Degrowth and UBI

For instance, degrowthers are in a much stronger position to advocate for a universal basic income than mainstream green-growthers. A major axiom of degrowth is that our economy needs to descale in many if not most sectors. Since climate change is primarily driven by the “ of the Global North,” rich countries need to shrink our economies while  productivity in sectors that are sustainable and necessary. This most likely translates to : Professor Jared Fitzgerald at Boston College has found that each percent increase in working hours corresponds to a 0.65 percent increase in carbon emissions. Combined with redistributive policies, reducing the world’s working hours could thus be a necessary component to decarbonizing the global economy. While the final bill proposing a Green New Deal  to UBI due to backlash over the notion of supporting those “unwilling to work,” degrowthers can advocate for UBI precisely for its potential to  to reclaim their time and take up non-growth-based labor.

Degrowthers also invite us to  in a world that has eschewed growth for growth’s sake. Degrowthers blame the “capitalist economic model” for producing a society which prioritizes “corporate profits, over-production and excess consumption” over “social and ecological well-being;” degrowth’s “logical implication” is to  since, as political economist Güney Işıkara posits, “[o]nly under social ownership of the means of production can we extend democracy to the realm where resources are allocated and limits are defined.” In pursuit of this, ecosocialist scholars like  argue that “degrowth should aim for a truly democratic, workers’ controlled production system, where alienation is actively countered by a collective reappropriation of the products of labor and by a truly democratic decision-making process over the use of the surplus.” To this end, degrowthers could support a transition to “” by advocating policies that specifically encourage the growth of worker co-operatives, public banking, and the public provision of essential goods.