Beyond Growth Platform for beyond-growth Europe!
By FYEG BGP Members
Making the shift to a post-growth future
It is becoming increasingly clear to younger generations across Europe that the current economic system is failing them. Previous generations grew with the belief that economic growth is good for society. Today, this simply does not reflect reality. Accommodation, food, and energy bills have soared, incomes have remained stagnant, and state social support has declined. However, due to long-entrenched neoliberalist ideals, the promise of prosperity through continued growth has persisted. This is not an accident, but the necessary condition for the continued profit accumulation in a situation of social and ecological limits to growth, commodifying and marketising numerous spheres of life.
The economic expansion experienced by older generations came at the cost of environmental degradation and exacerbated inequalities between the Global North and South, perpetuating a colonial system based on resource extraction and human exploitation. In fact, the industrial growth in Europe and the subsequent expansion and industrialisation of its colonies were significantly facilitated by the pattern of appropriating raw materials, natural resources, and labour from the Global South through what has been named as ecological unequal exchange. Even following the withdrawal of colonial forces, the structures of the colonial economy endures, sustaining growth in the North through the continued appropriation, exploitation, and oppression of the South.
The ecological crisis and escalating global and local inequalities confronting us today have brought the role of growth into focus. These crises endanger the future and aspirations of younger generations and individuals who advocate for a livable planet where both present and future generations can thrive together with nature. This highlights the urgent need to transform our current socioeconomic system into one that prioritises human and environmental wellbeing.
While the prevailing growth paradigm remains largely unchallenged by political institutions at European and national levels, younger generations are beginning to envision alternative realities and systems. Organisations like Friends of the Earth Europe have formulated a set of seven transformative steps for a new European economy, advocating for principles of democratic and participatory economic governance, solidarity in international trade practices, and the ensuring of human wellbeing within Earth’s ecological boundaries.
The momentum surrounding degrowth and post-growth concepts also made an impact within the Green political sphere. Increasing discussions and debates within the Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) have led to the inception of the Beyond Growth Platform (BGP). More than a year after its formal inception, the BGP serves as a link connecting activists across Europe with the aim of transitioning from an economic growth paradigm centred on profit accumulation for a select few, to a broader paradigm that prioritises the wellbeing of all life on the planet. The need to foster reflective spaces within and beyond organisations and social movements has been a core element in these initial steps.
Based on the current overwhelming gap between scientific evidence and policy implementation, the task at hand is ultimately to convince political institutions at all levels to abandon the illusion of both unfettered capitalism and green growth, considering sufficiency and the satisfaction of human needs within planetary boundaries their key goal. Instead of building alliances with corporate capitalism and the fossil sector and fostering their fairytale technological dreaming, our institutions should urgently stop perpetuating “business as usual” scenarios that are deepening the ecosocial crisis we are currently experiencing. This entails, for instance, the challenge of authentically discussing policies that do not perpetuate a growth-centred approach, but instead prioritise sustainability and justice for all, addressing the impacts of an “imperial mode of living” – a way of living at the expense of others – which results in suffering for both human and non-human beings locally and globally.
This mission may seem daunting, but cracks in the status quo are becoming increasingly evident. Grassroots organisations are already spearheading initiatives like cooperatives, animal sanctuaries, urban gardens, and repair cafes beyond the imperatives of wealth accumulation. Growth is far from the panacea promised by growth-driven institutions, and alternatives are not only possible, but desirable. It is possible to up-scale these lived realities, supporting courageous green candidates to run at all levels to shift policies and discourses in favour of post-growth, building bridges with social movements and engaging in transformative practice in everyday life. Post-growth allows us to collectively build and imagine exciting and hopeful futures in which we will live better and our communities will be stronger. A future society that will live within planetary boundaries respecting every living being on the planet and leaving no one behind.
