Scientists at the University of Colorado have recently proposed to start preparing society for deactivation. And that is, the forecasts point out that economic growth in rich countries will slow down considerably: because the population ages, because the economy moves from a productive system to a system of services, because public and private debt is unsustainable ... For researchers, our time, of continuous economic growth, has been nothing but a historical anomaly. Starting with the industrial revolution and giving its last breath to our eyes. This is the most violent economic growth in human history.

The contribution of green technologies is not enough to overcome the ecological collapse it has created. The potential of all low-carbon technologies has been analysed, and the most optimistic expansion of these technologies would not be sufficient to meet projected energy demand by 2050. Degrowth is therefore a solution that society can consciously choose.

D. University of Houston According to economic researcher Vollrath, the progress in human well-being itself has led to a drop in economic growth. Indeed, the advancement of women in rights has led to a decrease in the birth rate and, therefore, in the labour force; and the increase in material goods has led to a shift towards the service economy. So if degrowth is caused by advances in human well-being, why understand it as a threat?

Researchers in Colorado believe that the problem or the opportunity, the slowdown, will bring important economic and social challenges, and that if not prepared, it can have harsh consequences. To begin with, in rich countries, this generation will be the first to have less wealth than its parents.

We asked the economist Amaia Pérez Orozco, the anthropologist Xabi Odriozola Ezeitza and the architect Miren Vives Urbieta about the opportunities and challenges that deceleration can bring.

A life that is not sustained “We
will inevitably learn to live with less. Using less matter, using less energy and generating less waste. There will be a metabolic deceleration, yes or yes. It’s not something we can choose from,” explains Amaia Pérez Orozco, economist at Collective XXK. “What’s at stake is how it’s going to be done, if we want to organize better and live better.”

Because Pérez believes that we have a very limited and unfair view of the economy. “We have to see that our current life is aimed at accumulating goods, but not well-being. And accumulation demands that the others be unavoidably withdrawn. Removing resources from those at the other end of the planet, stealing well-being from future generations… And also taking away life time from others, because to keep pace with working life we cannot do the care of life itself. We cannot adequately care for family members and relatives. These basic tasks must be performed by another person, consuming the lives of others. It is not a lifestyle that sustains itself.”

“We need a new economic organization,” says Pérez. “Half of the work performed in society is done outside the market: for example, these care tasks. We cannot continue to despise and ignore all this work. Surveillance requires energy and time. The new economic organization, perhaps unpaid, must encompass all the processes necessary to maintain life. The present makes life unhealthy.”

Human well-being has little to do with the accumulation of wealth. Research shows that social relationships, education, life satisfaction, work-life balance, commitments to society... It is important for society to reconsider what human well-being is, because with the slowdown it may happen that wage work is not for everyone. Reduce weekly working hours and share work together. I could ask for the restructuring of our lives.

“We will have to completely reorganize the work,” says Pérez. “First we have to think about what is necessary. But not who allows greater growth in gross domestic product, but we must clarify what jobs are necessary to live well as a society. Industry and technology do not solve everything. Perhaps we will need more work from the health system, from caring for dependents, to make the primary sector sustainable…”.

“And for me, what is key to this debate is to think about new ways to compensate for the social services we receive from citizens. Why do we link social rights to paid work and social security contributions? Perhaps the health system and pensions should be universal rights. That is, I would say that the decommercialization of life is a way to prepare for growth and collectivize the structures necessary to sustain life.”

“How can
this be sustained in currency? Perhaps we should ask ourselves how we have sustained these markets so far, rendering all surveillance work invisible and marginalized. And the second question is how we want to do it from now on. Then we'll look at how we can support all of this in currency. This cannot be the first question,” Pérez says.

“It is also economically viable. But to do so, we have to take power and resources away from corporate power. How? With profound fiscal reform. We must pursue tax fraud and tax havens and change the taxation of large companies, which hardly pay anything. We can raise corporate taxes, big currency taxes, wealth taxes, and establish a real and progressive income tax so that those who have a lot pay proportionally … Getting money is not a real problem. The same amount of money that the Basque Government has requested from European funds would be obtained if the tax burden here is only equal to the EU average”.

“But the key is to start a political process. Society must demand it. Because if we do it from the beliefs and from the current structure, where power and decision are held by big companies and corporations, because we're not going to get anywhere. As it is now, if we launched such a tax reform, some companies would decide to leave. But this is a political struggle, which we citizens have to start from political pressure. For me, the real question is the ability to exert collective pressure. Are we ready?”

Capitalism is mutating “So
unsustainable is the current economic organization that capitalism has already begun to mutate by itself,” says Pérez. “One of the mutations that we will see is that there will be a process of deglobalisation. Pandemic has shown that this globalized hyperconnected world is also hyper-fragile. Global supply chains have also been at risk. More local processes will therefore tend to take place. Such large and complex systems have drowned in their grandeur. If we do not anticipate and do not exert political pressure, capitalism will take advantage of the slowdown process in its favor.”

It says that we must discourage not only the environment, social and economic factors, but also sovereignty and democracy: “When financial circuits are too big, you can’t understand them. And how are you going to think? They must be left to those who believe they understand. No, to be able to intervene economically in our country’s politics we need a closer economy.” Because welfare has a lot to do with social and political participation.

