That article doesn't do anything to dispel my suspicions that he has no idea what he's talking about.

The most egregious aspects of the article were addressed in Jason Hickel's response to Milanovic. I think it's funny that he's citing a World Bank economist for a major chunk of his article given that the World Bank's position is that we can grow our way out of global poverty (it'll only take 200 more years!) and currently defines the threshold of extreme poverty at $770 per year, so it's a little bit hard to take the argument that $5,500 is unacceptable (even if that were the degrowth position, which it is not) with a straight face.

As far as the argument for decoupling goes, the evidence is that to the extent that it's happening, it isn't fast enough.

As you know the article was written in 2019. It's pretty funny that now in 2024 we have a symbolic representation of the evils of growth and capitalism. It's called AI. Maybe you've heard of it?

All right - how long is the article. 7.5k words? I won't be lazy. I won't be lazy. I won't— Oh, I can't resist. I shouldn't do it because I'm going to read that thing but I'll do a ctrl-f for "climate".

Because degrowth rejects the notion of socialist economic growth, it commits three grave errors.

First, degrowth lets off the hook the real source of the problem, thus condemning civilisation to dangerous climate change and parallel ecological threats.

Second, degrowth unwittingly endorses what would be an imposition of austerity on the Western working class far beyond anything a Thatcher, Cameron or May could imagine, this time in the name of the planet.

And, worst of all, degrowth would bring an end to progress itself—the steady expansion of freedom for all humanity.

The hell with reading that thing. Yet "the real source of the problem" intrigues me. What sort of nonsense- I mean argument - did he put forth???

Having grown up in the 80s, I remember at the time bugging my mum to stop buying cans of hair spray. She did not follow my advice.

Thankfully my advice was not taken by policymakers either. Instead, the Montreal Protocol regulatorily intervened in the market against and over the wails and lobbying efforts of the industries affected.

What does he say at or near the end?

Thus an end to growth declares an end to technological development, an end to science, an end to progress, an end to the open-ended search for freedom—an end to history.

What a strange thing for a self-proclaimed socialist to say. In some regards - he sounds exactly like a right-winger.

1. Right-wingers love to spout ridiculous, hyperbolic nonsense. In the US - they do it every single day. I'm sure you're aware that Senator Snowball just died.

2. "My way or the highway" is a classic, simplistic tool of the right-wing to make something highly complex into a binary where - surprise - the speaker is 100% correct in their ironclad reasoning which is: "I am right and you are wrong!"

3. It's especially amusing when one and two are combined as they are in the article.

Degrowth does not proclaim such stuff as we need to turn off all the electricity and use only horses (and other beasts of burden) for transportation. Does he envision everybody getting fired and then being forced to fight for scraps just to survive? Where does here get that crap? I'm not expert on anything but I'm pretty damn sure using electricity is still okay and using buses is encouraged.

This is no philosophical sophistry.

Pffft. I'm not reading that folderol article. Sorry.