Post-growth thinking is a branch of economic theory that draws attention to the fact that exponential economic growth within the finite resources of our planet is impossible without dire consequences for both people and the environment. While economic growth offers benefits in terms of improving quality of life, post-growth (de-growth) thinkers also emphasize that beyond a certain point it is detrimental to both human well-being and the planet. One of the pioneers of economics who considers human scale and allows prosperity without reliance on uninhibited growth, was the economist Fritz Schumacher, the author of Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered (1973). More recently, in his Prosperity Without Growth, based on research for the UK Sustainable Development Commission, Professor Tim Jackson argues that “either we must progressively squeeze the material content out of economic expansion, so that we can continue to grow our economies without trashing the planet, or we must learn to find prosperity without relying on economic growth to deliver it for us”.(2),(1-4)
POST-GROWTH ECONOMY
