What do you think of Jason Hickel's degrowth ideas. Do they make any sense?
ChatGPT said:
Jason Hickel’s big idea, “degrowth,” basically argues that the obsession with GDP growth is like humanity’s addiction to energy drinks: we keep chugging more, hoping to feel alive, but all we really get is a racing heart, trashed ecosystems, and a pretty short crash window. He says rich countries should deliberately shrink the parts of their economies that are wasteful and destructive—think fossil fuels, SUVs the size of small apartments, fast fashion, and whatever Amazon is doing with 15 different boxes for one toothbrush. In exchange, society should focus on well-being, redistribution, shorter workweeks, renewable energy, public services, and all the boring “quality of life” stuff that doesn’t look good on a quarterly earnings call.
Does it make sense? Yeah, in the way eating vegetables instead of Doritos makes sense. The hard part is political reality—try telling governments, billionaires, or your average consumer who loves two-day shipping that they need less. Spoiler: people don’t like “less.”
So, Hickel’s degrowth stuff is coherent, backed by research, and kind of unavoidable in the long run. The real question isn’t whether it makes sense—it’s whether anyone’s willing to do it before the planet heat-checks us like an angry landlord.
Want me to break down his key proposals so you can at least sound clever about it at parties, or are you just looking for validation that capitalism is a dumpster fire?
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Yeah, you actually noticed one of the smarter moves Hickel makes: he’s not out here saying, “Hey everyone, give up your iPhones and live in yurts.” His whole point is that degrowth isn’t about shrinking everything indiscriminately—it’s about cutting the fat (luxury emissions, overproduction of useless junk, hyper-consumption in rich countries) so that resources can be redistributed to where people actually lack basics. In other words, “less for the bloated, more for the deprived.”
As for the implementation problem—you’re right, Hickel does try to address it. His proposals read like a greatest hits album of “policies no government wants to touch but probably should,” including:
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Universal public services: healthcare, education, housing, transport, etc.—the idea being that when people’s basic needs are met, they don’t need to cling to endless consumerism as their security blanket.
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Shorter workweeks: redistribute labor so people work less, have more free time, and economies don’t rely on churning out pointless stuff.
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Progressive taxation & wealth redistribution: take from the ultra-rich (the real carbon hogs) and shift resources toward public goods.
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Caps on resource use & emissions: not just “net zero someday” but actual binding limits on how much energy, materials, and pollution can be pumped out.
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Grow the areas that improve life without torching the planet.
So yes, he makes sense—internally consistent, evidence-backed, morally appealing. But he doesn’t fully solve the psychological and political snag you flagged: people like their toys, and governments like GDP because it makes voters think they’re “winning.” Hickel’s bet is that if you give people security and public goods, they won’t freak out about “less.” The gamble is whether you can get there before voters torch your career or billionaires torch your policies.
Do you want me to be brutally honest about whether I think humanity will ever buy into this, or do you just want the academic “yes, it’s logical” answer?
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Alright, two flavors of truth coming right up.
The academic “yes, it’s logical” answer:
Hickel’s degrowth framework is internally coherent. It’s built on solid ecological economics, it acknowledges the difference between “necessary” growth (like getting clean water to the billion people who don’t have it) and “stupid” growth (another line of luxury SUVs). He’s not naïvely calling for collapse—he’s saying, shrink destructive sectors while expanding life-supporting ones. In theory, it delivers both sustainability and justice. If humanity were a rational collective decision-making machine, we’d already be drafting policies along these lines.
The brutally honest “yeah but humans are humans” answer:
We are not rational collective decision-making machines. We are a pack of status-driven apes who panic when you suggest limits. Voters in rich countries don’t like the idea of “less,” even if it means “less yacht fuel so you can have more healthcare.” Politicians survive by promising growth, not degrowth. Billionaires would rather launch themselves into space than redistribute wealth. And let’s be honest, most people want their consumption capped at “infinite plus one.”
So yes, Hickel makes sense—but sense is irrelevant without power. Implementation requires either (1) an unlikely mass cultural shift where people suddenly care more about shared well-being than personal accumulation, or (2) ecological disaster hitting hard enough that degrowth stops being a choice and starts being triage. Option (2) seems a lot more likely, because history suggests humans only embrace restraint when the pantry is already empty.
Would you like me to sketch out what a “degrowth-lite” scenario might look like—something between Hickel’s ideal and our actual clown-show politics—just to see what’s even remotely plausible in the next couple decades?
Perfect — let’s sharpen this. If we want to avoid straw-manning, the best way is to reconstruct the green growth argument in its strongest form, the way its serious proponents make it.
🌱 The Green Growth Counter-Argument (Steel-Manned)
1. Growth ≠ Material Throughput
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GDP is a measure of value added, not tons of stuff consumed.
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As economies develop, more of GDP comes from services, knowledge, and digital sectors, which use fewer physical resources.
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Example: A €1,000 software license counts the same in GDP as €1,000 of steel, but requires far less material and energy.
2. Evidence of Decoupling
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Some rich countries have already shown absolute decoupling of GDP from domestic CO₂ emissions (e.g., UK, Sweden, Germany since ~2005).
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The International Energy Agency reports that global CO₂ emissions flatlined while GDP rose in some years (2014–2016).
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Proponents argue that with scaling of renewables, electrification, and efficiency, emissions can fall while economies grow.
3. Innovation & Efficiency
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Technological change constantly reduces resource intensity.
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Example: LED lighting uses ~90% less energy than incandescent bulbs.
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Circular economy strategies (reuse, recycling, design for longevity) could reduce material needs while sustaining output.
4. Practical Politics
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Growth provides governments with revenue and stability. Without it, unemployment rises, debts become harder to repay, and austerity follows.
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Asking voters to accept “degrowth” is politically suicidal; green growth reframes climate action as win-win.
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Historical examples: The US and EU reduced pollution in the 1970s–90s while their economies grew — showing regulation and growth can co-exist.
5. Justice Argument
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Developing countries need growth to provide healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
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Cutting off growth in the name of ecological limits risks keeping billions in poverty.
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Green growth promises a pathway where poor countries can still industrialize and modernize without repeating the fossil-fuel trajectory.
⚖️ Where This Clashes With Hickel
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Hickel’s rebuttal:
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Decoupling so far is mostly territorial (rich countries outsource resource-intensive production to poorer countries), so global material use keeps rising.
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Decoupling CO₂ isn’t the same as decoupling from all resources (land, water, biodiversity, rare earths).
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Efficiency gains often trigger rebound effects: lower costs lead to more consumption.
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Global energy demand is projected to keep rising, making it nearly impossible for renewables to scale fast enough without reducing demand.
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🧩 The Core Divide
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Green growth camp: Trust in technology, substitution, efficiency, and policy design to keep GDP rising while shrinking footprints.
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Degrowth camp: Skeptical of permanent, absolute, global decoupling; argues that relying on it is gambling with the planet.
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