One of the most interesting divides in the sustainability field is around degrowth. The idea of degrowth is hard for many business people to embrace. I must confess, as you will see, I find that the logic of the degrowth people often eludes me. As such, I was interested to see what Christopher Marquis had to say. He is a management professor, so I was hoping for a relatively thoughtful defense of degrowth that might work for someone who understands business language. Sadly, I found his arguments an ineffective defense of degrowth.
Momentum
Marquis starts with talk of the Beyond Growth Conference held at the EU Parliament. He quotes from a manifesto that followed from the conference, see here. The idea that, I assume, he wants to convey is that there exists massive momentum for change. He says that:
The manifesto drew the public’s attention to the idea that humanity might be best served by moving away from the presiding economic model of growth at any cost.
Marquis, 2024
The challenge is that it didn’t really draw much of the public’s attention. The conference was organized by the Greens in the EU Parliament. If it grabbed the public’s attention we might expect them to be rewarded at the next elections. Instead, their block went down 10.2% of the seats in the parliament (72 of 705) when they held this conference to 7.4% ( 53 of 702) the year after. The Beyond Growth Conference isn’t the sort of momentum that we need to solve the world’s sustainability problems.
What Is Degrowth?
So what is degrowth exactly? The challenge is that there is no single perfect definition. Logically one might think it was shrinking the economy to reduce our footprint on the natural world. This isn’t the definition that Marquis uses. Instead, his definition seems to be, “…that humanity might be best served by moving away from the presiding economic model of growth at any cost”. I’m against growing the GDP at any cost, such as the cost of blighting the lives of workers. After all, critics rightly note that GDP is a flawed model of growth and there are circumstances in which GDP goes up and people are worse off.
But I don’t think that worrying about challenges in GDP implies that we should embrace degrowth. The nature of the word degrowth seems to imply shrinking the economy to me and many other people. There is another concept a-growth which is an agnostic approach to growth. To my mind, Marquis’ definition seems closer to that. Does he need to defend degrowth at all? Degrowth can sound visionary but as a term it is hard to square with the more pragmatic but palatable “no to short-term GDP growth regardless of the long-term cost”.
Can We Use Appealing Terms Please?
Degrowth, as a term, seems a bit like the call for abolishing the police that we saw a couple of years ago. There was a nugget underneath the call that many people could get behind. (Namely, that police should act in an equitable way). Unfortunately, it was given a hyperbolic makeover which meant it was never going to appeal widely. The lack of appeal was for good reason. The literal application of the plan risked hurting the disadvantaged people (who couldn’t afford private security) that it purported to want to help. (It was odd that, contrary to the usual positions, some people who saw themselves as socially progressive suddenly seemed to be against having vital public services).
When confronted with the obvious problems those making the call often reverted back to sensible points about reform. These detailed points often had much more support. (See below for Marquis doing something similar with degrowth). But if you want to create sensible progress why use the scary hyperbole in the first place if what people will hear isn’t what you mean? If one really means red in tooth and claw degrowth — shrinking the economy to benefit nature — then I have no problem with people standing up for what they believe. (Even if the HBR editors would look at you uncomfortably). But if you are planning something less radical why make it sound so scary?
Historical Facts
Marquis points to the reasonable point that economic growth and emissions are linked in the historical record. This is a fair point although the use of the idea of a “historical fact” is not one I like to rely on in an argument about the future. That people generally died when they went too deep down into the water was a historical fact. Then someone invented a diving suit and it wasn’t a fact anyone. So the relevant question isn’t what used to happen but where are we now?
To tackle where we are now Marquis seeks to take on three myths. I will examine those in a separate post but suffice it to say that he seeks to argue that we aren’t making any progress which seems unduly negative. Still, to my mind, the best bit of his article is that he gives many examples of businesses that are making progress.
Examples Of Sustainable Business
He gives some great examples of sustainable business. These are really interesting. The challenge is that it isn’t clear why you need to believe in degrowth to admire or emulate these firms. In fact, some of the examples could be claimed by the anti-degrowth people. Those who believe innovation is the secret to reducing the environmental impact of affluence will generally reject degrowth but they will also support the companies that Marquis cites.
For example, he gives the example of Interface, a carpet company in Georgia. Ray Anderson was the inspiration behind this. Anderson was admirably committed to environmental sustainability but if you read his work he also seemed pretty positive about what technology could do. Anderson wrote about how technology could help us reduce our environmental impact while also being affluent and having a large population on the planet. Note in the equation Anderson hypothesized in his work (below) that more tech (increasing the denominator) reduces the environmental impact. (For more see here.)
Marquis’ examples are great, and I am pleased he is sharing them with an HBR (Harvard Business Review) audience. They certainly do represent the sort of sustainable thinking in business that we need. But they are surely examples of how we can make progress without collectively having committed to degrowth. This is clear as we, collectively, obviously haven’t committed to degrowth yet we still have these examples available. Many people would never sign off on the idea of degrowth, yet they still buy Seventh Generation toilet paper.
Does Marquis Really Want Degrowth?
The obvious problem presented by shrinking the world economy is that there are a lot of poor people in the world. They, not unreasonably, want more stuff. It may be morally okay to tell a rich person they don’t need a bigger car but if someone wants electricity to power a fridge to keep their medicines cold you need to be a bit of a monster to say no.
Redistribution could help somewhat, but it runs into two big problems. One, rich people quite like having their stuff and they tend to be more powerful given they have all the stuff. Still, for now, let us ignore the historical fact that rich countries have never been perfectly altruistic. Imagine all rich countries have a radical change in their attitudes so we solve the problem of motivation to help the poorer countries. In our counterfactual, rich people really want to give away their money. The problem remains that there are a lot of poor people in the world, and it isn’t clear that when everything is shared out everyone will get enough to satisfy their genuine needs.
Should We Grow To Help The Poor?
What is the solution? Maybe a bit of economic growth? That makes sense. Indeed, Marquis seems to actually want growth. Here is his quote:
This is not a call for stagnation but a plea for responsible, sustainable growth that considers the well-being of our planet and future generations.
Marquis, 2024
I agree with him. Let’s have responsible, sustainable growth. That sounds great.
So why put people off with the scary term degrowth when we actually want growth, just more sustainable growth?
For more on degrowth and its thinking read here, here, here, and here.
Read: Christopher Marquis (2024) In Defense of Degrowth, Harvard Business Review, June 11