The constant, misguided attention to growth

Our value system is askew. We can’t keep consuming more and more, growing GDP higher and higher.

https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/how-government-stimulus-kept-people-spending

We shouldn’t want to.

The Great Cessation of the spring of 2020 could be viewed as a degrowth model.

Of course, unfortunately, it was a function of illness, loss of life, loss of employment. A percentage of the population was subject to that kind of pain. But for many others there was a temporary quality of life improvement. The roads were less congested. The misery of commuting to work was alleviated. The scurrying around to Do More and Consume More was restrained. There were a couple of months that seemed like an oasis — home-based, quieter, simpler. Time was saved and money was saved.

Being so smart, scientific, high-tech, surely we can find a way to do that without the context of illness, loss of life, loss of employment.

David Watson: “Going in the other direction means the renewal of subsistence cultures, creating a life that is slower, quieter, and more contemplative. It means revivifying an aesthetic not of the assembly line but of the forest, and restoring a life that can hear what the natural world is telling us, what we once knew long ago and have forgotten as the urban labyrinth grew up around us and enclosed us. Industrial modernity has been an aberration, a nightmarish turn from our true journey.”

The challenge now is to find ways to deconstruct it, to generally scale back and restore sanity.

Some had a taste of the degrowth alternative last spring and it was sweet.