Rethinking Economic Growth: Achieving Ecological Goals through Collective Action

🌍 Our consumer-based societies are depleting the planet's resources at an unsustainable rate.

📆 Earth overshoot day, when ecological resources are exhausted, is occurring earlier each year.

💡 The problem lies in the underlying economic system, with production driving overconsumption.

Capitalism and consumerism emerged as the dominant economic system after World War II, leading to an exponential increase in human impact on the planet.

The de-politicization of consumption and the emphasis on individual consumer choices have allowed businesses to maintain economic stability and increase profits.

Strategies such as planned obsolescence and advertising techniques exploit emotions and social pressures to encourage excessive buying and create perceived obsolescence.

💡 Planned obsolescence and exclusivity create demand for continuous buying of luxury goods.

🌍 Even fundamental needs such as healthcare, transportation, and housing have been commodified and privatized, leading to increased costs and the need for constant work.

👥 Consumerism in affluent countries externalizes the social and ecological costs of growth onto communities in the global South.

🌐 Factors such as colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism contribute to the unequal distribution of wealth and resources between the North and the South.

🌍 The global economic system prioritizes fast fashion and tech gadgets over meeting domestic human needs for housing, food, healthcare, and education.

⚖️ The relationship between the global North and South is characterized by unequal exchange, with the North draining the South of resources and labor at unjustifiably low prices.

💡 The solution lies in decolonizing the global economy, pursuing economic sovereignty, and organizing production around meeting domestic needs rather than serving Northern growth.

🌍 Our obsession with economic growth is damaging the planet and hindering progress towards a just and sustainable society.

🛒 Consumers need to consume differently, including reducing carbon-intensive goods, as part of a social movement.

🔄 Focusing on individual action alone is insufficient; collective action and political engagement are crucial to address the systemic issues of consumerism and a growth-oriented economic model.

📈 Despite massive investments in clean energy and green growth in South Korea, emissions increased by nearly 12 percent over five years.

🌍 The theory of degrowth suggests that rich nations should scale down less necessary forms of production and focus on improving sectors like healthcare and public transportation.

🛠️ By reorganizing production around meeting human needs and shortening the working week, it's possible to slow down excess production in rich nations and eliminate unemployment.

🌍 Maintaining full employment is essential in a degrowth scenario, and public job guarantees can be used to ensure participation in collective projects for renewable energy, ecosystem regeneration, and house retrofitting.

📈 Economic growth should not be the sole focus, as inequalities in consumption exist globally and overconsumption in the global North coexists with underconsumption in the global South.

🔄 The failure to address climate change and ecological breakdown is a result of the underlying economic system that prioritizes growth. Without systemic change, climate breakdown will worsen.