Abstract
The sustainable development discourse, including the modern green growth version, may have aspects that contribute to environmental and social welfare but it is a top down reform project, that aims at correcting the environmental and social externalities resulting from economic growth. It is directed by governments that abide by the logic of capital. Although in principle there is civic engagement, public participation is limited and without challenging the dominant economic paradigm. Following Gramsci's terminology, sustainable development can be interpreted as a passive revolution, in the sense that change is managed through compromises with different social and political actors but within limits which neutralize any potential threat to economic and political power. On the contrary, the emerging (yet still marginal) alternative, multi-disciplinary, degrowth academic paradigm, has evolved from an activist movement since the first decade of this century, and retains close contacts and open communication with social movements that support a degrowth transition in economy and society. This transition directly challenges the established orthodox growth narrative and the mechanisms of capital accumulation. Thus, in contrast to the sustainable development discourse, it is difficult for the power bloc to accommodate degrowth. But in times of crisis and change, the dominant powers can certainly use some aspects of the degrowth discourse, assimilating and transforming them into elements that fit their new accumulation strategies, hegemonic visions and state projects. For this not to happen, degrowthers should focus their research and theory more on the workings of capitalist political economy, and their political practice on trying to form alliances with social actors, such as working-class movements,that are crucial for the achievement of hegemony.
Highlights
In the Journal of Political Ecology's (JPE) Special Section on degrowth, Susan Paulson's introduction (2017) refers to the paradox of having a lot of information and not enough change: "harmful environmental consequences of growth have been rigorously documented and widely publicized throughout the past halfcentury
The environmental and social dimensions of capitalist economic growth have been dealt with for many decades by the policies of "sustainable development." These policies have not managed to seriously slow climate change or environmental degradation, nor rising socio-economic inequalities, because they do not deviate from the logic of the dominant economic paradigm
The latter is challenged by the emergent degrowth approach, which proposes an alternative organization of the economy and society
Summary
In the Journal of Political Ecology's (JPE) Special Section on degrowth, Susan Paulson's introduction (2017) refers to the paradox of having a lot of information and not enough change: "harmful environmental consequences of growth have been rigorously documented and widely publicized throughout the past halfcentury. The sixteen case studies presented in the JPE's Special Section on degrowth illustrate how diverse communities around the world are able to prioritize wellbeing, equity and sustainability rather than expansion, contributing in this way to a decolonization of worldviews of expansionist myths and values. A degrowth transition in economy and society, if implemented, will have serious consequences for the way things are operating, but one must not forget or underestimate the assimilating capabilities of "bourgeois" forces. After all, both sustainable development and degrowth are heavily contested concepts, "empty/floating signifiers", which various social groups and institutions, with unequal power relations, are constantly struggling to give meaning to (Laclau 1977; Laclau and Mouffe 1985). I use concepts from the Gramscian political science tradition to discuss if degrowth has the potential to successfully deconstruct the growth imaginary in academic circles but in the political terrain as well, and if parts of its agenda could be introduced to the official policymaking processes in an integral or co-opted way
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