Degrowth & SSE vs. The Great Bang or The Long Whimper

I’m reading this now. I wish it made me feel more hopeful.

The concepts of degrowth and a steady-state economy (SSE) represent a fundamental challenge to the prevailing paradigm of continuous economic growth. While distinct, they are deeply intertwined and often seen as complementary pathways toward a more sustainable future.

Much has been written about such things.

The origins of degrowth can be traced back to thinkers like Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen in the 1970s, who applied the laws of thermodynamics (entropy) to economic processes, highlighting the finite nature of resources. More recently, the movement has gained traction amidst growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource scarcity, suggesting that if we don’t choose degrowth, an uncontrolled contraction or collapse of modern techno-industrial civilization might be inevitable.

Few people are aware of this approach because the current economic paradigm tends to support influential Players who benefit from it. The Players of The Great Game 2.0 AGI have no incentive to change and would sacrifice everything to continue their ecocidal rampage.

The easily manipulated and conditioned masses collaborate with their masters for the right to maintain their addictions.

Degrowth, or décroissance, is a critique of the idea that endless economic growth is compatible with ecological limits and human well-being. Critiquing economic growth is tantamount to a crime under the current global regime — a crime more grave than any horrendous war crime, as warfare is a growth engine. War provides for greater material throughput in the economy and is great for markets. In a world where global supply chains are essential, war is profitable for all the Players, and their support mob, the investor class. Russia and Ukraine could not fight their drone war without Chinese components. Israel could not bounce the rubble in the Middle East without materials extracted from locations worldwide, without neocollonialism.

The collapse of our current way of life is inevitable. Our current way of life will expire with a great bang or a long whimper. For those of us able to maintain our addictions, our demise will hardly be noticed.

Ecological economists generally define degrowth as an equitable downscaling of economic production and consumption (throughput) to bring material and energy use within ecological limits, thereby securing well-being. Well-being, who has time to consider that? What does “well-being” even mean? Instead of material accumulation, degrowth prioritizes human well-being, quality of life, leisure time, social connections, and community resilience. If you are a properly conditioned U.S. American, that sounds demonic to you. Only a socialist Satan (better Angels? What better Angels?) would imagine such a way of life. One would have to quiet down and slow down to enjoy Great Nature in such a fashion. Would life still be worth living without the culture wars, without something to hate?

A core objective of degrowth is to reduce society’s overall material and energy throughput to a level that respects planetary boundaries and allows for ecological regeneration. Could modernity survive in a world with less consumption of material goods? Our TESCREAL fantasist leaders would rather turn the solar system into a machine where they would play their games for eternity. The goal is to harness all the energy in the galaxy and transform everything into a Big, Beautiful Machine. If the Big Beautiful Bill prioritizes spending for that, it will pass into eternity.

Tech Bros, anarcho-capitalists, and our deluded, idiotic, dark-tetrade leaders would rather drive rapid civilizational collapse. It’s more exciting. It’s what God or Reason wants.

Unlike recession, collapse, or The Big Beautiful Machine, degrowth is envisioned as a planned and democratic transition, aiming for a just and participatory society that is ecologically sustainable. That can never be allowed! There’s no money in it. Volatility and liquidity are what’s needed to win.

Our leaders despise democracy and justice because their primary concern is outdoing their competitors and achieving a monopoly status, where they can devise clever ways of charging rents until complex living systems give way to the Big Beautiful Machine. Winning, measured by profit, is their only objective. They work for status, not people, and are utterly blind to Great Nature other than as a thing that provides entertainment or ephemeral feelings that their indoctrination has not completely suppressed into the cult of capitalism. Even a view of the Grand Canyon or the love of a child comes with a price tag attached to it.

Degrowth advocates for policies such as a universal basic income, work-sharing, expanded public services, and a shift in taxation from income to resource and energy use — a resource and energy-wise economy, which is unimaginable and a grotesque abomination to the Players. Our leaders would rather fight a strategic nuclear war with their rivals than entertain such ideas. Any conceptions that would curtail their rivalrous, bellicose competition over control of energy and resources are anathema to them.

I am not a fan of economics, but it’s essential to explore and understand the domain because it’s central to our modern techno-industrial way of life.

Herman Daly is widely credited with bringing steady-state economics (SSE) to prominence. The concept has roots in earlier economic thought and has been developed by other influential figures. John Stuart Mill, for example, discussed a “stationary state” in his “Principles of Political Economy”. Other economists who have contributed to the understanding and development of SSE include Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen , Robert Ayres, Robert Solow, and Joseph Stiglitz.

SSE envisions an economy that operates within the Earth’s ecological limits by maintaining a stable, but not static, level of population and per capita consumption. It is often seen as the stable state that a degrowth process would ultimately aim to achieve.

Economists must continually grasp at mass-produced straws, or they’d be out of a job.

