I’m in the midst of doing research, teaching, and outreach activities on a set of questions around economic growth and its relationship to what we value. My research team has Tim Jackson visiting tomorrow, who will give a talk on postgrowth economics and also talk a bit about his new book, The Care Economy. The main claim of that book is that the economy should not be about welfare understood as GDP per capital, with the corresponding economic policy goal being economic growth. Rather, the economy should be about people’s health (using the WHO definition, which I interpret as ‘well-being’), and hence economic policy should be about what we do to preserve and improve our health, which is care – care for ourselves, for others, for the planet including its ecosystems that allows us to live well.
Now, contrast this with the first “mission” taken from the election manifesto of the Dutch VVD, which is the Dutch right-wing party, which sees itself as the defender of classical liberal values, democracy, rule of law and so forth. (note aside: many critical commentators see the VVD increasingly as a populist extreme-right party, but I won’t look into that yawning gap now).
The first mission of the VVD is: Radical Economic Growth.
Here’s what they write about it (translated from Dutch, obviously):
“It is time for radical economic growth. Not only to keep up in a rapidly changing world, but also because growth is simply [or perhaps:’intrinsically’] good. Growth is linked to virtually everything that makes life beautiful/worth living: opportunities to make something of your life, and the freedom to shape your life the way you want. With a good income, a strong democracy and a longer and healthier life. Growth also enables us to provide good healthcare, education and a social safety net for when things go wrong. Growth is also essential for investments in sustainability. We choose growth by standing up for entrepreneurs. Stimulating growth involves big choices and small measures. It implies making ourselves more independent from China and promoting free trade, but it also implies that low taxes for entrepreneurs will always be our goal. We trust entrepreneurs, so we are cutting back on paperwork. We also stand for stable/predictable government policies, so that entrepreneurs can make the right decisions by planning ahead. And we keep public finances in balance, partly to prevent us from passing the bill on to the next generation of entrepreneurs. By keeping the government small, we give space to the free market. The free market that, throughout history, has always known better than the government.”
In its election manifesto, the VVD does not mention the words ‘degrowth’ or ‘postgrowth’. Yet in a video-clip that was shared on social media, they are clear about how they understand degrowth: as a shrinking of the economic pie, which will lead to “decay, destruction, and an empty purse.” Economic growth is seen as necessary for all the things that matter, including staying healthy and living long lives.
This is not surprising, since it is coming from a hyperneoliberal party that believes entrepreneurs are the key creators of welfare, and thus their interests should always take precedence, including by lowering their tax burdens. Yet what I find deeply saddening is that they don’t take their opponents seriously. Degrowth, or postgrowth, is not just shrinking the economic pie. It is a deliberate and planned shrinking of those sectors of consumption and production that prevent us from staying within planetary boundaries; it starts from seeing the planet as the only place where human beings can live good lives, and thus the planetary conditions for such life need to be restored and protected; and it starts from asking what matters in life, which is meeting our basic needs, wellbeing, or health. As Jackson explains clearly in his book, the latter two are concepts that require balance, rather than endless growth.
Tim Jackson also makes a strong case in his book that the profit-seeking nature of the food-industry (read this article if you don’t know) lowers our health, our wellbeing, and the number of healthy years we can live. So the assumption that neoliberal pro-market defenders make, that we need growth and less regulation to be able to lead good, healthier lives, is disputed. Sure, we need markets, but markets of healthy foods, and we have no evidence that such markets are best created around the goals of profit or growth, and with less governmental regulation (which is another thing the VVD wants).
Tim Jackson became famous with his 2010 book Prosperity without Growth, which has been a foundational voice in the debate on how to revise our economy to also meet goals of ecological sustainability. I am not expecting our extreme-right parties to take note of such knowledge; they exist only to wreak havoc, transfer money to their overlords, and, most of all, work towards gaining absolute power. But I do expect any political party that wants to be taken seriously by reasonable citizens to engage with this -by now massive- literature on green alternatives for neoliberal capitalism, rather than presenting us a program that looks like neoliberal capitalism on steroids. We’ve had that for decades – and it doesn’t give us what we need.
And then there is the distributive question that the VVD is ignoring. They are suggesting that all citizens will benefit from economic growth. But if you are simultaneously lowering benefits for those on welfare – which includes an increasing share of our disabled fellow citizens – then please explain to me how this prioritisation of entrepreneurs and economic growth will benefit those who are vulnerable. I am suspecting that in the world of the VVD and other neoliberals being poor and vulnerable is a voluntary choice, as they are imagining all welfare recipients as people who are able but not willing to work. Two months ago, I asked on LinkedIn the MP from the VVD who is responsible for benefits and social security how he sees this, but got no response.
{ 57 comments }
JPL 09.23.25 at 12:26 am
The expression “care for each other” logically includes “care for ourselves, for others” (reciprocity, compassion, and we have to be there in order to care for another) and is a universally applicable principle. “We all need to take care of each other” together with the rule of law principle (equivalence of all autonomous agents) should always be kept in mind to guide all governing and lawmaking. The strikingly atomistic reflexivity of the VVD statement (“the freedom to shape your life the way you want”, forgetting the harmful effects of merely self-serving actions on others who we should be caring about), which D Trump reduces to the absurd credo, “I hate my enemies” and his solipsistic maxim “always punish my enemies”, and the special pleading for “entrepreneurs” (which obviously doesn’t include people like teachers and nurses) can never work out. The main obstacle to doing what we know how to do to mitigate climate change is people who take this atomistic approach. Successful entrepreneurs are in a position to help now, so they should do so. BTW, the notion of “regulation” as a regulatory principle for an ethically sound economic system, would perhaps better be called “equilibration”, which includes, as a necessary value, “balance”.
