Latouche's The Territory Of De-Growth

In the past 300 years the world has seen a globalized market and unprecedented growth. While quality of life has skyrocketed across the world, new challenges have arisen. Serge LaTouche, a French economist, states that geometric economic growth cannot be sustained forever in his chapter “The Territory of De-Growth” from his book Farewell to Growth, calling for controlled economic growth to ensure a successful future. In the chapter “The Territory of De-Growth”, Latouche distinguishes the difference between his proposed de-growth and negative growth by defining de-growth as abandoning “the goal of exponential growth” (LaTouche 8). The goal of de-growth is to “build a society in which we can live better lives whilst working less and consuming less.” By defining the term, Latouche sets up his argument that …show more content…
While he suggests small scale changes such as restricting advertising and promoting local businesses as opposed to global, controlling the growth of an economy would require putting more power in the hands of the government and would take away freedoms from citizens, similar to communism. Controlling the amount a population consumes would require the government be in control of the things the population is consuming. A corrupt government could withhold resources from businesses it does agree with for the sake of “degrowth”. Serge Latouche’s argument regarding degrowth is valid in regards to a long-term model of global consumption since current levels in developed countries cannot be sustained in a finite world. However, economic change may not be necessary due to the fact that the growth of the electricity usage is falling while the economy is staying at normal levels. In theory, degrowth could solve increasing consumption levels indefinitely but implementing a degrowth based economy presents near impossible