De-growth: is not enough

It is immensely encouraging that the issue of growth has begun to gain more interest. For decades a tiny few have been trying to draw attention to it, with negligible success. The “Declaration from the 2008 Paris Conference” is an excellent statement of grounds for scrapping the growth economy. For many years Herman Daly has been arguing for a steady-state economy and more recently Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth has gained considerable attention.As with the rapidly emerging Transition Towns movement I think we are dealing with extremely important initiatives, which are heading in directions that are admirable…but which are unfortunately mistaken regarding the nature of the global problem and the way out of it. If I am right the task is to try to persuade these potentially planet-saving movements towards more comprehensive visions and goals and more effective strategies. I think Takis Fotopoulos is basically right in his commentary on the de-growth initiative[5] and my comments are mostly intended to elaborate and reinforce the Inclusive Democracy analysis.