We'll put resistance.
The process may not be easy. We know that the life of the rich countries is not sustainable and is absolutely unfair to other countries, but it will be very difficult for us to give up this supposed privileged life. We're going to put a lot of resistance, according to the researchers. Therefore, the key to starting the decline is to look at its roots resistencia.Los
researchers believe that men may feel more threatened in the slowdown. Hence one of the main resistance to change can arise. Because there is probably no paid work for everyone, and historically, professional work, and the social status that is achieved through it, has given men the perception of personal value. Thus, they believe that they can have an identity crisis, to the point of feeling nostalgia for patriarchal social structures.

“In capitalist patriarchal society, man has been assigned the role of producer, of material supplier. The family has had to bring the things it needs for physical maintenance, following the habit. The salary, after all,” says anthropologist Xabi Odriozola Ezeitza. He has been driving men for almost forty years and making men see the influence of patriarchy. “We have been educated and raised in these roles as producers, suppliers, sponsors, dominators... When it produces things, society has recognized and applauded man and has taken advantage of his male identity to build it firmly. And when you can't play that role, you get cracks in your male identity. It feels close to the failed man model.”

“Therefore, if we want men to accept a decline in patriarchal capitalism, we will have to bear in mind how we are going to dismantle the ingrained from this scheme of male growth. Because, if not, you can understand that deceleration will bring you its “deseizure”. After a close and hard education to assume these roles as men, expropriation of these roles requires a new process. Therefore, before growth we should start a process of degrowth,” says Odriozola. “In this process of demolition men have to see that their lives make sense not because of what they do, but because of what they have not been born; because they are whole and valuable people. They must find their courage and offer them a non-sexist education. Otherwise, we will always find an inexpugnable wall in men to give up what have achieved great resistance. Unconsciously, because they will feel: “They will not slow me down, because they will bring my disaster. Everything I have rarely achieved will undo.”

Odriozola believes that to take this step we should be outside capitalism. “I have been working with men for many years, laying the foundations of male demolition, and capitalism is not to crush attempts, because capitalism needs men, obsessed in that materialistic and sexist production chain. We have to build a new socio-economic structure that allows human beings to understand us in human values and beyond the devastating values of that productive structure.”

“However, in this economic system not only is man in crisis, but man. Women's rights have not been recognized; young people are in crisis because nobody takes them seriously as whole people; and older people too because society does not value their knowledge, their contribution. The same with people of color, migrants and indigenous”.

Productive urbanism and transport

Just as our need for continued economic growth has conditioned our existence, all our social structures have emerged under their dogma. Cities and the transport network itself are closely related to the current productive vision. These are functionalist and fragmented urban models, organized primarily on the basis of four mono-functional areas: working areas (industrial sites), residential areas, recreation areas (large commercial areas) and a powerful network of mobility roads based on private vehicles. This totally affects people's lives.

It is also time to look for new models. The architect Miren Vives Urbieta proposes the naturalization of urban spaces and the transformation of public spaces into spaces of human relation. Design an inclusive urbanism that sees the keys to quality of life.

“Blue and green spaces are an indispensable resource for the protection and promotion of health and well-being. For example, now, due to German flooding, the renaturalisation of urban areas has become a key piece across Europe. The waterproofing of the plot caused the death of 200 people as a result of the rain. Therefore, in urban areas the use of concrete has been minimized and a strong movement in favor of soil permeability has been generated. Grass and soil are reintroduced. It's going to be a boom."

“And as social animals, urban spaces must be designed to meet the need for socialization of people, with comfortable seating everywhere, with large tables, shaded trees, large rain-shelters, toilets, structures that allow playing, grass, sand, bicycle parking…”.

Vives asserts that the productive management of the cities brings to the center the excluded care tasks and integrate them into the design of the urban areas. For example, children can reclaim the street to play freely. Or the creation of small community facilities in the neighborhood: for example, the creation of dining rooms or meeting points for the elderly in empty spaces.

But for all of this to work really, the key is to remove the dispersed structure from cities. “Now neighborhoods are not autonomous or complete. These monofocal and empty areas are not attractive. What we like human beings is to meet and share them with other human beings. Therefore, the key is to create multifunctional structures in smaller nuclei. “Thus, in the neighborhood and within a kilometer radius, people would have the services needed to meet their needs. Walking or cycling.” This would reduce urban energy consumption and significantly improve air quality.

“We do not value it enough, but in Euskal Herria many peoples are of unbeatable size. Especially in Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia,” says Vives. “Unlike what is happening in Europe, we are in a very good situation to work on that neighborhood or country scale. But it is important not to close the shops of the towns. Otherwise everything will be lost. Just as official housing is created, official protection or hospitality stores should be set up if the neighborhood needs it.”

However, this reorganisation cannot demand that more be built. So far, towns and cities have grown steadily because construction was a way to finance themselves. Nor should old buildings be demolished. “The key is the rehabilitation of buildings and the densification of some already built neighborhoods: Well isolate the old working-class housing of the 1970s, install solar panels and attach a beautiful prefabricated terrace. It’s a strong model that comes from Europe.”

Mobility networks should also be reviewed: “They must be public transport. Your own vehicle is not sustainable.”

Along with decadence, significant challenges will arise in urbanism, economy and anthropology. The future will tell whether they have served to live better.

(The original of this article has been published in Elhuyar magazine and we brought it to ARGIA with your license)