Estab­lish more mean­ing­ful equi­ty through alter­na­tive eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples. Huge glob­al dis­par­i­ties in socio-eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment result­ing from gen­er­a­tions of resource extrac­tion and exploita­tion must be addressed through repa­ra­tions. With less mas­sive indi­vid­ual for­tunes there will be more col­lec­tive for­tune to spare on repair efforts.

Degrowth is an eco­nom­ic the­o­ry defined sim­i­lar to how it sounds: a pro­pos­al to move toward de-esca­la­tion and de-infla­tion, and to move away from cap­i­tal­ist notions of con­tin­u­al growth. Degrowth refers to find­ing an alter­nate path of greater abun­dance for all to share. To cre­ate greater equal­i­ty of resources, the pol­i­cy would neces­si­tate rerout­ing resources across not only indi­vid­u­als who live with­in nations, but also across the coun­tries of the world.

The astro­nom­i­cal wealth inequal­i­ty in our world is a nat­ur­al fea­ture of cap­i­tal­ism. But we can begin to shift these scales with pro­grams that dis­trib­ute wealth where it’s actu­al­ly need­ed, toward: edu­ca­tion, equip­ping the pop­u­lace with improved diets, paths away from fos­sil-fuel depen­dence, and improve­ments in the over­all safe­ty net for those who have been most affect­ed by the neg­a­tive off­shoots of cap­i­tal­ist excess­es. Rather than tight­en­ing spend­ing on social pro­grams at this cru­cial junc­ture in human his­to­ry, we believe we should re-engi­neer spend­ing to focus on areas in need of revi­tal­iza­tion like edu­ca­tion, health­care, infra­struc­ture, and energy.

“The point of aus­ter­i­ty is to cre­ate scarci­ty. Suffering—indeed, poverty—must be induced for the sake of more growth. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can call a halt to the mad­ness —throw a wrench in the jug­ger­naut.” — Dr. Jason Hick­el, Degrowth: A Call for Rad­i­cal Abundance

Dr. Jason Hick­el illu­mi­nates how scarci­ty cat­alyzes cap­i­tal­ism by cre­at­ing arti­fi­cial con­di­tions for pri­vate wealth to be amassed. Enclo­sure is the process by which resources that were once free—like access to clean water—came to be walled off and con­trolled by man­age­r­i­al author­i­ties. This tran­si­tion caused a dimin­ish­ment in pub­lic wealth which, in turn, result­ed in con­di­tions that led to increased pri­vate wealth. A grue­some exam­ple of this was how colo­nial­ists would burn down trees that bore nuts and fruit so that native com­mu­ni­ties could no longer rely on this once abun­dant source of food. This vio­lent force of gen­er­at­ing scarci­ty then allowed those same colo­nial­ists to coerce the peo­ple whose habi­tat they had just dam­aged, to work in order to earn mon­ey that could then buy the food now con­trolled by the colo­nial­ists.²⁹

As Hick­el fur­ther explains in his arti­cle, “Degrowth: A Call for Rad­i­cal Abundance,”

“Ellen Wood argues that the ori­gins of cap­i­tal­ism lay in the enclo­sure move­ment in Eng­land, dur­ing which wealthy elites walled off the com­mons and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly forced peas­ants off the land in a vio­lent, cen­turies-long cam­paign of dis­pos­ses­sion.  This peri­od saw the abo­li­tion of the ancient “right to habi­ta­tion”, once enshrined in the Char­ter of the For­est, which guar­an­teed that ordi­nary peo­ple should have access to the resources nec­es­sary for survival.”

We feel that de-enclo­sure (free­ing up resources that were unfair­ly seized and con­sol­i­dat­ed) is a nec­es­sary response to rem­e­dy the adverse effects of enclo­sure. De-enclo­sure will require releas­ing the grip of all that’s owned by the exploita­tive con­trollers of cap­i­tal. The under­ly­ing foun­da­tion for con­sol­i­dat­ed pri­vate own­er­ship is root­ed in a tra­di­tion in which cru­sad­ing invaders take over native lands by vio­lent force. The uneven glob­al dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth still reflects this his­to­ry; a his­to­ry that many nations have yet to tru­ly con­front and rectify.

Restora­tion of the commons—meaning the abol­ish­ment of pri­vate own­er­ship of nat­ur­al resources—also has the impor­tant advan­tage of restrict­ing state-spon­sored vio­lence. Safe­guard­ing peo­ple against human-rights vio­la­tions and unjust poli­cies, must become a glob­al pri­or­i­ty. Indus­tri­al lead­ers need to take a firm stand on this issue as well. Over the last cen­turies, the cre­ation of mate­r­i­al goods has led to so many resources hav­ing been extract­ed and exploit­ed from com­mu­ni­ties unable to pro­tect against rav­ages car­ried out by colo­nial­ists, that we are long over­due for a restora­tion of balance.

Dr. Hick­el writes that, “Degrowth, at its core, is a demand for rad­i­cal abun­dance.” While it might appear para­dox­i­cal, the log­ic is quite sound. As pri­vate wealth con­tracts and pub­lic wealth expands, more peo­ple will expe­ri­ence abundance.

By pur­su­ing this redis­tri­b­u­tion of access to resources, we can restore the union of com­mu­ni­ties with the nat­ur­al world and its abun­dance of nour­ish­ment. Turn­ing away from unsus­tain­able growth based on lim­it­ed resources and coer­cive tac­tics, is one step to enable eco­nom­ic jus­tice across the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. The pri­ma­ry change we need to con­sid­er is how to col­lec­tive­ly con­serve pre­cious resources, like forests and rivers, pro­tect these resources against exploitive prac­tices, and build open access to these resources with­in the infra­struc­ture of communities.