Décroissance

I seem to have started a collection of examples of anti-growth thinking from around the world. In France evidently a term for it is “décroissance”. There is even a website for the school of thought. Unfortunately I cannot read French so I cannot talk about it directly.

However, I notice that Serge Latouche, an emeritus professor at the University of Paris-Sud, has written several pieces along these lines including in Le Monde Diplomatique. His January 2006 piece contained several more synonyms for growth scepticism or related ideas including downshifting, anti-productivism, requalified development and sustainable development. It defines décroissance as “the replacement of economic growth with a steady downscaling in production levels to bring human use of the planet’s resources back within sustainable limits.”