WEBVTT - Why the Degrowth Movement Is Having a Moment 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.320 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:15.680 I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisenthal. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:20.000 Joe, what would you say the most fundamental tenant of 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:20.919 economics is? 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:21.840 Wow? 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.640 Yeah? Sorry, I started with the big question. 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.400 I don't know, it's not fair. What do you say this? 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.520 Well, it has to be growth, right, Like the whole 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.320 point is to generate economic growth. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:35.479 Yeah, I mean if you were saying, like, okay, like 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.320 what Ultimately you can fight about how best to measure 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.560 growth and there's like no one statistic that will ever 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.280 give you the answer of like is this economy doing 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.600 well or not? You can never reduce it that much. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.559 But on some level it does seem like the gauge 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.720 of a successful policy, right is how much the economy grows? 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.640 Absolutely, And I know there have been you kind of 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.400 alluded to it just then there have been various attempts 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:04.520 in time to gauge economic well being in slightly different ways. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:06.840 So I remember it didn't it was Bhutan. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.640 I think what happened to the happiness and you never 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:10.120 hear about it? 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:11.959 Is that not on the terminal? We need to look, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:13.520 we need to get it on there. If it's not 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.600 but there is this fundamental question over what should be 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.240 the goal of economics and ultimately the economy, and is 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.040 it simply economic growth or could we be asking for 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.039 something a little bit more right? 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.200 And we're always like fighting about this implicitly, which is okay, 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.200 Like should we trade growth for greater equality? Should we 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.039 sacrifice some growth for more environmental sustainability? Perhaps? Like they 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.800 are all these like should we trade growth for like 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.080 better job quality or whatever? But if fundamentally growth itself 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.840 is always taken for granted as being per se a good. 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.280 Thing, absolutely, And I'm glad you mentioned the climate just then, 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:53.240 because of course, when you think of economic growth, so 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.680 much of it is tied into consumption, and if consumption 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.400 is becoming a problem from an environmental perspective, then obviously 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.960 you would want to reduce that, which would presumably be 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.840 a hit to economic growth. So all of this is 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.000 a way of saying that today we are going to 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:13.320 explore something that's very, very different to traditional thinking around economics. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.680 We're going to be looking into something called the d 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:16.960 growth movement. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:19.720 So does that mean GDP like the goals of shrinking? 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.000 Yeah, negative GDP. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:22.760 All right, let's learn more about it. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.400 And we really do have the perfect guest. We're going 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:27.640 to be speaking with Noel King. She is, of course, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.440 the host of Vox's daily news podcast Today Explained, and 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:36.760 she's releasing a four part series called Blame Capitalism, and 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.919 one of the episodes is all about this thing called 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.120 the de growth movement. So let's check in with her. Noel, 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.280 thank you so much for coming on all thoughts. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.520 I'm a big fan you guys. Thanks for having me. Noel. 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.160 Maybe just to begin with, you know, I sort of 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.480 teased that we are going to be talking about the 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:53.919 d growth movement, but what is this exactly? 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.119 I will tell you what D growth is, but first 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:57.519 I want to tell you that I have a good 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.840 friend who just got back from vacation in Bhuta, and 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.320 the first thing I asked her was is everyone super happy? 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.880 And she's an economic supporter, so she got it immediately 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.399 and she said, I didn't see a lot of homelessness, 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.240 I didn't see a lot of poverty. People did seem happy, 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.160 but I did see a lot of small farmers, like 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.280 people who look like they are, you know, farming for 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.080 a living and not going to do much better than that. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.720 So anyway, the happiness index is something I too, am 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.480 really obsessed with when it comes to D growth. If 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.680 you ask economists who believe in D growth who ascribed 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.000 to it, what they're going to tell you is it's 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.800 not a very well defined thing, and we really want 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.760 to avoid terminology that scares people, and de growth is 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.080 a word that scares people. But I did come across 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:44.280 a very good definition. It's from the economic anthropologist Jason Hickel. