What does Degrowth mean? Some comments on Jason Hickel’s ‘A few points of clarification’

ABSTRACT

In a recent edition of Globalizations Jason Hickel made three main points towards clarifying the discussion of Degrowth. His contribution reinforced some important elements in the Degrowth claim, especially the fact that it is in no way to be identified with recession, and that there is a vast amount of evidence against the belief that growth of GDP can be decoupled from growth in resource consumption. However, I want to argue against his perspective on distinguishing between Degrowth and reducing the GDP, his conception of Degrowth, and whether the Third World should be exempt from it.

KEYWORDS:

• Degrowth
• third world development
• alternative development
• the simpler way

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Ted Trainer

Ted Trainer is a retired lecturer from the School of Social Work, University of New South Wales. He has written numerous books and articles on sustainability and is developing Pigface Point, an alternative lifestyle educational site near Sydney. His website is https://thesimplerway.info.