A Glimpse of a World Beyond

The Future is Degrowth recommends practical proposals for degrowth while at the same time suggesting what Ernst Bloch, of all writers dead or living, called a “concrete utopia.” Bloch was a visionary whose masterwork The Principle of Hope defended the notion that “everyone lives in the future” ([1956] 1998, 4). One need not agree with everything Schmelzer et al. say to be impressed that they quote him. This is an expanded edition of a book written by three German authors in 2019, with the help of British doctoral candidate Aaron Vansintjan, and of European academic associations and reading groups. Its aim is “building a future for all beyond capitalism” (ix). Its starting point is that “it is feasible to live well without growth and to make society more just, democratic, and truly prosperous on the way” (4). This is not a Green New Deal proposal, though it does argue that “while Green New Deal proposals tend to emphasize this investment push and the growth of everything sustainable, degrowth also and at least as rigorously puts the focus on the many things that will have to go” (9). The term “degrowth” stands in opposition to the term “growth,”which is generally taken to mean economic growth, although in an early chapter the connotations of “growth,” understood broadly, are explored: