Alban Ouahab reviews Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide by Vincent Liegey and Anitra Nelson

Abstract

Exploring Degrowth by Liegey and Nelson (2020) was published in November 2020 while many countries were under their second lockdown and at a moment when the full consequences of the Covid global crisis were unknown. Yet, the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020 compelled the authors to add a few lines to their preface. This crisis is indeed a double-edged sword for the degrowth movement. On the one hand, the link between human activities and global pandemics (Jones et al., 2018) highlights more than ever the need to deeply transform our social and economic systems to abate future crisis. On the other hand, the severe cut in most countries' GDP reinforced some misconceptions about what the degrowth movement actually stands for. Indeed, the current unplanned, unequal, undemocratic and unsustainable downsizing of the economy has hardly anything to do with the qualitative improvement of life sought by the author of this book, which usefully debunks misconceptions about the degrowth movement and introduces its core principles and theoretical backgrounds. In a time of resource scarcity, climate emergency and environmental breakdown, degrowth seems inescapable. For the authors of Exploring Degrowth, this is a source of hope.Exploring Degrowth is a short book offering a synthesis of the Degrowth debates around five chapters. It starts by introducing us to key authors (such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegens or Ivan Illich) and positive ideas and concepts (such as the right to idleness) in order to debunk misconceptions about degrowth and more importantly to denaturalize "growthism". It then presents a set of practices relevant to degrowth such as frugal abundance, or voluntary simplicity, and the three spheres of actions necessary for degrowth: individual, collective, and resistance. These practices lead the authors to present a political strategy of incrementally transforming our cultural imaginaries and everyday practices. The goal is to take stock of the multiplicity of social movements, each working with its own strategy, but all promoting ideas consistent with a degrowth agenda. Finally, the book closes on a more structured program centered around an unconditional autonomy allowance which gives the reader a clearer picture of what structural changes could look like.The book is an invitation to further explore the degrowth theories and practices more than a substantial development of each concept. As such, it does well in introducing us to a diversity of concepts and explaining the extant to which these concepts are core to the degrowth debates or if they are rather peripheral. It also clarifies misconceptions and misunderstandings about potential adverse concepts. For instance, it notably warns us about the risk of recuperation of timid proposals such as sustainability which now serves as legitimizing business as usual through green capitalism. The book challenges the pervasive idea that degrowth is an ascetic movement seeking psychological and economic decline. On the contrary, it articulates the concepts of convivial...