Degrowth is a noble ideal to strive for, and it would certainly mitigate a lot of our current problems if implemented. However, I fear that it is an ideal that can be adopted by the few but not the many. Growth, progress and personal ambition are inherent human traits - it may not be the case for all people, but it is certainly evident in today’s society and many societies that have come before. In my opinion, we need solutions and frameworks that most (if not all) personalities can exist within. I worry degrowth is wishful thinking, and would love to hear your thoughts.
All of that said - I believe it is a very worthwhile thought exercise and even if all degrowth principles cannot be implemented, some can and that is what matters.
I think you are confusing personal growth with “number go up” as understood by GDP growth percentages and similar metrics.
Degrowth as a theory is mostly concerned with the latter and issues such as compound interest forcing continous and specifically continously accellerating economic growth.
Degrowth doesn’t mean you as a person can’t use your own labor to improve your living conditions and similar things. And such personal growth is only very indirectly related to economic growth.
Admittedly I need to learn more about degrowth. However, I feel GDP is just a manifestation of multiple cases of personal ambition.
Let’s say we all worked to the point that we had equal, abundant luxuries. Surely at this point we are happy and need no more? Unfortunately I think this is not the case. If a person or a group identifies a route to greater success, or dominion over others, it’s likely they will take it, just for the sake of being more powerful.
Then apply this not just to the individual, but to the group, and then to the nation.
Yes of course there is some relation between the aggregate of peoples’ work and the GDP. I mean, that is what it is supposed to measure after all 😅
In reality it only measures monetized work though, and unpaid care work for example is neglected.
But indeed until we reach “fully automated luxury communism” there will be people that will try to amass wealth/power to make other people work for them… usually this is disguised as making money work for them in modern capitalist societies, i.e. stock-markets with all that entails.
The negative externalities of such a financial growth oriented society is what theories of degrowth mainly advocate against.