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.760 He wrote a book in twenty twenty called Less is 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.960 More that I've seen described as like the Bible of 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.280 D growth. And here's what Jason Hickel says. He calls 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.280 D growth quote a planned reduction of energy and resource 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.960 use designed to bring the economy back into balance with 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.880 the living world in a way that reduced is inequality 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.480 and improves human well being. A lot of that sounds 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.480 really good. I think the word that is almost designed 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:14.240 or destined to trigger people in economics is planned, right, 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.520 planning to shrink and who's going to be responsible for that? 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.520 So that's that's what de growth is. It's saying we 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.080 have gotten big enough and now is the time to 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.760 get smaller. They're not calling for like a catastrophe like 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.200 we saw during twenty twenty. I remember being on air 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.280 when COVID hit and I remember saying, this is the 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.480 worst you know, these are the worst jobs numbers since 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.880 the Great Depression, and I could not believe those words 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.440 were coming out of my mouth. I was like, this 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.520 is a catastrophe. What Jason Hickel and other de growths 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.280 would say is right, right, right, But that was entirely unplanned. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.960 We didn't expect COVID. The way to do this is 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.080 take it in hand and make it happen deliberately. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.520 So it's interesting, like what strikes you is that you 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:54.400 know this idea of planned and when I hear that, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.680 it's like, well, like, you know, we're actually one would 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:01.120 argue that much of the world is embrace planning of 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.880 some sort. In the US is increasing, it's sort of 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:09.200 like active industrial policy, and China has seen extraordinary success 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.120 and a sort of you know, big over the decade 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.599 material standard of living with a large part of the 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.239 economy on some level planned. To my mind, the question 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.200 is why do we need less growth or less economic 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.120 activity to bring the sort of ecosystem or environment into balance, 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.320 Because some would say we can do both, right, we 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.279 can have growth, but also we can find ways to 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.000 decarbonize the economy, other ways that the growth can be 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.400 more sustainable without just having less activity. 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:41.880 And there are something like thirty three countries in the 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:43.760 world now that have managed to do that, that have 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.640 managed to decouple their growth from their carbon emissions. And 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.240 this was a big story. I remember the economist drant 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.000 a story in twenty twenty two and it was like, hey, guys, 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.400 we haven't been making attention, but look at what's been 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:54.880 going on. And I think that's actually kind of an 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:59.120 extraordinary success. I think what Degrowthers would say is this, 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.279 this is a belief that has a very interesting history. Right, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.200 So I'm going to take you back to the late 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:10.000 nineteen sixties, Americans other people worldwide, Europeans have started becoming 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.200 concerned about what is happening to the environment, and they 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.200 start asking themselves questions like, what's going to happen if 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.560 we just keep on this trajectory. This is also around 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.800 the time that the Population Bomb the book comes out 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:22.760 and it predicts that if we keep reproducing, we're all 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.479 going to starve to death. Right, there's this very like 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.320 Malthusian kind of vibe in the air. So a think 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.479 tank called the Club of Rome forms in Rome. It 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.480 is founded by an industrialist and an economist named Aurelio Pitchai. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.760 I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. This in nineteen sixty eight, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:43.680 he invites some leading thinkers, economists, physicists, chemists, other kinds 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.720 of academics into a room and he says, let's map 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:48.400 out what's going to happen if we keep growing the 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.000 way we're growing. Right, So four of them go back 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.880 to MIT, which is using very early but very very 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.760 good computer technology, and they sort of feed scenarios into 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.560 the computer. What happens if we keep repricing at the 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.039 same rate, What happens if we keep eating at the 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.440 same rate, What happens if we keep clearing forests at 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.080 the same rate. And they keep coming up with really 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.080 bad news. The planet will be burning, we will not 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.720 have enough, we will all starve to death. They write 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.080 this book called The Limits to Growth in nineteen seventy two, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.600 and shockingly, you guys the New York Times, I thought 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.680 this was like a pamphlet. Okay. When I first started 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:25.280 studying this, I was talking to the d growths and 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.200 I got the sunset like, Okay, they're playing it up 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.280 a little bit. It's probably like a pamphlet that people got, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.440 you know, that got handed out in the street. The 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.080 New York Times reviewed this book in nineteen seventy two. 