No mindset shift—they can’t achieve elite buy-in or societal consent for the transition—and their arg about it coming eventually is wrong

Political projects do not become hegemonic just because they embody good ideas. For a project to become hegemonic, (organic) intellectuals first need to develop the project and a constellation of social forces with sufficient power and resources to implement it then needs to find it appealing and struggle for it. In this context, it is worth noting that degrowth, as a social movement, has been gaining momentum for some time, not least in Southern Europe. Countless grassroots' initiatives (e.g., D'Alisa et al., 2013) are the most visible manifestations that degrowth is on the rise. Intellectuals – including founders of ecological economics such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Herman Daly, and more recently degrowth scholars such as Serge Latouche and Giorgos Kallis – have played a major role in developing and disseminating the ideas underpinning the project. A growing interest in degrowth in academia, as well as well-attended biennial international degrowth conferences, also indicate that an increasing number of people embrace such ideas. Still, the degrowth project is nowhere near enjoying the degree and type of support it needs if its policies are to be implemented through democratic processes. The number of political parties, labour unions, business associations and international organisations that have so far embraced degrowth is modest to say the least. Economic and political elites, including social democratic parties and most of the trade union movement, are united in the belief that economic growth is necessary and desirable. This consensus finds support in the prevailing type of economic theory and underpins the main contenders in the neoliberal project, such as centre-left and nationalist projects. In spite of the world's multidimensional crisis, a pro-growth discourse in other words continues to be hegemonic: it is widely considered a matter of common sense that continued economic growth is required. It is also noteworthy that economic and political elites, to a large extent, continue to support the neoliberal project, even in the face of its evident shortcomings. Indeed, the 2008 financial crisis did not result in the weakening of transnational financial capital that could have paved the way for a paradigm shift. Instead of coming to an end, neoliberal capitalism has arguably entered a more authoritarian phase (Bruff, 2014). The main reason the power of the pre-crisis coalition remains intact is that governments stepped in and saved the dominant fraction by means of massive bailouts. It is a foregone conclusion that this fraction and the wider coalition behind the neoliberal paradigm (transnational industrial capital, the middle classes and segments of organized labour) will consider the degrowth paradigm unattractive and that such social forces will vehemently oppose the implementation of degrowth policies (see also Rees, 2014: 97). While degrowth advocates envision a future in which market forces play a less prominent role than they do today, degrowth is not an anti-market project. As such, it can attract support from certain types of market actors. In particular, it is worth noting that social enterprises, such as cooperatives (Restakis, 2010), play a major role in the degrowth vision. Such enterprises are defined by being ‘organisations involved at least to some extent in the market, with a clear social, cultural and/or environmental purpose, rooted in and serving primarily the local community and ideally having a local and/or democratic ownership structure’ (Johanisova et al., 2013: 11). Social enterprises currently exist at the margins of a system, in which the dominant type of business entity is profit-oriented, shareholder-owned corporations. The further dissemination of social enterprises, which is crucial to the transitions to degrowth societies, is – in many cases – blocked or delayed as a result of the centrifugal forces of global competition (Wigger and Buch-Hansen, 2013). Overall, social enterprises thus (still) constitute a social force with modest power. Ougaard (2016: 467) notes that one of the major dividing lines in the contemporary transnational capitalist class is between capitalists who have a material interest in the carbon-based economy and capitalists who have a material interest in decarbonisation. The latter group, for instance, includes manufacturers of equipment for the production of renewable energy (ibid.: 467). As mentioned above, degrowth advocates have singled out renewable energy as one of the sectors that needs to grow in the future. As such, it seems likely that the owners of national and transnational companies operating in this sector would be more positively inclined towards the degrowth project than would capitalists with a stake in the carbon-based economy. Still, the prospect of the “green sector” emerging as a driving force behind degrowth currently appears meagre. Being under the control of transnational capital (Harris, 2010), such companies generally embrace the “green growth” discourse, which ‘is deeply embedded in neoliberal capitalism’ and indeed serves to adjust this form of capitalism ‘to crises arising from contradictions within itself’ (Wanner, 2015: 23). In addition to support from the social forces engendered by the production process, a political project ‘also needs the political ability to mobilize majorities in parliamentary democracies, and a sufficient measure of at least passive consent’ (van Apeldoorn and Overbeek, 2012: 5–6) if it is to become hegemonic. As mentioned, degrowth enjoys little support in parliaments, and certainly the pro-growth