstanding contribution!
I had taken an interest in degrowth since I saw the Club of Rome Meadows' Limits to Growth (LTG) work and was reading the Julian Simon's rebuttal to that book's claims in The ultimate resource (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Resource). I found it particularly interesting that LTG is based on that very assumption of entropy that you were mentioning. What do you refer to when you talk about the constant struggle against entropy?
I'd probably turn the third assertion on its head, growth is a consequence of freedom. The ability to take something (e.g., the internet, personal vehicles, agricultural tools, social media) and use if in any possible way imaginable tends to facilitate growth. Conversely, lack of freedom acts to strangle growth. This is most evident in industries that are overly regulated to the point to which regulation becomes a moat for new competitors (the banking system in the US is perhaps one of the best examples, social media and AI close seconds). If this causal link between growh and freedom holds then we circle back to the central planning conclusion which i think we both agree on.
How do you see the evolution of energy security in the context of degrowth, whatever that may look like? I had a feeling that, at least from an energy perspective, slowing down growth could have helped stabilise energy systems.