Nous sommes Parti·e·s Pour La Décroissance

The magic word is back. Growth is more than ever, touted as the solution to all our problems. Evidenced by the debates around Mario Draghi’ s, the chairman of the European Central Bank (ECB) This « truth » is endorsed as a given by the candidates and it is presented as essential to the French, it is then about who will best at restoring Growth.

The mythology of Growth stipulates that a growth in GDP will lower unemployment: an argument, which has been completely proven false since the 70’s. Moreover a cycle of unemployment is necessary for the proper functioning of capitalism, so that work remains a negotiable value for the employer. However, what is true is that state tax revenues are indexed to the growth rate. The greater the growth, the higher the state’s budget. This is why governments need growth, and without it, they resort to debt. From the candidates’ perspective the economic mythology is secondary. Moreover, it remains a myth.

Even in the scientific, economic and political fields, it is recognized that an exponential growth is impossible for environmental, social and societal reasons. Does this mean that we must organize rigor? No. Neither rigor, nor “ri-lance” (reflation). This « rilance » is a sham which is neither sustainable nor desirable. There is nothing worse than a negative growth rate in a Growth society. There is only one solution to prevent the recession from becoming akin to barbarism. We need a paradigm shift.

This radically anti-capitalist, anti-productivist, ecologist, feminist and internationalist paradigm is that of the growth objectors, It offers solutions that are both socially just and ecologically sustainable: Unconditional Autonomy Allowance (unconditional income, free basic needs coupled with  an incremental rise in prices for the additional consumption, free public  services, demercantalisation, local  fluid currencies), combined with a Maximum Allowed Income, Open relocalisation and proximity  (agriculture, manufactured products, …), ecological agriculture, exit from industrialism and nuclear, an energy transition, and entry into the first democracy.

French Degrowth Movement

In view of the fact that a still-too-large percentage of the population has decided to vote for the Far Right represented by Marine Le Pen, we must examine the underlying reasons for the failure of our societal models.

Unfortunately, this result is not an isolated case in the European political landscape. The Far Right is gaining popularity with a population in « crisis ». Throughout Europe, the populist discourses bloom carrying the voices of an easy contestation, with its usual culprits, vis a vis the political and media elites, the oligarchs, the banks, the neo-liberal globalization or Europe, immigrants, foreign countries, Islam, the Labour Party, welfare recipients, the poor.

However, in recent years, this Far Left discourse has been wrongly abandoned by many of the European left parties converted to social democracy and neo-liberalism. Thus leaving an avenue for its recuperation and debasement by the Far Right parties. In parallel, the moderate Right parties have contributed to create fantasized fears helped build fantasized, to divide societies but also to de-demonize the hateful and nauseous speeches. The example of the law-and-order Sarkozism in power in France for the last ten years, with his hate speeches against the foreigners, the immigrants and the most disadvantaged, portrayed as parasites assisted by our societies is perhaps the most blatant example.

How did our societies; so rich materially, so “advanced” economically, the model of which is so coveted, manage to rich that point? We represent 20% of the world population appropriating 87% of all the natural resources on the planet thanks to the exploitation of 80% of the rest of the world population. Furthermore, our consumption level, so envied, cannot be generalised since we consume, even the poorest of us, at least the equivalent of 2, 3 or 4, 5 earths…

« All those on the Left, who refuse to address the question of equity without growth, show that socialism for them is only the continuation by other means of a mode of social interactions and lifestyle of the capitalist civilisation and of the middle-class consumption model. »
Andre Gorz

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