Growth strategies and consumption patterns in transition: From Fordism to finance-driven capitalism

Abstract

Two centuries of capitalist growth in Western societies have coincided with significant increases in objective and subjective well-being. Yet these increases have come at a price: the thresholds for specific biophysical processes such as climate, biodiversity and the nitrogen cycle being approached or crossed (Steffen et al., 2015). Attempts to decouple gross domestic product (GDP) growth absolutely from the ecological footprints of production and consumption have not been successful to date (Pichler et al., 2017). Since the material welfare standards enjoyed by rich countries cannot be generalized to the rest of the planet, these countries would thus need to review their production and consumption patterns and ‘degrow’ to make their economies and societies compatible with planetary limits (D’Alisa et al., 2014; Koch and Mont, 2016; Spash, 2017). Indeed, if planetary boundaries are to be taken seriously, only the satisfaction of basic human needs, and not much more, could be assured in the rich countries for the time being (Koch et al., 2017). This chapter seeks to contribute to an institutional understanding of consumption governance through an analysis of how consumption practices are linked to production norms in specific capitalist growth strategies.