The dangerous myth of degrowth

Britain is beset by low productivity and stagnant growth, and things are not getting better. In the public sector, productivity stands at 7.4 per cent lower than it did before the pandemic. Until we can generate more growth in the economy, we cannot grow richer and real wages cannot grow.

An uncontroversial statement, you might think – even if opinions vary on what to do about it. But no. There are people who genuinely don’t want economic growth, who think it an evil that must be ended. Take a comment piece published late last year in the normally sober pages of the scientific journal Nature. Under the title ‘Degrowth Can Work’, it declared that: ‘Wealthy economies should abandon growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as a goal, scale down destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use, and focus economic activity around securing human needs and wellbeing.