I know people will say all that is hopelessly impractical, but it’s possible that when everybody sees that things are not working out, they would be open to an effort to recover lost ideals. What people loosely call “the ruling class” (of which the VVD appears to be a specific instance) are the big obstacle. Revolution through argument.
MisterMr 09.23.25 at 7:57 am
My two cents: I think that speaking of “degrowth” is self defeating, as people don’t want to lose jobs and/or income.
It would be better to speak of growth in quality instead than in quantity, which actually is what degrowth people are speaking of (e.g. less overall food that goes to waste anyway but more organic higer quality food).
But speaking of “degrowth” gives a bad image IMHO.
J-D 09.23.25 at 9:17 am
Well, of course they don’t. Liars seldom do. ‘Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying’, as Falstaff’s line has it. I don’t say this isn’t sad. It is sad. I think I was already about as saddened by it as I could be, though.
The occasional depressing reminder may be salutary.
Do you think they do want to be taken seriously by reasonable citizens? What if they only want to be taken seriously by suckers?
John Q 09.24.25 at 12:52 am
The term “care economy” is much more appealing than “degrowth” which accepts the framing of the VVD and others, then tries to invert it. I had a go at this a few years ago.
https://johnquigginblog.substack.com/p/why-neither-growth-nor-degrowth-make
Gareth Wilson 09.24.25 at 4:15 am
Does making artillery shells come under the Care Economy?
Tm 09.24.25 at 9:02 am
I’m curious about this: “the Dutch VVD, which is the Dutch right-wing party, which sees itself as the defender of classical liberal values, democracy, rule of law and so forth.
Do they actually see themselves as defender of clasical liberal values? Do they?
JWP ESQ 09.24.25 at 5:54 pm
I have a question regarding the VVD, namely, would this party be to the left or the right of the Democrats in the United States? The Wikipedia entry isn’t very helpful.
More particularly, where does the VVD stand w/r/t (1) healthcare; (2) housing; (3) wages; and (4) education? Here in the US the Dems have, over the last 30-odd years, done nothing to stop all of these things from becoming more expensive, while of course talking about how much they feel your pain. (On the talk-vs-action question, a cynic might say that the GOP gleefully screws you and tells you that you deserve it, while the Dems will do it while saying “this hurts me too”).
Wikipedia seems to be saying that the VVD has a strong commitment to welfare, which would make them, in the US context, frothing-at-the-mouth communists. Please explain, thanks.
Tm 09.24.25 at 8:06 pm
7: “Dems have done nothing for affordable health care” except reduced the number of uninsured by more than 20 million (and some other stuff that nobody gave them credit for, like capping insulin prices).
Bullshitter go away.
https://nchstats.com/us-uninsured-rate-by-year/
J-D 09.25.25 at 3:36 am
The Democrats have done less than I think they should have done. Unlike JWP ESQ, however, I do not use ‘nothing’ as a synonym for ‘less than I think they should have done’. I mention this point for the benefit of anybody who is considering the option of responding to JWP ESQ, an option I do not propose to take up myself.
Trader Joe 09.25.25 at 12:58 pm
@8 Tm
Its true enrollment has increased by 20m which is laudable and good. That said, annual spending on healthcare has increased by $2.3 TRILLION since 2010 (through 2023, last year available). If my math is right, those incremental 20m cost about $115k per year, per person. That’s a recipe for bankrupting a health system, any health system.
To the OP – not all that impressed with VVD, but can’t really buy the whole “care economy” idea either. Growth as a focus allows optionality. There are times when “care” is an appropriate priority (and its never not of importance), but there are also times when other priorities will need to take precedence.
JWP ESQ 09.25.25 at 3:45 pm
Ahem. You may, if you like, substitute “not much” for “nothing”: whether I’m bullshitting or not, I submit that the Dems haven’t done much to improve the general welfare, or to increase the amount of available social product. I believe this is called “neoliberalism”. The fact that they are better on all of these issues than the GOP is beside the point.
But the question was meant for Ms. Robeyns, not the peanut gallery: here we have two neoliberal parties, the Dems and the VVD—which is more neoliberal? Wikipedia implies that the VVD, were it to be operating in the US, would be to the LEFT of the Dems … is this correct?
Ingrid Robeyns 09.25.25 at 9:19 pm
Tm @ 6 – they ‘old school’ VVD’ers surely see themselves as such, and that’s also how they present themselves in the opening paragraph of their election manifesto. But there is a growing consensus by their critics, which has existed for years, that they are simply the party that defends the interest of entrepreneurs/’capital’ above the interest of workers/’labour’, as well as other living creatures and organisms. And, more recently (since at least the last election campaign) they are seen as having crossed the border into the ‘extreme-right’ camp, given for example their focus on migration and refugees as the key topic, and their use of what I think many scholars would see as propaganda-techniques (e.g. their consistent and pretty aggressively naming of the Green/Labour party “an extremist left party” as well as multiple statement that they prefer to form a coalition with the extreme-right parties rather than with the Green/labour party; or their frequent use of significant lies in their political speech).
Ingrid Robeyns 09.25.25 at 9:22 pm
JWP ESQ: I sincerely don’t know the answer to your question. I’ll try to find someone who might be better situated or informed to answer this.
PatinIowa 09.25.25 at 9:47 pm
JWP ESQ
I suspect the real takeaway from comparing parties is this: A simple left/right distinction doesn’t do justice to the complexities of political ideologies.
