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Degrowth is such a stupid idea. All the things that make your life better - housing, healthcare, education, food, iphones, air conditioning, cars, and more - ar

Degrowth is such a stupid idea. All the things that make your life better - housing, healthcare, education, food, iphones, air conditioning, cars, and more - are forms of wealth. You cannot have more of them without economic growth, because these things are economic growth.

newspaper1 2mo ago
But economic growth fails to model externalities. All that stuff is good, unless we cook the earth using it and kill everyone. iPhones are great for us but what about the kids dying the lithium mine? … Probably not popular ideas on this forum, but they also can’t just be dismissed (but they will get downvoted lol).
- sobellian 2mo ago
  A single carbon tax would be a market-oriented solution that captures the externality of CO2 emission - and would likely still permit economic growth! You don't need to revolutionize the entire basis on which human civilization has acted for millennia in order to solve the problem. And if you did have to, one could reasonably expect that effort to fail.
  - newspaper1 2mo ago
    That’s one single variable out of near infinite externalities. Other examples: collapsing the food chain by wiping out critical pieces through urbanization, microplastics poisoning all animal life (potentially), global warming due to heat capture of asphalt… Some of these may have solutions, some might not be problems but what’s definitely true is that “growth = good” is way too simplistic a model.
    - sobellian 2mo ago
      I think there's a middle ground between laissez-faire capitalism and degrowth. As far as I can tell no one in this thread has been arguing that laissez-faire always produces great outcomes, simply (and rightly) that degrowth is a horrible idea.
      - newspaper1 2mo ago
        I’m talking about our existing economy, not laissez-faire. These externalities are not modeled in it. > simply (and rightly) that degrowth is a horrible idea. I don’t agree that it’s this clear. If growth is happening mainly for the rich (which it currently is), then I fully support de-growing them.
        sobellian 2mo ago
        https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://old.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1qcy40d/growth_in_us_real_wages_by_income_group_from_1979/ https://old.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1qcy40d/growth_in_u... It's nice to be wealthy, but growth is happening for everyone. But as an overarching point, you appear to be arguing against a strawman. No one as far as I can tell in this thread is arguing for the status quo, especially regarding climate policy. They're just arguing against the notion that humanity's lot can be improved by nuking the economy in order to save the climate. I understand that it is a lot more boring to discuss measured market interventions than eating the rich (incidentally, how will eating the rich solve the environmental problems of urbanization?). But it will be a lot more productive assuming one's starting goal is truly the environment rather than eating the rich.
        newspaper1 2mo ago
        I mean those charts don’t pass the sniff test. Being healthy (or sick for that matter!) was basically free, now it costs over a thousand dollars a month in insurance. A huge chunk of most people’s income. Same with housing (and education): https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-american-income-vs-home-prices-1985-2025/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-american-income-vs-...
        sobellian 2mo ago
        Is it fair to say that you're more interested in discussing wealth inequality than environmental policy?
netsharc 2mo ago
And forest fires burning down whole towns, pandemics, drought, crop failures, social unrest due to hungry people trying to move to more livable areas are externalities that economic growth can also solve, right?
marssaxman 2mo ago
Degrowth is simply a refusal to engage in magical thinking. You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet: growth must therefore have an end. Would we prefer to choose a gentle mode of deceleration which keeps us comfortable along the way, or would we prefer to wait and do all the decelerating at once, when we hit the wall?
- Legend2440 2mo ago
  We are nowhere close to thermodynamic limits. Another 100x or even 100000x growth is entirely possible. We aren't even using 0.01% of the solar energy that hits the Earth's surface, let alone what we could capture with possible future technologies. There are challenges to growth, like climate change, but we can engineer solutions instead of throwing our hands up and going home.
  - marssaxman 2mo ago
    It sounds like you agree with the premise, then, that there are planetary limits, and that growth must ultimately end: you are simply looking at different limits, and you see a lot of runway left. People who are looking at ecological limits tend to have a less optimistic view.
- HEmanZ 2mo ago
  No one says literally infinite growth. That's a stupid strawman and if you are arguing at that level you are not engaging, you are just playing tribal in-group signaling. And we don't need to think about growth 10,000 years from now, we have no idea, not the slightest clue, what the technological, cultural, and human landscape looks like in the timeline long enough to actually start having to think about the edge of growth There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to think we are nearing the end of genuinely useful growth. We still die early of cancer, spend too much time working, live in too small domiciles, don't enjoy enough hobbies, eat worse food than we'd like, etc. We are nearing catastrophe because of our carbon-producing energy sources, but that's not "growth" generally, that's a specific problem.
  - 2mo ago
warkdarrior 2mo ago
Degrowth is for other people, not me.
HEmanZ 2mo ago
The extreme degrowth almost seem like a climate-disinformation psyops because it's so stupid. Like I'm more convinced they're propaganda to discredit climate action than actually trying to fight for it. I have to remind myself that more likely, people have just no idea what "economic growth" means and develop some strawman definition based on basically no background understanding.
MrSkelter 2mo ago
This is flatly wrong and why so many people still seem to think that 18th century economics cannot be improved upon. Degrowth doesn’t mean making people less wealthy. It means consuming less overall and not mandating growth as an objective in itself. There is usually no scarcity of housing. People are homeless because houses aren’t efficiently distributed. We don’t always need more buildings, we need better use of the homes we have. Infinite growth in a finite system is absolutely the dumbest way to plan and the reason we are pushing the climate into unknown territory.

