1.
Towards a Political Economy of Postgrowth
Prof. Dr. André Reichel
International School of Management | ISM
www.andrereichel.de

2.
Political Economy, Not Economics
For an overview cf. Rothschild, K. W. (1989). Political economy or economics? European Journal of Political
Economy, 5(1), 1–12.
Political Economy
• is concerned with the assumptions of policy and the
results flowing from them
• is a social science dealing with the interrelations of
political and social processes
• focuses on societal evolution and combines economic
dynamics with political and social change
• is doing economics from an interdisciplinary
perspective

3.
Political-Economic Actors
Ulrich, P. (2009). Civilizing the Market Economy: The Approach of Integrative Economic Ethics to Sustainable
Development (Discussion Papers of the Institute for Business Ethics No. 114). St. Gallen: University of St. Gallen.
Business
Actors: Producers, consumers
Goals: Efficiency, profit
Role: Upscaling, diffusion
State
Actors: Politics,
administration, voters
Goals: Social justice, balance
of interests
Role: Collectively binding
decisions, codification
Civil Society
Actors: Citizens in joint,
voluntary, cooperative action
Goals: Public interest, critique
Role: Social innovation, social
reflection

4.
Flashback: Ordoliberalism
Bonefeld, W. (2012). Freedom and the Strong State: On German Ordoliberalism. New Political Economy,
17(5), 633–656.
Ordoliberal beliefs
• ‘Social irrationality of capitalism’: greed and antagonistic class interests
endanger liberal values
• Thus markets require the provision of an ethical framework to ensure
freedom (of the entrepreneur, but also of the worker)
• Governments as rule makers and rule enforcers on markets
Central question (in Germany after WWII)
• How can an economically and morally bankrupt society get back on its
feet under fundamental economic scarcities?
Ludwig Erhard’s answer:
• Growth of the ‘Sozialprodukt’
Central question today
• How can an affluent society deal with fundamental
ecological scarcities in a situation of economic
abundance?

5.
Economic Growth
https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/economic-history-1
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/11/secular-stagnation-graphics
• Long-term,
• steady state expansion of supply &
demand,
• measured in real GDP (Gross Domestic
Product)

6.
Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2017-02-28-contributions-to-agenda-2030.html

7.
Economic Growth and (Un-)Sustainable Development
Wackernagel, M., Hanscom, L., & Lin, D. (2017). Making the Sustainable Development Goals Consistent with
Sustainability. Frontiers in Energy Research, 5, 18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2017.00018

8.
Décroissance, Décroissance!
Latouche, S. (2009). Farewell to growth. Cambridge ; Malden, MA: Polity.
Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without growth: Economics of a finite planet. London: Earthscan.
D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (Eds.). (2015). Degrowth: a vocabulary for a new era. London: Routledge.
• From »décroissance«, a term introduced by Serge Latouche:
• Deliberate downscaling of production and consumption
• that increases human well-being
• and enhances ecological equity on the planet
Postgrowth
Degrowth
Steady-State Economy
(Herman E. Daly)
Bioeconomics & Entropy Economics
(Nicholas Gergescu-Roegen)
»Everything that comes after the growth story«
(Postgrowth Institute)
Conservative
Social-Liberal
Reformist
Sufficiency
Oriented
Anti-
Capitalist
Feminist
Buddhist Economics
(Ernst F. Schumacher)
Conviviality
(Ivan Illich)

9.
Varieties of Degrowth
Conservative Social-Reformist Sufficiency oriented Anti-Capitalist Feminist
Diagnosis Economic, ecological
and social limits to
growth
Fixation on GDP
growth leads to
multiple ecological
crises
Decoupling of growth
and environmental
impact is impposible,
over-consumption is
the main problem
Capitalism as driver of
growth, environmental
degradation and
»imperial(ist)
lifestyles«
Economic growth
endangers the
reproduction of social
ties, deepens gender
imbalances, and leads
to degradation of self-
sufficiency
Means Self-restraint, deep
culture change, cutting
back on social security,
strengthening civil
society and its
initiatives
Eco-taxes, suffiency
policies, forms of basic
income, focus on
alternative welfare
measures (beyond
GDP)
Consuming less (not
just »green«),
lifestyles of sufficiency
(»enoughness«),
economic self-
sufficiency, regional
economic cycles
Solidarity economy,
economic democracy,
basic and maximum
income, governmental
regulation of private
investments
De-commercialisation,
local economies, and
non-monetary self-
sufficiency
Ends Adaptation to
unavoidable
contraction
Growth independence Planned, deliberate
contraction
Planned, deliberate
contraction
Gender-just deliberate
contraction
Actors Politics, consumers Politics (, civil society) Consumers, civil
society
Critical civil society,
trade unions
Critical civil society
Muraca, B., & Schmelzer, M. (2017). Sustainable degrowth. In: Iris Borowy & Matthias Schmelzer (Eds.) 2017.
History of the Future of Economic Growth: Historical Roots of Current Debates on Sustainable Degrowth,
Routledge: London, pp 174-192.

