Just before the summer, I participated in actions organised by GrowthKills and Scientist Rebellion calling for degrowth policies at the EU level. I'm often frustrated by the conversations I have about degrowth, so when I was asked to write an article about those actions for Rete Radiè Resch I reproduced the typical chat that I have, but with a lot less swearing. You can find the original Italian article (including references) here and the English version below.

It is Saturday the 8th June and I am with a good friend, Tom, at a self-managed café here in Brussels, La Vielle Chechette.

- Hi Sebastian!

- Hi Tom! I already got you a beer.

- You know me too well, thanks! So, how's it going? What have you been up to recently?

- Yesterday with other activists I glued my hand to the entrance of the European Commission building. We did it to demand realistic policies that really tackle the ecological and social crisis, that is degrowth policies.

- How boring! Of course you couldn't go out drinking like a normal person, no, you had to do your eco-terrorist crap!

- Well, I did it in the morning, but I had time for a beer in the evening!

- And what do you hope to achieve by gluing yourselves to the doors of institutions or damaging valuable paintings in museums? All you do is polarise and make people hate you!

- We hope to get people talking about what really matters! If we didn't do these actions, people wouldn't talk about climate, ecology, social justice outside of very small circles. Think of the tomato soup action on Van Gogh's Sunflowers: whole world talked about it! (Sidenote: neither that painting nor the others targeted by activists were ever damaged) How many times did you hear people say: “I agree that the climate crisis is serious, but I don't agree with these methods!” These people would never have expressed their concern about climate change if that action had not forced them to think about it. Moreover, radical narratives pushed by activists provoke more radical debates and policies, which we urgently need. Think of the increasingly violent language that is spreading with the rise of extreme right-wingers: ‘centrist’ politicians do not counter it, in fact, they imitate it more and more! Activists use similar tactics but for good! What’s more, the Climate Emergency Fund exclusively finances radical, disruptive protest movements, because they have realised that this offers them the best return on their investment.

- I haven't even had time to taste my beer and you are already lecturing me! But what good is all this if you don't inform people?

- Well, if you weren't so fixated on criticising protest methods, I would gladly talk to you about degrowth. Are you interested?

- Even if I'm not interested you'll still explain it to me, so I might as well pretend. Anyway, I know something about degrowth: you think the only way to solve the ecological crisis is to go back to living on trees, right?

- Bloody hell, are you trying to impersonate a boomer on purpose? No, degrowth states that consuming and producing more and more, with the aim of growing GDP, will inevitably lead to the collapse of our globalised civilisation. We live on a planet with limited resources - plants, minerals, soil, air - so obviously we cannot exploit them faster than they take to regenerate.

- But why are you against economic growth? Are you against progress? Growth is the natural goal of mankind. We have always aimed to do better, whether it is to reduce infant mortality or, more trivially, to send more and more targeted advertisements on the web. To be against growth is not only impossible, because nobody wants it, but it is also immoral. Do you want to condemn billions of people to remain in poverty? No, what we need is green growth: growing more while reducing the environmental impact of economic activities to zero.

- Please Tom, I don't have all night and you have told me such a load of b**s that I don't even know where to start replying!

- You know I do it to hone your arguments! Start anywhere you like and we'll see where we get to....

- Point one: ‘economic growth’ is not synonymous with ‘improvement’ or ‘progress’. Many things we produce are harmful to us and to nature. Think of PFAS, such as Teflon, which are used to make non-stick pans: the company 3M agreed to pay $10.3 billion to end the lawsuits filed against it, lawsuits that claimed 3M knew PFAS caused cancer, developmental malformations and other health problems. Or think about opioids, legal synthetic drugs that kill tens of thousands of people in the US every year and are creeping over into Europe. Producing PFAS and opioids also boosts GDP, but does that sound like progress to you?

- OK, I admit it, you're right....

- Yeah. And I want to believe that we are intelligent enough to be able to choose between what promotes human prosperity and what hinders it. I also think that, given the right conditions, we are perfectly capacle of deciding together what we really need and what is superfluous. We don't have to ‘live on trees’, as you say, unless you want to.

- I guess you activists wouldn't mind! You’ll jump at any opportunity to climb trees to save them...

- Oh, piss off, but yes, I would. Point two: poverty and misery result from political choices, e.g. the choice to keep taxes low for the wealthy and corporations. We have more than enough resources to meet everyone's basic needs. I admit that if we had more wealth, we could satisfy these needs while tolerating inequalities, but that would be a very long process. Someone calculated that it would take a century to eradicate poverty through economic growth. At the end of that century, the economy would be 15 times bigger than in 2010! Do you realise how unsustainable such an economy is? Besides, this would not stop the growth of inequality, because the rich benefit more from economic growth than the poor.

- Good point, and extreme right-wingers would not be so powerful if there was not such a huge disparity between rich and poor. Fascists are masters of exploiting inequality and the anger it produces.

- We have finally found a point of agreement! I come to point three: green growth does not exist! All economic activity has an impact on the environment and, unless it is aimed at regenerating an area, this impact is negative. The idea that one can ‘decouple’ economic activity from environmental damage has a very shakey theoretical basis and no empirical evidence. Unfortunately, many people prefer to delude themselves that technology will save us, despite all the evidence to the contrary!

- OK, let's say you are right. But the fact is that the wealth of the privileged allows them to consume beyond what the planet can afford, so degrowth theory requires the wealthiest to voluntarily give up their unsustainable lifestyle: what kind of world do you live in where Elon Musk would voluntarily give up his wealth and power? You would need a violent revolution!

- Finally a sensible criticism! You are right, the rich are mostly blind to the damage their lifestyle inflicts on the world. They will never give up their wealth without a fight. They are also much more powerful than us degrowthers, who refuse to use violent or undemocratic methods. But can I at least dream a little? Can you allow me some morsels of hope, however desparate? I spend most of my waking hours imagining exactly how society will collapse: will I suffer food shortages first or chaos when the power grid crippled is by storms? Will my Italian family have to emigrate here to Belgium when the Po Valley becomes deserted? At least with my belief in degrowth I can imagine a world where work, when it exists, is joyful and technology is convivial and at the service of the common good. A world where I no longer have to see scenes of human misery every time I pass by a central train station. I try not only to protest, but also to put this dream into practice. I do this by supporting new forms of community based on solidarity, care and self-sufficiency. In fact, I will soon go to Alcamo in Sicily to witness the creation of one such community*. But I have no illusions - these realities are drops of hope in an ocean of despair.

- ...

- Another beer?

- Make that five!

* At the time of writing, that community has been evicted. However, I have no doubt that their story will continue...

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