The Degrowth Movement: Alternative Economic Practices and Relevance to Developing Countries

Abstract

This article explores the degrowth movement’s main ideas, policy proposals, and examples of noncapitalist organizations and socially embedded economic networks compatible with degrowth ideas, namely, the Catalan Integral Cooperatives in Spain and Solidarity Economy Networks in Italy. It also explores degrowth’s relevance to developing countries that have lower levels of material living standards compared to the European countries where it originated. The main argument of this article is that degrowth has significant potential to advance progressive socioecological transformation. Its advocates have also implemented some interesting alternative economic practices, such as nonmonetary exchanges and recreations of the commons, which prioritize socioecological sustainability over profit maximization. However, the degrowth movement has so far paid little attention to the structural hierarchy of the global political economy and hence has not made sufficient suggestions about how to address uneven development within and between countries, which will likely hinder progressive and ecologically sustainable transitions across the globe. Unfair global trade practices and concentrated control over advanced technologies are contentious points that might prevent widespread support for degrowth ideas in developing countries. Some developing countries and subnational local groups also face more constraints than others if they want to scale-up noncapitalist initiatives that are compatible with the degrowth vision, not to mention that some might lack financial means to drive transformative change. These issues cut across the spheres of production, consumption, trade, and finance, which suggests that structural reforms of the global political economy are called for to address unequal relations between developed and developing countries and also inequality within countries.