Daly defines an SSE as an economy with “constant stocks of people and artifacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by low rates of maintenance throughput.” Some form of government, I suppose, would enforce, democratically, a balance of birth and death rates to maintain a relatively constant population size. Sweet. What might that population be? Could this work with a population of one billion, for example? Who knows? Presumably, we’d have to do the numbers and crunch the big data to find out. Then we’d have to find a way towards a world with fewer people—a sinful prospect.

The overall material and energy throughput — the flow of resources from extraction to waste — is kept at a sustainable level. SSE does not focus on zero production but instead on production that prioritizes maintenance, durability, and qualitative improvements over endless quantitative growth. What government would adopt SSE in this “multipolar trap” of a world? How would we coordinate an economy like SSE across rivalrous nation-states, where Uncle Sam would rather continue raiding and warring rather than collaborating? Neocolonialism is the reason the staff get up in the morning.

And don’t you know, SSE is not stagnant? Like a mature forest, it is a living system that can change, develop, and improve qualitatively over time. It can evolve, but its overall physical scale remains relatively constant and within ecological carrying capacity. Innovation would focus on efficiency, resource reuse, and extending product lifespans. That would have been great had we decided to do this in the 19th century, but alas, our species would rather conquer nature and death through Big Gods or technology than recognize limits to growth.

I apologize for being so cynical. I wasn’t always like this, but I can’t see enough interest in such values in the world.

The core values and functions of a steady-state economy are deeply rooted in ecological and ethical considerations, contrasting sharply with the values of a growth-oriented economy. I imagine Floki from the series Vikings on an illimitable plane, hoping people will change because he’s seen the light. All we need to do is focus on understanding Great Nature, and we can keep some of our toys.

Our global yet local communities will be indefinitely sustainable, ensuring that human economic activity does not deplete natural resources or exceed the planet’s assimilative capacity for waste. Our benevolent, living systems-informed stewardship will protect the long-term health of ecosystems and life-support services while still allowing us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Our smartphones will be wise and not at all distracting as we focus on our local communities and familial relationships, interdependent with Great Nature.

By now, the business-as-usual crowd is thoroughly disgusted. Our brave leaders and their staff are thinking I must be writing this on a sailboat with Greta Thunberg on my way to support terrorists who are fighting against terrorists, and, due to my feeling that genocide is a terrible crime, I am completely absorbed into the social justice cult.

A level of production and consumption that is “enough” to provide a high quality of life for all sounds like an evil communist plot. Focusing on non-material aspects of well-being, such as community, relationships, health, and leisure, is too hippy for the catwalk. What am I smoking?

The Players would rather depopulate the planet through war than waste GDP on making a gulag big enough for people if this idea ever caught on.

A steady-state economy, promoting a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources, is unthinkable for people committed to outperforming their rivals. The pie must grow by exploiting the galaxy’s resources. It’s not that hard. We can build the Dyson sphere by 2030. Alleviating poverty through redistribution and ensuring a fair allocation of resources and opportunities runs counter to our nature as conquerors. Policies such as minimum and maximum incomes or progressive taxation are unthinkable. Life is suffering; only the strong survive.

Circular economy principles, maximizing the lifespan of products, shifting towards renewable energy sources, and getting more service from less throughput. Fantasies, all fantasies! Quality over quantity and ecological interdependence are contrary to everything we know about human supremacy and our functional destinies as apex predators, children of big God, science, engineering, reason, and technology. You might as well stop playing The Great Game and die. We are not animals! We are human beings! It’s better to spend all of our resources arming ourselves for a global conflagration with “bad guys” than invest in social services and a completely different kind of electrical grid. Shareholders must own all housing so they can charge rents and control the resources needed to fight this great battle of good versus evil.

Maintaining a stable population and resource consumption, minimizing waste generation and pollution, redefining measures of progress, allocating resources within limits, promoting durable goods and services that support sustainable livelihoods and local economies, and investing in qualitative development are tantamount to defeatism.

For our pathological world leaders, the combination of degrowth as a transition strategy and the steady-state economy as a long-term goal and a compelling alternative to the current growth-addicted economic model is impossible to entertain. A future where humanity thrives within planetary boundaries, prioritizing well-being, equity, and ecological health over endless accumulation, leading to a peaceful world where people understand their place within complex living systems. A miraculous planet where we continue to evolve with all creatures, great and small, is a world devoid of meaning.

The masses will continue to believe ancient stories and follow whimsical new belief systems crafted by men seeking power through false enlightenment. We will create new beliefs concerning conquest, pain, suffering, and great drama, addicted to those things that provide some relief until The Great Bang or The Long Whimper decides our fate.

I’m sad that I feel this way. I wish I had more faith in people. There are too few people in the world who envision a radically different way of life, let alone those who would sacrifice themselves to create a better world.

We are mostly passive witnesses to modern fossil-fueled techno-industrial neoliberal financialised capitalist consumer culture without the wherewithal or power to choose something else.

Are we not entertained?

What will be will be.