this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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A long term stagnating economy and especially a shrinking one would be considered an economic disaster anyway. The key is to avoid social problems due to shrinking the economy. There are plenty of ways of doing that, but propably the most important one is to limit working hours. That means earlier retirment, less hours worked per week and more vacation. All of that are things mandated by countries before. With a globally stagnant population that might very well happen. In fact you see falling working hours in Europe over decades.
The biggest issue is the rhetoric of degrowth economics faces is the idea that a sinking tide lowers all boats. The entire economic industry will come out against it. Even now, economists oppose sustainability because it restricts growth (though they do so without evidence and in opposition to the idea of competition, but who cares about that).
It comes from experience for a lot of poor voters, that policy changes tend to hurt them and help the rich. Unfortunatly that is not without reason.
I've sat on a meeting in a big corporation where one of the middle managers straight up said that if you're not growing as a company, you are stagnating. How that math works in the long run was not covered.
That's what we're up against.