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.440 There is an old review online and it is very 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.120 critical of the conclusion, and it acknowledges that, you know, 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.240 these guys are using computers and this is a new 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.840 thing and that's very important in statistics. But then it 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.920 says like there's been dumerism for a long, long, long 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.520 long time, and this just seems like more doumerism. So 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.560 from there you have this movement of people. The Club 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:56.760 of Rome seems fascinating to me right like it's an 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.320 informal think tank. They meet a couple of times a year. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.400 We have a website now, and they for the past 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.000 fifty years have continued to bang this drum and have 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.000 continued to say, if we keep going along these lines, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.600 we're going to burn ourselves out. They will use words 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.640 like suicide, you know, very very colloquially. And if you 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.280 look at what's happening with climate change now and with 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.960 stories about glaciers melting and forest being raised, it does 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.080 sort of seem like back in nineteen seventy two. They 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:27.040 predicted quite a bit in the way we think about 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.400 the environment now, which is we are all very concerned 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.080 about it and we don't really have ways to fix it, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:33.960 they would argue. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.319 So you sort of touched on it in that answer there, 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.959 But talk to us about who I guess the ringleaders 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.720 of the de growth movement are now, Like, who is 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.880 spearheading this effort? And do you get the sense that 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:49.199 it's resonating perhaps in twenty twenty three in a way 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.520 that maybe it didn't in the nineteen seventies. 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.680 So I'll tell you something really funny. I was trying 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.840 to book this show, you know, get these people to 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.960 talk in the month of August twenty three. Guess what 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.920 goes on in the month of August for Deep Growths vacation, vacation. 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.520 Like all month from the life show Funny. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.120 I did four series in this I did four episodes 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.400 in this series about capitalism, and everybody was very easy 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.959 to reach, except for the have it all figured out 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.160 amatic Yep, they're like, I will be gone until September seventh. 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.600 It was actually really great. That's exactly right. So a 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.520 couple of names, you're going to be familiar with Jason Hickel, 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.200 the economic anthropologist I mensioned who wrote the book Less 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.000 is More. You will be familiar with the name Herman Daly. 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.199 Herman Daily was an advocate of steady state economic growth. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.520 He passed unfortunately. I believe it was late last year. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.679 There is a gentleman named Dirk Phillipson. He's a professor, 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.400 a Duke and economic historian. He wrote a very good 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.680 book called How GDP Came to Rule the World, which is, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.600 you know, an argument against taking GDP, as you said 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.719 in your intro, taking GDP as the fundamental underpinning of 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.840 our economy. There's a really interesting guy named Tim Jackson, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.680 also an economist, identifies as an ecological economist. That was 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.240 not a term I had encountered until I started reporting 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.000 on this. And Kate Rayworth, the famous one who wrote 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.960 the book Doughnut Economics in twenty seventeen and caused a 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.040 big stir. Now. I don't know if Kate identifies as 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.320 a d growth, but they certainly identify with her. We 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.599 looked for the physical center of the movement. There's a 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.079 lot of activity in Barcelona. There's an economist whose name 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.320 I Hope. I pronounced correctly. Georgis Callis. He's a Greek guy, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.680 And it does seem like they're mainly concentrated in Europe, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.840 which you know you might expect, but these are people 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.800 who know each other, who speak to each other. And 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.040 to your question about is this more popular now, yeah, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.000 I really think it is one of the things that 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.920 I couldn't help. But notice is suddenly around twenty twenty two, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.560 twenty twenty three, everybody has a d growth piece, right, 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.320 So The New York Times is interviewing Herman Daily, the 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.040 man who has been arguing for five decades that we 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.520 should stop obsessing overgrowth, and has gotten a lot of respect. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.880 I mean, he's not a crackpot. The New Yorker has 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.720 on Cassidy writing, is prosperity possible without growth? And I believe? 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.040 Twenty twenty twenty twenty one, and then just a few 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.720 months ago follows up with Bill mckibbon is it time 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.040 to take de growth seriously? In The Financial Times? Martin 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.080 Wolfe the Great, the esteemed columnist too. I'm sure we 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.840 all read he recommends as one of his top books 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.120 of the year. Jason hickeles less is more about de growth? 