Surviving the Future by David Fleming

Author:David Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2016-07-18T13:52:38+00:00

Conclusions on growth

The task then, is not properly specified in terms such as the degrowth of the market economy. It is about growth of the informal economy, its sequel. It is not about wrestling with the controls of economics to force it in the direction of degrowth, but about getting ready for the moment when the coming climacteric does the heavy work of degrowth for us; when the goods, materials, food and services—whose life-preserving growth has caused so much guilt—turn out to not be there. The informal economy that must take over is still tragically weak. Its development is intensely urgent. Degrowth will come on us all too quickly.

If deintensification were achieved on the needed scale, and in the available time, without a correspondingly steep descent in population, this would, on the available evidence, be the first time in history, but it is the right aim, and there is no downside; if it is not achieved, we face the prospect of an unmitigated crash in the economy and the population alike.

We have inherited a system that depends on growth. That growth will end, by accident or design, and soon. Probably, growth will go into reverse, without the need for assistance, and more decisively than any zero- or negative-growth programme could accomplish. Whatever the cause, the system that develops without it will not be a revision of what we have now. It will be a complete rewrite.

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