It’s instructive to remember that in 1936, the Democratic Party in the US stood for the New Deal, unions, and Jim Crow. (Roughly speaking, of course.)
notGoodenough 09.25.25 at 11:05 pm
@ JWP ESQ
At the risk of causing offense by daring to offer something from the “peanut gallery”, perhaps it would be worth looking at “Sterker uit de storm” [1]? As I understand it, key highlights are:
support for Dutch entrepreneurs, working citizens, economic growth, tax cuts for businesses, incentives for employees, and fewer regulatory hurdles, scrapping the second year of mandatory sick leave payments for small businesses, maintaining mortgage interest tax deductions, significant cuts in social security and healthcare (shrinking the basic health insurance package, increasing out-of-pocket payments, and streamlining the healthcare system), scrapping the Affordable Rent Act, reversing the reduction of the mandatory deductible in health insurance, and criminalising the blocking of highways, introducing a cap on total benefit payouts and reductions for recipients who refuse suitable jobs or cannot speak Dutch sufficiently, with cuts in social programs intended to free up funds for other priorities (particularly national defense)
Quite how one judges which of two political parties, operating in different countries under different systems and from different starting points, is “more neoliberal” might (dare I suggest?) represent a degree of subjectivity requiring personal assesment – but perhaps this offers some starting point for your consideration.
[1] https://www.vvd.nl/sterker-uit-de-storm/
J-D 09.26.25 at 2:59 am
People may use words any way they choose. The reason I do not use ‘nothing’ when I mean ‘not enough’ or ‘not much’ or ‘not as much as I would like’ is that it needlessly hinders communication, as is immediately evident from Tm’s reaction. That reaction from Tm would have been much less likely if the word ‘nothing’ had not been used.
Of course, if your intention and desire is to rile people like Tm, then mission accomplished!
roger F 09.26.25 at 8:06 am
re: “the profit-seeking nature of the food-industry”. This seems to be critical of an industry that survives by being productive, I would encourage them.
On my travels in Australia what has struck me was that in nearly all regional centres fresh food is available, which is a huge achievement. I know it sounds nuts to be hauling mega tonnes of stuff to distribution centres then back haul it to the source but it’s their system, and it somehow works.
Remote locations do suffer from logistical problems but that’s another issue.
Making good food available is critical to a care economy.
MisterMr 09.26.25 at 11:20 am
Not knowing anything about the VVD, I have some problems because “liberal” in euro-speak generally means rightwing or center-right (as in, pro free market), but in the USA means leftish, so if a party in the Netherlands says it’s “liberal” and stands for “liberal values” I have no idea where it stands (based by an AI tanslation of the link by notGoodenough).
My genral expectation if that description was of an italian party would be that of a center-right party that speaks of freedom as “not like that commies on the left” and is ok but not really enthusiast with the welfare state, but in reality will cut it once in power; these kind of center rigight parties are sorta dying and are subsituted by more authoritarian “social right” party (trumpists), so if the VVD is like that I’m not surprised that it’s going in that direction.
mw 09.26.25 at 1:09 pm
“It is a deliberate and planned shrinking of those sectors of consumption and production that prevent us from staying within planetary boundaries”
But economic growth is compatible with staying within planetary boundaries if you think of modern growth (as one should) as continuous improvement. Think in terms of ever more valuable, useful, efficient goods and services, not ever more metric tons of steel and concrete. There is simply no reason that growth in terms continuous improvements and increased value cannot continue indefinitely within the bounds of our planet.
“please explain to me how this prioritisation of entrepreneurs and economic growth will benefit those who are vulnerable.”
Presumably in the same way it clearly has (tremendously so) over the 200+ years since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It might be a good time to remember the late Hans Rosling.
engels 09.26.25 at 4:40 pm
economic growth is compatible with staying within planetary boundaries if you think of modern growth (as one should) as continuous improvement
Eating donuts for lunch is perfectly healthy if you think of donuts (as one should) as tuna salad.
Ingrid Robeyns 09.26.25 at 5:26 pm
mw @ 19 – I recommend John Quiggin’s ‘Zombie Economics’ and Matthew Desmond’s ‘Poverty, by America’ to get a debunking of what you take to be truths. Since they are not. There’s a difference between increasing markets when a country is extremely poor (and even then poverty requires much more than increased economic production), and these questios anno 2025 in a country with very high average levels of GDP/capital but significant set-backs in welfare state provisions.
mw 09.26.25 at 8:35 pm
Ingrid Robeyns @21
“debunking of what you take to be truths.”
Can you give me a link debunking the vast global improvements outlined in Hans Rosling’s video? That’s a rhetorical question — I am sure neither you nor anyone else can do so.
The vulnerable (along with everyone else) are obviously much better off than 200 or 100 or 50 years ago — that’s obviously particularly true in formerly very poor countries made middle-class by market economies (particularly the ‘Asian tigers’) but it is also true in already highly developed nations. A ‘care economy’ is only possible given the great wealth generated by market economies — it was not possible before, nor was it possible in countries that deviated heavily from the market path (see, for example, China’s ‘Great Leap Forward’, Cambodia’s ‘Year Zero’, or–not quite so horribly– Castro’s Cuba).
It’s true that improvements in welfare state provisions are not a straight line — governments do get out over their skis in making commitments that are politically popular but impossible to fulfill over the long term (particularly with regard to old-age pensions in countries with a growing paucity of births and young workers to support the pensioners — see the current angst in France), but still continued market-economy enrichment is absolutely necessary for future welfare state improvements.
I don’t expect us to have anything close to a meeting of the minds on this, so there’s probably not much point in additional debate, but I couldn’t resist making what seemed (to me) like a couple of obvious points.
engels 09.26.25 at 9:18 pm
Think in terms of ever more valuable, useful, efficient goods and services, not ever more metric tons of steel and concrete
Hope none of this intangible valuable, useful and efficient stuff is using data centres!
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/ai-and-data-centers-could-use-as-much-energy-as-japan-by-2030/
mw 09.26.25 at 9:31 pm
engels @20 “Eating donuts for lunch is perfectly healthy if you think of donuts (as one should) as tuna salad.”