10.
Outlining a Postgrowth Political Economy
Conservative
Social-liberal
reformist
Sufficiency
oriented
Anti-capitalist
Feminist
• Ending public and private debt-fuelled growth
• Complementary social security systems
beyond market and state
• Growth independence in public budgets
• Decoupling of growth & quality of life
• Social-ecological tax reform
• Local bottom-up initiatives from civil society
• Small-scale economic cycles in local exchange trading systems
• Renewed civic engagement and empowerment
• Complementing and substituting market
relations with social relations
• Cooperative action in the commons economy
• Strengthening of reproductive care activities
• Balance between commercial and non-
commercial social services

11.
Postgrowth Policies and the State
http://seri.at/en/projects/completed-projects/implications-of-a-persistent-low-growth-path-a-scenario-analysis/
Friends of the Earth Europe. (2018). Sufficiency: Moving Beyond the Gospel of Eco-Efficiency. Brussels.
usiness
oducers, consumers
ciency, profit
aling, diffusion
State
Actors: Politics,
administration, voters
Goals: Social justice, balance
of interests
Role: Collectively binding
decisions, codification
Taxation
• Cost-neutral eco-social tax reform
• Reduction of environmentally harmful subsidies
• Tax breaks on environmentally positive behaviour
Labour
• Reduction of working hours
Regulation
• Material-efficiency and eco-effectiveness
• Negative environmental externalities as unfair competition
Social and Economic Security
• Wealth and resource taxation (not income)
• Negative income tax (or other forms of basic income)
• Non-monetary exchange systems

12.
Business
Actors: Producers, consumers
Goals: Efficiency, profit
Role: Upscaling, diffusion
State
Actors: Politics,
administration, voters
Goals: Social justice, balance
of interests
Role: Collectively binding
decisions, codification
ety
joint,
ative action
rest, critique
ation, social
Postgrowth Policies and Business
Bocken, N. M. P., & Short, S. W. (2016). Towards a sufficiency-driven business model: Experiences and opportunities. Environmental
Innovation and Societal Transitions, 18, 41–61.
Reichel, A. (2015). What’s Next? Wirtschaften jenseits des Wachstums. In Zukunftsreport 2016 (pp. 110–135). Frankfurt am Main:
Zukunftsinstitut GmbH.
Sufficiency oriented business models
• Dematerialisation and tertiarisation of products into services
• Extending product life, ensuring repairability and encouraging re-
use
• Learning partnerships with consumers for lifestyles of sufficiency
Multi-value added
• Accounting for ecological and social value added
Managerial activism
• Business as a political actor and change agent

13.
Postgrowth Policies and Civil Society
Helfrich, S., & Bollier, D. (Eds.). (2012). Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State. Amherst,
MA: Levellers Press.
Habermann, F. (2016). Ecommony: UmCARE zum Miteinander. Sulzbach amTaunus: Ulrike Helmer Verlag.
Re-skilling
• Community supported agriculture, urban gardening/farming,
repair cafés as re-skilling projects
• Epistemic communities of sufficiency practice
Vernacular economies
• Local exchange trading systems (LETS)
• Platform cooperativism
• Alternative currencies (including social impact cryptocurrencies)
• “Beyond money” transactions
Social change agents
• Social innovation in social practices
• “Avantgarde”
Busin
Actors: Produc
Goals: Efficien
Role: Upscaling
Civil Society
Actors: Citizens in joint,
voluntary, cooperative action
Goals: Public interest, critique
Role: Social innovation, social
reflection

14.
Double Decoupling as Middle Ground
Göpel, M. (2016). The Great Mindshift (Vol. 2). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Material-
economic
wealth
Ecological
footprint
Quality of
Life
1st order decoupling
Technological efficiency
(»Green Growth«)
2nd order decoupling
Lifestyles of sufficiency
(Beyond Growth)

15.
Postgrowth as the Economy of Freedom

16.
http://www.andrereichel.de/
linkedin.com/in/reichelandre
@andrereichel
Towards a Political Economy of Postgrowth
Prof. Dr. André Reichel
International School of Management | ISM