UN agencies, academics and other policymakers have launched an alternative to what they call the ‘doomed strategy’ of economic growth. Signatories to this ‘roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth’ include Olivier De Schutter, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, Thomas Piketty, Kate Raworth and Jason Hickel.

Their ‘roadmap’ is typical of much contemporary growth-critical writing – it is wistful, authoritative and extremely vague about how the post-growth future can be realised.

The notion of a post-growth economy can appear dotty. Yet it embodies the influential ‘progressive’ frame of mind that upholds the need for abstinence on the part of the general populace. These particular economists are among today’s best-known growth sceptics – a splendid term coined by Daniel Ben-Ami to encompass the increasingly celebrated medley of ‘degrowthers’, ‘anti-growthers’ and ‘agrowthers’ (‘a’ is for agnostic). Predicated on the notion that humanity has breached, or will imminently breach, nature’s limits, their message is that human societies have to start curbing their economic and material development.

Read the full article here.