You live surrounded by examples of continuous improvement with no greater (and usually lower) resource and energy usage, yet deny that it happens? How much heavier and power hungry is your current computer or smartphone vs the one you used a decade ago? Same question goes for household appliances, automobiles, aircraft — even something as ordinary as a beer can. The steel cans of the 1930s weighed about 4 oz each. Modern aluminum cans weigh 1/8th as much.
somebody who liked talking to their grandmother 09.26.25 at 10:55 pm
engels is joshing but mw is indeed raising a critical point. we can build a million more cars or ten thousand more busses or a hundred more trains to get us where we want to go. engels is correct that the million cars is more “economic” growth than any of the others, but this merely shows the stunted, diseased imagination of the economist, not the happiness of the traveler reaching their destination swiftly, safely and in comfort and style aboard a beautiful train, reading an enriching book the whole way. when an economist comes to your door, under no circumstances let them in. they’ll try to sell you an economy class plane ticket, and then crash the plane. we can choose to have nice things or we can choose to make a number on a piece of paper in a seychelles bank increase. the one thing the economist is right about is that we can’t have both.
engels 09.26.25 at 11:40 pm
On alternatives to the term “degrowth” I’ve been pushing for “economic pruning”. Maybe weeding is more apt (unless you’re going to do something about the Japanese knotweed you can kiss goodbye to those strawberries…)
Ingrid Robeyns 09.27.25 at 7:56 am
mw – I’ve been talking in my post, and in my response to you, about the Netherlands. Rosslings (whose book I read, and don’t think is as flawless as its fans believe but that’s for another time), talks about the world, and in particular about developing (very poor) nations. That is a totally different context than the Netherlands. The reserach that I know (and discuss in my book Limitarianism), which includes the two books that I referred you too, make it clear that once you have a developed economy like the Netherlands, Australia, or the US, cutting taxes for entrepreneurs does not reduce poverty. The evidence you cited is simply not applicable to the problem I’m discussing; that’s all I wanted to say.
engels 09.27.25 at 10:22 am
The steel cans of the 1930s weighed about 4 oz each. Modern aluminum cans weigh 1/8th as much.
Thanks for the reply. I’m not denying this or saying it isn’t a good thing but saying economic growth should be conceptualised as consisting exclusively in these kinds of efficiency improvements is twisting the term beyond recognition and has nothing to do with real-world policy discussions. Isn’t this actually a form of degrowth anyway? Think of all the lost profits to steel makers and laid off steel workers!
One of my favourite (or least favourite examples) on the other side is the story of vehicle CO2 emissions in recent decades, where engines have become vastly more efficient and ALL the environmental benefits of that have been negated by people driving bigger cars.
nicopap 09.27.25 at 12:54 pm
@mw questions were answered many times in the past.
Efficiency improvement alone would mean degrowth. Ask yourself: how many computers did you have in 1980? How many do you have now? In fact, how many computers are you throwing to the trash each month? Efficiency gains are always overshadowed by increased consumption. That’s the rebound effect, or Jevon’s Paradox. The same can be found with cars, light, etc.
https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/
Without decoupling, GDP growth means we are toast. Decoupling, at the rate necessary to not breach planetary limits, is still a lofty dream.
Increase in the scope of what is subject to commerce doesn’t necessarily correlate with increase in wellbeing. Parrique likes to contrast couchsurfing and AirBnB.
Others already made the point, but the necessity of industrial development (as measured by GDP) to reach current wellbeing levels in wealthy countries does not imply that further improvements to wellbeing requires even more industrial development, or that GDP is a good measure of it.
Some FAQ on degrowth here: https://www.ontgroei.nl/en/wat-is-ontgroeien
Matt 09.28.25 at 3:36 am
This is perhaps of some relevance (there some discussion of Jackson, though a different book, but mostly on somewhat similar themes): https://josephheath.substack.com/p/kohei-saitos-tsunami-of-confusion
John Q 09.28.25 at 6:54 am
The whole idea of GDP and National Accounting is specific to a 20th century industrial economy where the vast majority of market activity, performed by men, consisted of digging up or growing raw materials (assumed limitless), processing those into manufactured products, and delivering those products to consumers, living in households where non-market work was done by women.
Except in the very short term, it can’t be applied to a socio-economic system in which most work produces services or information, where natural resources are constrained, and in which the household/economy distinction has broken down. Degrowth picks up on the resource constraint but otherwise accepts the GDP growth model with a change of sign.
MisterMr 09.28.25 at 10:13 am
My two cents: let’s distinguish “growth” in the abstract from “creating more stuff/having more jobs”.
In a capitalist economy, in order to have high employment and high profits, you need capitalists to continuously invest in new capital goods (or a continuous increase in debt, that is what we have now, but let’s leave that aside).
This means that once you reach full employment (in fact a bit earlier) and the tecnological limit there is a macroeconomic problem, because there is nothing to invest into and this could cause a keynesian crisis. But this isn’t new, it’s the same since at least the 19th century and has nothing to do with ecology.
That is “short term” growth, but there is also long term growth that is due to technologic advancement, and this can be eco-friendly (more efficient or less polluting technologies).
Now everybody understands that, if we could have the same living standards that we have today, but with a workweek of 30h instead of 40h, this would be a form of growth [long term technologic advancement].
The problem is not about the long term technologic advancement, but about the first kind of growth, the cyclical short term one, because the tendency in a capitalist market is to go for the maximum squeeze of workers, higest working hours for those who have a job while keeping enough people unemployed so that the ones working don’t have contractual force to ask for more wages with less hours and so on.
But if you call this “degrowth” and create and image where people are back at chasing deers with wooden spears, it is natural that most people will be skeptic of it.
