the central claim, that we need to have fewer goods, fewer people, and less prosperity, isn’t really worth debate.
As far as I understand it this is not what they claim. Particularly “fewer people”, I am sure they do not claim this. And prosperity either. Prosperity without growth is a classic book.
There may be some people who claim this, they may use the term degrowth, but they are not the “serious” degrowthers. And I find the term Degrowth really misleading. Some use the terms a-growth, post-growth, growth agnostics. I should probably have been more explicit in my post [I added a comment at the end of the post].
And the claim of these people is that rich countries have to consume less, and in general wealth has to be much more distributed. They base it in the fact that past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down or becomes irrelevant. And this is, AFAIK, well known and uncontroversial.
I agree with most of your modified claims—but claiming the serious degrowthers are the ones on your side, that the term is misleading, and the popular movement is wrong, seems to be conceding everything?
I really have not come across academic “degrowthers” that claim that we need to have fewer people or less prosperity (Kallis, Hickel, Raworth, Jackson, Van den bergh). In any case, in the post I deliberately spoke about to “degrowth the economy in rich countries”, not about degrowth in general or (any group of) degrowthers to try avoid these kinds of misunderstandings.
As far as I understand it this is not what they claim. Particularly “fewer people”, I am sure they do not claim this. And prosperity either. Prosperity without growth is a classic book.
There may be some people who claim this, they may use the term degrowth, but they are not the “serious” degrowthers. And I find the term Degrowth really misleading. Some use the terms a-growth, post-growth, growth agnostics. I should probably have been more explicit in my post [I added a comment at the end of the post].
And the claim of these people is that rich countries have to consume less, and in general wealth has to be much more distributed. They base it in the fact that past a certain point, the relationship between GDP and social outcomes breaks down or becomes irrelevant. And this is, AFAIK, well known and uncontroversial.
I agree with most of your modified claims—but claiming the serious degrowthers are the ones on your side, that the term is misleading, and the popular movement is wrong, seems to be conceding everything?
I really have not come across academic “degrowthers” that claim that we need to have fewer people or less prosperity (Kallis, Hickel, Raworth, Jackson, Van den bergh). In any case, in the post I deliberately spoke about to “degrowth the economy in rich countries”, not about degrowth in general or (any group of) degrowthers to try avoid these kinds of misunderstandings.
I forgot to ask you who are those “degrowthers” that you refer to. I never came across them. Could you please give me a couple of names?