The degrowth movement wants to intentionally shrink the economy to address climate change, and create lives with less stuff, less work, and better well-being. But is it a utopian fantasy?
Look around you. Are there things to be done? Parks to be cleaned? Old houses to be renovated? Run down areas of town? Are there any hungry children in nearby schools? If you answered yes to any of those, then there is work to be done.
Why, if there is work to be done, is it not getting done? What type of society undervalues such critical work such that you would look at the state of the work and think that there is not enough work for everyone to contribute.
There are plenty of jobs, there is infinite work, but the current value system doesn’t incentivise this work that would improve everyone’s life.
So two questions.
Why doesn’t the current system value this work?
What would the world look like of that type of work was valued?
That in mind, given that you assume mass unemployment, which is questionable at best, reconsider why that would be. Who, or what, would be the cause?
There are a lot of BS jobs that don’t create any value (real estate agents, advertising, …) and a lot of work that is not getting done because nobody would pay for it, for example cleaning up the environment, worker shortage in hospitals and elder care.
That also means massive unemployment
Look around you. Are there things to be done? Parks to be cleaned? Old houses to be renovated? Run down areas of town? Are there any hungry children in nearby schools? If you answered yes to any of those, then there is work to be done.
Why, if there is work to be done, is it not getting done? What type of society undervalues such critical work such that you would look at the state of the work and think that there is not enough work for everyone to contribute.
There are plenty of jobs, there is infinite work, but the current value system doesn’t incentivise this work that would improve everyone’s life.
So two questions.
That in mind, given that you assume mass unemployment, which is questionable at best, reconsider why that would be. Who, or what, would be the cause?
That happens anyways so
There are a lot of BS jobs that don’t create any value (real estate agents, advertising, …) and a lot of work that is not getting done because nobody would pay for it, for example cleaning up the environment, worker shortage in hospitals and elder care.
That’s actually a good thing, assuming that employment wasn’t tied to surviving nor thriving.