Let’s call it quality growth instead, or smart growth, or work/life balance growth, or whatever, but not “degrowth”.
mw 09.28.25 at 10:25 am
Ingrid Robeyns @ 27
“make it clear that once you have a developed economy like the Netherlands, Australia, or the US, cutting taxes for entrepreneurs does not reduce poverty.”
In the short term, I’m sure it doesn’t. And maybe not even in the long term if poverty is defined relatively (number of people living under x percent of the median income) rather than in absolute terms (nutrition, medical care, square meters of living space, leisure time, goods and services consumed, etc). A relative poverty measure is really just another version of a Gini index, and no matter how much enrichment occurs, poverty cannot be reduced except by equalization (presumably through some combination of progressive taxation and redistribution or social provision of goods and services). But this way of thinking leads to the absurd conclusion that there’s been no reduction in global poverty since 1880, since the Gini indexes then and now are about the same.
nicopap @29 “Efficiency improvement alone would mean degrowth. Ask yourself: how many computers did you have in 1980? How many do you have now? In fact, how many computers are you throwing to the trash each month?”
I assume you mean ‘would NOT mean degrowth’. First of all, I am not hoping for de-growth. Growth is good. What I want (and what we have been seeing for decades) is growth that comes ever more in the form of improvement and increased value rather than increased resource and energy usage.
As for the answers to your questions, in 1980 (dating myself), I had one computer. It weighed probably 40 lbs (including the monitor), cost a small fortune at the time, and consumed a lot of power (both the CPU and that separate monitor). The relatively new computer I’m typing on now weighs maybe 1/10th as much as that system (so far fewer resources) and consumes an equally small fraction of the energy to run. How many computers am I throwing away every month? I guess about 1% of a computer (given my upgrade frequency, which has been declining). And it’s not just electronics. Despite all the complaining about ‘planned obsolescence’, automobiles (at least in the US) are lasting ever longer, with the average age of a vehicle on the road has recached nearly 13 years. The average age. Cars in 1980 did not last nearly so long.
Are you really advocating degrowth policies that would freeze all technologies at their current state to reduce replacements … as a way of saving the planet?
“Others already made the point, but the necessity of industrial development (as measured by GDP)”
GDP measures the value of all domestic goods and services (including government spending, BTW) — it obviously does not measure just ‘industrial development’ in the narrow sense of smoke belching factories, but rather the monetary value of all of our industrious endeavors. And increasing the value of those endeavors (getting more each year from the invested resources and human efforts) is a good thing that we really don’t want to discourage — do we?
MisterMr 09.28.25 at 10:40 pm
@mw 33
In absolute, not relative, terms, cutting tax for enterpreneurs increases growth (and therefore decreases poverty) only if It increases investiment.
But in the USA, and in much of the developed world, there is an excess of desired savings VS desired investment, aka too much Money chasing too few investment opportunities, therefore cutting taxes in itself doesn’t increase growth, hence the various economic problems of the developed world.
The reason many times right wing governments cut taxes and this causes a short term growth is that said right wing governments cut taxes but not expenses, so in practice they are deficit spending and they are doing a keynesian stimulus, then they pretend that the growth is because taxes were too high.
But in reality probably in rich countries taxes on profits are actually too low (again, we already have too much money chasing too few investment opportunities), and the growth we have is drugged by this keynesian stimulus.
Tm 09.29.25 at 7:29 am
“The steel cans of the 1930s weighed about 4 oz each. Modern aluminum cans weigh 1/8th as much.”
On the other hand, cars have been getting bigger and heavier over time (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240207-are-cars-getting-too-big-for-the-road). There are ways of measuring resource use in the aggregate without resorting to cherry-picked examples, and when you look at those statistics (most obviously the increase of carbon emissions over time), you have to realize that the theory of continued economic growth while reducing or at least not increasing resource use (“decoupling”) does not conform to reality. Too bad for our future, and the planet.
Tm 09.29.25 at 8:02 am
Matt 30, what do you think makes the article worthwhile reading? I haven’t read Saito and don’t know whether his critique is valid but the few remarks he offers about Jackson don’t make me inclined to take the author (Heath) very seriously.
“Anyone familiar with the degrowth literature will know that there is often a bit of a shell game going on in these arguments. Very few proponents of degrowth are willing to come out and say “suck it up, you’re going to have to live like a medieval peasant.” So instead they engage in wordplay. The best example of this is Tim Jackson’s book Prosperity Without Growth. Jackson argues that decoupling growth from environmental damage is impossible and so we must end economic growth. But that’s okay, he says, because instead of growth we can have “prosperity,” which looks and sounds a lot like growth, but differs in that it involves activities that are not mediated through the price system, and so for some reason will not damage the environment.”
Yes, prosperity and growth are different things, this is a banal observation. You don’t even need Jackson’s detailed argument to understand this (but it’s a very good argument and worth reading). That this banal observation is still being denied makes any rational debate about the future of the economy difficult.
mw 09.29.25 at 10:07 am
Tm @35 “On the other hand, cars have been getting bigger and heavier over time”
One factor driving additional weight is electrification — EVs are significantly heavier than their gasoline-powered equivalents due to the weight of the batteries (apparently about 30% heavier). And regardless of changes in size/weight, the average fuel economy of passenger vehicles in the US has been steadily improving. Not as much as it might have if buyers made different choices in new vehicles, but it has continued to improve nonetheless, with hybrid vehicles having a significant impact on vehicles of all sizes.
Tm 09.29.25 at 11:19 am
Trader 10: That said, annual spending on healthcare has increased by $2.3 TRILLION since 2010 (through 2023, last year available). If my math is right, those incremental 20m cost about $115k per year, per person.
Your Math is embarassingly wrong, you are looking at all healthcare spending, most of which has nothing to do with Obamacare. The rate of overall spending increase hasn’t changed much since Obamacare was introduced.