newspaper1 2mo ago

But economic growth fails to model externalities. All that stuff is good, unless we cook the earth using it and kill everyone. iPhones are great for us but what about the kids dying the lithium mine? … Probably not popular ideas on this forum, but they also can’t just be dismissed (but they will get downvoted lol).

sobellian 2mo ago
A single carbon tax would be a market-oriented solution that captures the externality of CO2 emission - and would likely still permit economic growth! You don't need to revolutionize the entire basis on which human civilization has acted for millennia in order to solve the problem. And if you did have to, one could reasonably expect that effort to fail.
- newspaper1 2mo ago
  That’s one single variable out of near infinite externalities. Other examples: collapsing the food chain by wiping out critical pieces through urbanization, microplastics poisoning all animal life (potentially), global warming due to heat capture of asphalt… Some of these may have solutions, some might not be problems but what’s definitely true is that “growth = good” is way too simplistic a model.
  - sobellian 2mo ago
    I think there's a middle ground between laissez-faire capitalism and degrowth. As far as I can tell no one in this thread has been arguing that laissez-faire always produces great outcomes, simply (and rightly) that degrowth is a horrible idea.
    - newspaper1 2mo ago
      I’m talking about our existing economy, not laissez-faire. These externalities are not modeled in it. > simply (and rightly) that degrowth is a horrible idea. I don’t agree that it’s this clear. If growth is happening mainly for the rich (which it currently is), then I fully support de-growing them.
      - sobellian 2mo ago
        https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://old.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1qcy40d/growth_in_us_real_wages_by_income_group_from_1979/ https://old.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1qcy40d/growth_in_u... It's nice to be wealthy, but growth is happening for everyone. But as an overarching point, you appear to be arguing against a strawman. No one as far as I can tell in this thread is arguing for the status quo, especially regarding climate policy. They're just arguing against the notion that humanity's lot can be improved by nuking the economy in order to save the climate. I understand that it is a lot more boring to discuss measured market interventions than eating the rich (incidentally, how will eating the rich solve the environmental problems of urbanization?). But it will be a lot more productive assuming one's starting goal is truly the environment rather than eating the rich.
        newspaper1 2mo ago
        I mean those charts don’t pass the sniff test. Being healthy (or sick for that matter!) was basically free, now it costs over a thousand dollars a month in insurance. A huge chunk of most people’s income. Same with housing (and education): https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-american-income-vs-home-prices-1985-2025/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-american-income-vs-...
        sobellian 2mo ago
        Is it fair to say that you're more interested in discussing wealth inequality than environmental policy?

netsharc 2mo ago

And forest fires burning down whole towns, pandemics, drought, crop failures, social unrest due to hungry people trying to move to more livable areas are externalities that economic growth can also solve, right?

marssaxman 2mo ago

Degrowth is simply a refusal to engage in magical thinking. You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet: growth must therefore have an end. Would we prefer to choose a gentle mode of deceleration which keeps us comfortable along the way, or would we prefer to wait and do all the decelerating at once, when we hit the wall?

Legend2440 2mo ago
We are nowhere close to thermodynamic limits. Another 100x or even 100000x growth is entirely possible. We aren't even using 0.01% of the solar energy that hits the Earth's surface, let alone what we could capture with possible future technologies. There are challenges to growth, like climate change, but we can engineer solutions instead of throwing our hands up and going home.
- marssaxman 2mo ago
  It sounds like you agree with the premise, then, that there are planetary limits, and that growth must ultimately end: you are simply looking at different limits, and you see a lot of runway left. People who are looking at ecological limits tend to have a less optimistic view.
HEmanZ 2mo ago
No one says literally infinite growth. That's a stupid strawman and if you are arguing at that level you are not engaging, you are just playing tribal in-group signaling. And we don't need to think about growth 10,000 years from now, we have no idea, not the slightest clue, what the technological, cultural, and human landscape looks like in the timeline long enough to actually start having to think about the edge of growth There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, to think we are nearing the end of genuinely useful growth. We still die early of cancer, spend too much time working, live in too small domiciles, don't enjoy enough hobbies, eat worse food than we'd like, etc. We are nearing catastrophe because of our carbon-producing energy sources, but that's not "growth" generally, that's a specific problem.
- 2mo ago

warkdarrior 2mo ago

Degrowth is for other people, not me.

HEmanZ 2mo ago

The extreme degrowth almost seem like a climate-disinformation psyops because it's so stupid. Like I'm more convinced they're propaganda to discredit climate action than actually trying to fight for it. I have to remind myself that more likely, people have just no idea what "economic growth" means and develop some strawman definition based on basically no background understanding.

MrSkelter 2mo ago

This is flatly wrong and why so many people still seem to think that 18th century economics cannot be improved upon. Degrowth doesn’t mean making people less wealthy. It means consuming less overall and not mandating growth as an objective in itself. There is usually no scarcity of housing. People are homeless because houses aren’t efficiently distributed. We don’t always need more buildings, we need better use of the homes we have. Infinite growth in a finite system is absolutely the dumbest way to plan and the reason we are pushing the climate into unknown territory.