The term "degrowth" has emerged within ecological and other heterodox
schools of economics as a critique of the idea (and ideology) of
economic growth. Instead, degrowth advocates a contraction of economies
by reducing production and consumption, arguing that it is possible to
do so without reducing prosperity or wellbeing. One might see in the
degrowth community a resurgence of a radical theoretical and political
variant of environmentalism, or "ecologism," based on the key premise
that there are, and that there must be, "limits to growth."
While this is an old idea, the recent degrowth literature has given it
new shape by bringing different disciplines and schools of thought
together in formulating its core critiques and propositions. Degrowth is
the interdisciplinary theory, or science, of ecologism and the aim of
this book is to summarize its core elements in a brief, succinct, and
simple form. It grounds degrowth squarely within the field of ecological
economics and, in addition to outlining its key ideas, explores what it
would take for an economy to transition to a position that enabled it to
prosper without growth.