Best graph I could find: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spending-healthcare-changed-time/
Matt 09.29.25 at 11:24 am
Tm – I haven’t read Jackson (and haven’t been encouraged to from what I’ve seen) but it’s the “and not mediated throught he price system” bit that is annoying Heath, I think. I think there’s some reason for that.
Tm 09.29.25 at 4:25 pm
Matt, you mean this: ““prosperity,” which looks and sounds a lot like growth, but differs in that it involves activities that are not mediated through the price system, and so for some reason will not damage the environment.” ?
Sorry but I can’t take this seriously as a critique. Prosperity does not “look and sound like growth”, and of course, propserity does involve activities “not mediated through the price system”, that is a totally banal fact. Nobody who starts thinking about what prosperity means would deny that it involves factors that are not expressed in money and not “mediated by the price system”, for example public parks and libraries. If we have to start debating at this level, then good night.
MisterMr 09.29.25 at 11:52 pm
Having worked in a library, it is mediated by the price system, it is also strongly fleeced by academic publishers, it just happens that the final users are not the ones paying the money price. But for example I certainly expected a wage that made it possible for me to own and drive a car.
Now if instead we mean that there can be growth (increased utility, like for example same real wages for less work, or higher quality stuff that is not reflected in GDP) then this is possible, it resolves the problem of long term technology growth, there is the problem of short term cyclical growth (solveable, but still a problem).
But we should be clear that the problem exists.
engels 09.30.25 at 8:36 am
Not knocking public libraries but I’m pretty sure they do have an environmental impact (something to do with producing all that paper…)
Tm 09.30.25 at 9:47 am
Folks, nobody claims that the care economy doesn’t have an environmental impact. That’s a ridiculous strawman. Also, yes of course books cost money, and the librarians receive monetary wages (hopefully) etc. Nobody denies that. That is not what Heath means by “mediated through the price system”. Can we please stop this, it’s ridiculous.
MisterMr 09.30.25 at 11:14 am
So, I’ll try to explain the problem from py POW.
Immagine a situation where the amount of public goods offered is increased, be it libraries, the NHS or public kindergartens; in the meanwhile people also use more public transportation (another public good which supply is increased) and/or start buying electric cars, basically a leftie wet dream. And since we are at it we also reduce the workweek from 40h to an hard limit of 30h (which makes sense because we don’t want to increse the amount of stuff we consume but the quality of life).
First, we need to increase taxes, because someone has to pay for the public goods, because even if the government can work with deficit spending it can’t have infinite deficit spending, and in the meanwhile the government increses its basic expenses.
This makes the economy much less cyclical and reduces the hardship of recessions, basically we go back to an economy that is more similar to the postwar one.
In the meanwhile though the government also has to keep employment high, and so has to keep demand high so that capitalists still invest and don’t just close shop because of the high taxes, while wages are proportionally going up, but workers don’t feel it as immediate increase in living standards because A hours are going down and B new stuff is comparatively more expensive than old stuff (e.g. electic cars VS oil cars or organic food VS industrial food).
Furthermore if we want to keep hours low we need full employment because otherwise competition between workers becomes too high, and we’ll get to the situation we have now where some people can’t find a job but others have to work 80h a week.
Is this possible? In material terms yes, it isn’t impossible, but it is difficult to achieve politically because in the immediate everyone sees only the bad part of it: capitalists/businesses mostly have negatives from it due to the high taxes, and workers in the immediate see the increased prices of the high quality stuff and only on the long term the wages can get up, so it is difficult to follow this policy.
In the meanwhile the right tries to lower taxes and costs for businesses, that in the shor term cause an economic boom but then businesses have nothing to invest their high profits on, so we get financial bubbles and high competition between workers in the longh term, the situation we are in now. But in the short term people see only the good part of it, so it is an easier sell politically. The higer competition between workers also makes workers more receptive to price incentives VS other kind of incentives, as they have potentially more to lose if they slide downward in the totem pole.
So the problem isn’t that a smarter, more egalitarian, less polluting economy is impossible, rather the problem is how do we go from here to there politically, and IMHO calling it “degrowth” doesn’t work.
Tm 09.30.25 at 11:36 am
“the problem is how do we go from here to there politically”
Sure, that’s always the problem. Very astute observation ;-)
Reason 09.30.25 at 11:57 am
I see some people are still replying to mw, but it seems to me to be a waste of time. He argues consistently in bad faith.
engels 09.30.25 at 5:07 pm
They pulped all the trees and they put them in a trea-tise
And they charged all the people a dollar and half [in overdue fines] just to read them.
Don’t it always seem to go…
Ingrid Robeyns 09.30.25 at 9:15 pm
I have read excellent analyses by Heath, and think a lot of what he writes is very insightful (even if I sometimes strongly disagree), but his critique on Jackson in his bookreview of Saito is, for the reasons that Tm states (@36 and 40), a straw man attack. If you want a word that is as close as possible to a synonym for ‘prosperity’, think of ‘flourishing’ or ‘quality of life’. There are entire libraries filled with arguments by now on how growth per capita is not the same as increased flourishing or quality of life for all, especially when one fully takes into account the dependence of the flourishing of humans on the Earth’s ecosystems. One really wonders whether Heath has read Jackson’s book ‘Prosperity without Growth’ at all.
Zamfir 10.01.25 at 10:08 am
Heath has a bit more expansive response to Jackson in ‘Philosophical foundations for climate change policy”, around page 75. That part is visible on google books.
His main claim (in my summary) is that Jackson’s relies on skepsis about decoupling, without providing strong enough evidence to support that skepsis.
I ( Zamfir, not necessarily Heath) found 2 parts weak in Jackson’s ‘myths about decoupling’. One, he shifts between global growth in ecological impact (which is very clear) and the growth in impact of rich countries (which even in his own data is much less clear). He implies that the global growth reflects that rich countries ‘export’ their impact, but he does not show it. The alternative conclusion is that strongest growth in ecological impact comes from growing poorer countries (China!) – but for those countries, the relation between GDP and welfare/prosperity is also much stronger than in Jackson’s more Europe-focussed arguments.
