'Choose Life’ Not Economic Growth: Critical Social Theory for People, Planet and Flourishing in the 'Age of Nature'

Abstract

a fucking big televisionChoose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers.Choose leisure wear and matching luggage.Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics.Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning.Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit-crushing game showsStuffing fucking junk food into your mouth.Choose your future. Choose life.(Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, 1996)This paper takes a critical look at neo-classical growth-orienated economic theory and practice. It outlines the contours of a viable and normatively attractive political alternative to a growth-orientated economy. Secondly, it looks at the invaluable insights from ecofeminist political economy; the wealth of alternatives to a growth-orientated economy one can find in green politics and the sub-discipline of green political economy; and the wealth of evidence demonstrating the well-being and equality detrimental effects of a growth-focused economy. The article takes issue with those from whom what is needed is the redefining, reshaping, and redirecting of growth, not abandoning it. This article will argue that we (in the industrialised North) need to abandon the cornucopian myth of endless ‘material goods and services’ central to which is a radical and profound rejection of growth in the ‘minority’ world of advanced ‘affluenza-infected’ consumer capitalism and its redirection to the majority world where economic growth is needed. ‘One planet living’, as a shorthand for sustainability demands this from a biophysical point of view (in terms of limited resources and ecological sinks) while global and egalitarian justice demands nothing less if a sustainable world is to be a just one.