discourse is hegemonic among parties in government.5 With capital accumulation being the most important driving force in capitalist societies, political decision-makers are generally eager to create conditions conducive to production and the accumulation of capital (Lindblom, 1977: 172). Capitalist states and international organisations are thus “programmed” to facilitate capital accumulation, and do as such constitute a strategically selective terrain that works to the disadvantage of the degrowth project. The main advocates of the degrowth project are grassroots, small fractions of left-wing parties and labour unions as well as academics and other citizens who are concerned about social injustice and the environmentally unsustainable nature of societies in the rich parts of the world. The project is thus ideationally driven in the sense that support for it is not so much rooted in the material circumstances or short-term self-interests of specific groups or classes as it is rooted in the conviction that degrowth is necessary if current and future generations across the globe are to be able to lead a good life. While there is no shortage of enthusiasts and creative ideas in the degrowth movement, it has only modest resources compared to other political projects. To put it bluntly, the advocates of degrowth do not possess instruments that enable them to force political decision-makers to listen to – let alone comply with – their views. As such, they are in a weaker position than the labour union movement was in its heyday, and they are in a far weaker position than the owners and managers of large corporations are today (on the structural power of transnational corporations, see Gill and Law, 1989). 6. Consent It is also safe to say that degrowth enjoys no “passive consent” from the majority of the population. For the time being, degrowth remains unknown to most people. Yet, if it were to become generally known, most people would probably not find the vision of a smaller economic system appealing. This is not just a matter of degrowth being ‘a missile word that backfires’ because it triggers negative feelings in people when they first hear it (Drews and Antal, 2016). It is also a matter of the actual content of the degrowth project. Two issues in particular should be mentioned in this context. First, for many, the anti-capitalist sentiments embodied in the degrowth project will inevitably be a difficult pill to swallow. Today, the vast majority of people find it almost impossible to conceive of a world without capitalism. There is a ‘widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible to even imagine a coherent alternative to it’ (Fisher, 2009: 2). As Jameson (2003) famously observed, it is, in a sense, easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. However, not only is degrowth – like other anti-capitalist projects – up against the challenge that most people consider capitalism the only system that can function; it is also up against the additional challenge that it speaks against economic growth in a world where the desirability of growth is considered common sense. Second, degrowth is incompatible with the lifestyles to which many of us who live in rich countries have become accustomed. Economic growth in the Western world is, to no small extent, premised on the existence of consumer societies and an associated consumer culture most of us find it difficult to completely escape. In this culture, social status, happiness, well-being and identity are linked to consumption (Jackson, 2009). Indeed, it is widely considered a natural right to lead an environmentally unsustainable lifestyle – a lifestyle that includes car ownership, air travel, spacious accommodations, fashionable clothing, an omnivorous diet and all sorts of electronic gadgets. This Western norm of consumption has increasingly been exported to other parts of the world, the result being that never before have so many people taken part in consumption patterns that used to be reserved for elites (Koch, 2012). If degrowth were to be institutionalised, many citizens in the rich countries would have to adapt to a materially lower standard of living. That is, while the basic needs of the global population can be met in a non-growing economy, not all wants and preferences can be fulfilled (Koch et al., 2017). Undoubtedly, many people in the rich countries would experience various limitations on their consumption opportunities as a violent encroachment on their personal freedom. Indeed, whereas many recognize that contemporary consumer societies are environmentally unsustainable, fewer are prepared to actually change their own lifestyles to reverse/address this. At present, then, the degrowth project is in its “deconstructive phase”, i.e., the phase in which its advocates are able to present a powerful critique of the prevailing neoliberal project and point to alternative solutions to crisis. At this stage, not enough support has been mobilised behind the degrowth project for it to be elevated to the phases of “construction” and “consolidation”. It is conceivable that at some point, enough people will become sufficiently discontent with the existing economic system and push for something radically different. Reasons for doing so could be the failure of the system to satisfy human needs and/or its inability to resolve the multidimensional crisis confronting humanity. Yet, various material and ideational path-dependencies currently stand in the way of such a development, particularly in countries with large middle-classes. Even if it were to happen that the majority wanted a break with the current system, it is far from given that a system based on the ideas of degrowth is what they would demand.