The second problem, as I see it: Jackson’s preferred policies and economic structures would require strong political and electoral buy-in, and support far beyond government politics. Basically a mild society-wide revolution in attitudes and political power. Thats is not in itself the problem, the point of the report and the book is to help move towards that revolution. But it does raise the question: how would decoupling look, if it had the kind of support that Jackson hopes to get for his preferences?
In the conext of the OP: the VVD (and similar parties) like to talk about green growth. Jackson reads as if he believes them. As if, in the last decades, politics have worked to the utmost to minimize the ecological impact of economic growth, and what we got is therefore the edge of the possible.
MisterMr 10.01.25 at 10:17 am
So, I didn’t read Jackson, I read about the book on goodreads but the various reviews are not detailed enough to have a clear idea of the arguments.
Clearly there are activities that are not mediated by the price system, for example women’s housework wasn’t mediated by the price system, or in the past farmer families eated a lot of what they produced, and women spinned and sewed all the dresses and so on, but this is something that is going away with specialisation, we largely eat pre processed food etc..
Is this what Jackson mean? I doubt it.
On the other hand, public goods clearly are mediated by the price system, public workers want a wage and the government mostly takes the money for this from taxes. How is this not mediated by the price system?
If Jackson means that the government should produce more public goods of a certain kind, ok, but this is still mediated by the price system, it just doesn’t follow the “profit motive”, that is not the same thing of the price system.
So either we are speaking of a world where there is still a private market that follows the profit motive, with all the problems of the profit motive, but with the government diverting some demand through taxes, or we are speaking of a completely government run economy.
I doubt that Jackson means a completely government run economy, so I assume he means a system where most of the economy (?) still is privately ran and follows the profit motive, but a relevant part of it is diverted through taxes into government produced stuff (? or the government is selling the products so doesn’t need the money?).
If this is the case, we still have the situation where most people work in the private sector, and likely most as employees, who work for businesses who want to accumulate wealth; these businesses are still working for increased wealth, not well being, so they need “nominal GDP”.
Even if we dislike private businesses and say “stuff it”, we still have the problem that most people will be employees, so if the private businesses close down these people will be unemployed, that is a very big problem not just in terms of economic well being, but in terms of autonomy: people want to be self sufficient economically, and this in the modern world generally means having a job, which in turn means private companies employing people, which in turn still means inreased GDP, with all the problems of it.
Now, I don’t think that this is impossible, but all that I see from the comments on goodreads is ideas abut how we can’t go on with the kind of resource intensive growth we had till now (true) or how economic money growth doesn’t necessarily translate in high quality of life; but the main problem of the social mechanisms that would either remove the problems of the profit motive/unemployment, or at least decouple them for resource/environment depletion, I don’t see them, or at least are not what people are speaking about.
Tim H. 10.01.25 at 11:45 am
Possibly in the vicinity of the topic, “The Powers That Be” should give more thought to the relationship between economic precarity and economic activity, Even without considering sustainability issues, the economic status quo doesn’t look to have a long future.
Zamfir 10.01.25 at 12:00 pm
@Mrmistrr, the Prosperity book started as a public report, you can read it here:
https://www.sd-commission.org.uk/data/files/publications/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf
Tm 10.01.25 at 12:16 pm
Zamfir: “Jackson’s relies on skepsis about decoupling, without providing strong enough evidence to support that skepsis”
Empirical evidence seems pretty strong that decoupling isn’t happening. To my knowledge it has never been observed that an economy has grown consistently over years without throughput (resource use, environmental damage, etc.) also growing even if the rate of growth may have been slower. There are also very strong theoretical arguments showing that decoupling can happen to a certain extent but not limitless.
I don’t remember in detail how Jackson treats this but the main examples of decoupling are stuff like: you can take a yoga class, music lessons, listen to a lot of music, watch a lot of movies, with very little (but not zero) environmental impact. So if we spend more money on those “immaterial” kinds of activities, as opposed to buying ever more material stuff and flying to ever more remote places, we can increase the economic product without causing extra environmental damage.
We all know that the internet is not immaterial, data centers are not immaterial, they need lots of energy, but the main problem with this kind of argument is that
(1) activities that really have little environmental impact, like streaming music and videos, are cheap to produce and become ever cheaper the more people do them. So while the enjoyment of music may increase, GDP does not increase (at least not enough to keep up a growth economy)! It’s another example how GDP is useless as a measure of quality of life.
(2) These activities depend on people having time to enjoy them, but human time is limited. You can calculate how many movies you can watch in a lifetime. There is a hard limit. It makes no sense to buy millions of movies and music records that you have never time to enjoy.
It’s hard to “prove” a negative. Growth advocates will calim that yada yada technological progress something yada limitless growth is possible! Prove me wrong! I can’t prove that an unspecified hypothetical future technology won’t change everything we know about the economy but common sense and historical experience tell us that GDP growth has always been a result of using ever more resources and making more stuff and producing more waste, and without using ever more resources and making ever more stuff, there won’t be economic growth. There can be prosperity for all, there can be improvements in living quality, in ways that do not involve using more material stuff and producing more waste, but those will not be measurable as GDP growth.
Tm 10.01.25 at 12:31 pm
MisterMr: “On the other hand, public goods clearly are mediated by the price system, public workers want a wage and the government mostly takes the money for this from taxes. How is this not mediated by the price system?”
