"Manifesto of the Italian Degrowth Network
There is a myth that lay at the root of the social imaginary in the last century and
which even today constitutes the background common to modern political ideologies,
whether on the Left or on the Right: it is the myth of growth. This belief, to which the
idea of unlimited growth is linked, has brought with it the requirement to maximise
production, comsumption and profit, leading us to today’s religion of the global market.
This system of thought is based on, and at the same time reproduces, an image of
the human being as a “homo economicus”: a subject without ties, a rational, utlitarian
individualist, orientated towards maximising his own interests and increasing his own
wealth as a monetary, generic, universal power; he is a subject who finds himself by
chance immersed in an environment seen as the “outside world” to exploit and bend to
his own ends, in a ceaseless growth of his own power to have things and other living
creatrures at his disposal."
http://www.decrescita.it/modules/articl ... le.php/a45
It seems to me that degrowth economics is only possible in a world of degrowth population. That is, the population must be allowed to drop, not continue to rise.