This hinges on what you mean by “mediated by the price system”. I’m not sure how Heath uses the term but in my understanding, the question is not whether something costs money (resources) to produce – everything costs resources to produce (that includes unpaid care work btw – it definitely has an economic cost). The question is whether access to that good is mediated by the price system. A public library that lends books for free is providing a service that is not in my understanding “mediated by the price system”. Public amenities like parks, roads, libraries, but also (where applicable) education, health care, security etc. cost money to produce but on the consumer side are not mediated by the price system. Which is why the enjoyment of these public goods will never be adequately captured by measuring GDP. Orthodox Economists simply deny that one can meaningfully talk about the non-economic value of such goods. But simply denying it doesn’t change the fact that it is far more important to people’s sense of well-being and quality of life than the measurable economic values, at least once the basic material needs are satisfied.
Tm 10.01.25 at 2:24 pm
MisterMr: “Even if we dislike private businesses and say “stuff it”, we still have the problem that most people will be employees, so if the private businesses close down these people will be unemployed”
Jackson doesn’t say that private businesses should close down. I don’t remember all the details but I think he’s advocating a mixed economy, nothing exotic. But you are making a leap from saying that private businesses have a profit motive to economic growth, which isprobably the heart of the disagreement. Because I don’t see why we can’t have full employment in a mixed economy that has reached a stable steady-state (a term introduced I think by Herman Daly). It is a dogma of mainstream economics that lack of growth means regress but I don’t see why we should accept this dogma.
In any case physical reality is what it is and we’ll have no choice but to find a way to live within planetary boundaries, or go extinct. Insisting that the first is impossible means accepting the latter. I just don’t understand why this is supposed to be a reasonable position, and why those of us who prefer a livable future somehow need to justify ourselves.
MisterMr 10.02.25 at 3:59 pm
Answer to Zamfir and TM
So, I skimmed the pdf linked by Zamfir (thanks) and Jackson does actually speak of macroeconomics, in chapter 8, in the section “In search of the low-growth economy”.
He does in fact cite an ideal situation where working hours are going down, and the government taxes out a lot of the profits (if I understand correctly), which is also what I would like as a policy so I’m not going to go against Jackson here.
But the problem is that Jackson treat this as a solution, but in fact it is more or less the leftish economic blueprint since at least 25 years, perhaps more, and we are not going there. Why?
In orthodox economic theory it would be possible to keep a stable economy without continuous increases in demand, but in reality this never happened, and there are a variety of heterodox economic approaces (mostly marxian and post keynesian) that see a capitalist economy not as something that tends to full employment, but as something quite bipolar that has a continuous boom and bust cycle, driven by desire for new investiment.
Although this is actually an heterodox point of view, in practice it is accepted as reality by most people, so Jackson treat it as if it was orthodoxy, but he doesn’t explain it.
If the economy does actually tend to full employment, then it would be possible to stabilize it at a certain level of output, and avoid unemployment armageddon.
If instead the economy follows a boom and bust cycle, that is hidden currently because it is patched by continuous keynesian-like interventions (that however create increased government debt, increased bubble economy, inflation etc.), then we have a lot of problems (that we indeed already have) that are distinct from the problem of resources, but make the solution of the problem of resources because, if in order to tackle the problem of resources we create a lot of unemployment, people are going to be very pissed and outvote any government that tried it.
When I was at uni I voted for a party, Rifondazione Comunista, that asked for the 35h workweek and incresed taxation on the rich. This was before the financial crisis of 2008, in the late 90s. The response to the financial crisis, in Italy, was to e.g. increase retirement age, that goes in the opposite direction of lowering the workweek, and similar “efficiency” measures. Even many lefties, at the time, believed that Italy (and Greece, Spain etc.) had to become more “efficient”, which in practical point goes 100% against what Jackson preaches (because you can’t trade quality of life measures paid by the government, so these appear as unefficient increses in the cost of workers).
Furthermore, the right since the time of Reagan is cutting taxes while creating deficits, and these policies in the short term are going to create investiment and employment booms so are bound to be popular, so it is extremely difficult for the left to counteract these tendencies without looking like MR Nastie who doesn’t want other people to have good things, but this increases even more the problem for jackson’s policies, and increases even more the “boom and bust” tendencies of the economy (technically, the economy becomes more “procyclical”).
So the solution that Jackson pose is, in theory, quite correct, but in practice he is sorta skipping the mayor political, and also pratical, problems that up to now prevented this sort of policies to happen.
Tm 10.02.25 at 4:17 pm
Perhaps to try to put this decoupling question more succinctly.
What do we mean by economic growth? An economy becoming materially richer, more money spent. What does decoupling then mean? It means spending more money (“real” money of course, not inflated money) without accumulating more material stuff, without using more resources, creating more waste.
If we have more money to spend, how could we spend it if not on more stuff (like bigger houses, bigger cars, more appliances, furniture, clothes etc.)? Well we could buy not more but better, more expensive stuff, more high-end. But what makes stuff high-end? Either it’s rare and exclusive (expensive wine at $100 or $1000 the bottle, original works by famous artists instead of cheap prints, Harvard instead of state college) or it has better quality, better design, more functionality, reliability.
The first doesn’t help decoupling: exclusivity is lost if everybody can afford it. If everybody drinks rare wine, it can’t be rare. If everybody attends Harvard, there’s no justification for the exclusive price tag. What about the second? It’s more tricky but the history of industrial economy suggests that as soon as high-end products become mass produced, they aren’t high-end any more, they are just regular mass product. The obvious example is computers, today’s computers are infinitely more powerful, have more functionality, moire reliability etc. than computers did 50 or 20 years ago – without being more expensive. These products have really undeniably gotten better and more useful, but the price that producers can charge for them isn’t proprtional to that quality. It’s actually entirely unrelated! Computer production may have grown GDP, but that is because of quantity, not quality. So many more computers are produced nowadays than 50 or 20 years ago. So this doesn’t give hope for decoupling either.
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