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.679 So I definitely think we are starting to see this 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.320 permeate in a real way. And I think it's probably 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.679 because so many of us are very worried about what's 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.520 happening with the environment, with the ecology. But I actually 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.520 think there is another reason for this, and I can 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.200 speak about what happened to me personally when I started 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.760 reading about de growth. If you guys don't mind, go 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.800 for it, yeah, I started to agree with them. I 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.160 started to full on agree with them. My dad had 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.960 worked on Wall Street in the nineteen seventies, before financialization, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.880 before securitization, so before there was real money. But he 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:54.960 walked away from Wall Street in his early forties really 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.440 hating Wall Street, and he told us as kids, you know, 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:59.880 money isn't everything, and you should never work in this 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.680 life just to get money. It was like one of 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.040 the most firmly ingrained things in my brain from the 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:06.839 time I was four or five years old. So I 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.720 grow up and I'm a journalist, and journalists don't care 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.520 very much about money. But then I moved overseas and 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.120 I started covering conflict in African nations. I was a 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.160 war reporter, and I was looking at what happened when 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.360 a country like Sudan, where I was based for a 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.440 long time, didn't have an economy to speak of, and 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.079 then suddenly Sudan discovers oil in additional places, and all 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.600 of a sudden, there's roads and there's bridges, and there's towers, 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.160 and so from that point on, I looked at growth 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.559 somewhat suspiciously, but I was able to see, like, Okay, 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.120 this is the real world impact. Right. A person who 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.440 dropped out of school at nine or ten because of war, 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.040 because of conflict, because there was no money, and then 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.400 the oil boom happens, and this guy is sending his 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.920 kids to college. I can't think of a more perfect 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:51.200 encapsulation of growth, right. What it means for real people 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.840 when an economy grows, And yeah, it means things for 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.360 CEOs too, It means things for fat cats. But if 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.640 you're an ordinary person, it means a lot for you 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.160 as well. And so I've been very pro capitalist in 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.280 my thinking, but like everyone else, I've been really concerned 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.040 about what is happening to the environment. But along come 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.320 these de growths, and they look at society in a 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.160 very philosophical way, and they ask questions like, are we 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.160 really happy with all this stuff we have now. The 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.200 guy in Sudan who was sending his kid to college, 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.719 he's very happy, was sending that kid to college. Do 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.600 I need all of the things that I have? And 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.760 that's what really made me start thinking about where do 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:29.120 I shop and how do I shop? 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:50.120 Ideological rebellions happened from time to time, particularly after crises, 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.400 and so I think like ten years ago this time, 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.840 maybe eleven or twelve years ago, you know, we had 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.160 Occupy Wall Street is probably an agglomeration of a lot 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:00.880 of things. It was targeted banks, there was a lot 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:02.640 of that was some of the early talk about debt 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.560 cancelation and student debt cancelation. Does this feel like a 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.679 distinct from that or is it sort of like this 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.760 ankst that many people feel about inequality and the economy? Like, 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.480 is this the sort of current manifestation of a sort 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.280 of underlying anst that ten years ago or eleven years 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.920 ago presented as the occupy movement? 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.200 I think it's both. I think that is a great question, 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:27.800 and I think it's both. And I'll tell you why. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.760 You guys, remember there was a time when we didn't 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.440 all talk about capitalism, right, it was just the system 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.320 and we talked about bosses, we talked about banks, but 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.640 like I was an economics reporter, I never once to 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.880 use the word capitalism on air. Something did change, and 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.160 it was seeing people in culture spaces start talking about 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.480 capitalism that made me, like about six years ago, go 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.480 what the hell is going on? Why are my cool 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.640 friends in the zeitgeist talking about it and I'm not 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.640 talking about it on air. So we did a bunch 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.200 of research and we started seeing, to your point, the 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.680 point in US history that we all started talking about capitalism. 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.920 It was first the Tea Party and then it was 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.040 Occupy Wall Street. Right, these two movements emerge together and 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.160 suddenly we are hearing, we're hearing the sea word capitalism 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.480 all the time. The Tea Party and Occupy were very 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.640 very carefully tied to the financial crisis, and they were 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.960 two very different movements that wanted different things, but they 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.560 absolutely wore a reaction, they absolutely wore backlash. And d 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.960 growth strikes me much the same, it really does. It 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.400 strikes me much the same. But the financial crisis at 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.880 a certain point ended. I think what it's gonna take. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.760 And the financial crisis ended, and the young people are 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.320 still out there yelling about capitalism. We see that in 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.800 Pugh service. Every year they take a new Every year 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.760 or two, Pew does a new round of data on capitalism. 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.280 And every year you see the young people a little 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.320 bit less, a little bit fewer, a little bit fewer 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.080 have faith in it. Right, So the financial crisis ended, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.000 but this is a long tail of us doubting capitalism, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.720 the environmental problems that the world is facing. And these 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.600 are things you know, I see in my daily life. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:15:59.120 I'm a big hiker. I like to go out west. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.160 These are things that I see my daily life. I 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.440 don't know that they end the way the financial crisis ended. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.880 I think they have an equally long tale. And so 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.760 I do wonder. I mean, I said to Dirk Phillips 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.320 and the economic history, and I said, look, you know 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.200 that an American president or an American politician could never 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:21.240 get elected on a platform of de growth. And he mentioned, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.600 and I can't believe I didn't see it coming. He 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.280 mentioned Rfk's famous speech in Kansas, and I believe it 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.320 was nineteen sixty eight when he talks. RFK talks about 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.240 GDP not measuring the health of our children, the happiness 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.920 of our children, the health of our waters. You know 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.920 how sane we all are. And he said, you know, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.840 Dirk Phillipson tells me, as far as I understand it, 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.880 RFK may very well have been elected president, right, And 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:47.240 it was one of those moments where I was like, 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.120 I don't have an answer for that. I actually don't 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.440 have an answer for that. It's a really interesting point, 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.400 and I'm not going to clap back at you because 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.600 I want to think about it for a while. And so, yeah, 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.720 I to your point is this just is this a blip, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.840 is a furious blip? Maybe it very well might be. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.560 Many things are furious blips. But if we continue seeing 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.399 what climate change is doing to us, I could see 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.560 this having a bit of a longer tail. And the 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.359 thing is, you never know what the kids are going 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.600 to do a generation from now. You just don't. 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.000 You know, Tracey, you know the other speech you know 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:20.720 that I'm thinking about too, which is like there is 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.359 some you know the Carter in the Carter gave the 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.159 famous Malaise speech where he like talked about the quote 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.399 erosion of our confidence in the future, and that was 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.840 like at a time of high inflation, but it also 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.280 sort of got at this idea that like there was 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.040 a president who's sort of like talked about like maybe 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:37.800 we need some like societal reset. 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.239 Yeah, you've seen sort of glimmers of this theme at 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.000 various points in time, but no one has actually like 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.159 enunciated it as a de growth movement, at least in politics. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.840 But I want to ask, you know, move away from 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.399 the US for a second, Noel. You mentioned your experience 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:59.000 in the Sudan. You know, developing countries will probably have 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.639 a different view of economic growth and progress than a 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:05.679 lot of the developed world, and they're certainly in a 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.920 different position. How does the de growth movement take them 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.560 into account? And how does it tell people to think 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.760 about you know, when are you big enough? 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.960 They certainly do take the developing world into account. I 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.119 mean you would imagine so, right. It's the type of 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.480 person whose mind instantly goes the de growth is the 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.800 people as who are part of this movement. I feel 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.040 like de growther is slightly pejorative. The people who are 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.920 part of this movement are the type of people who 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.520 are wired to think about the developing world. And so 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:35.920 when I push them on that, I mean I brought 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.800 up Sudan in interviews and what they would say, is 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.560 it's not Sudan that needs to stop growing. It's the 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.960 United States, it's Western Europe. It's not like we've had 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.399 our time, but it is we have enough. We have 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.119 to decide that we have enough. And Sudan doesn't, and 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.560 Molly doesn't, and much of the African continent and much 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.919 of the developed world doesn't, and we have to be 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.119 okay with letting them grow, and we have to work 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.919 with them to make sure that they are growth is 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.080 greener than our growth was through industrialization right and into 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.800 the present day. So this is not a movement. And 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.960 again this is why I find them sympathetic. It's very 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:13.120 easy for me to dismiss people who have never thought 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.720 about Sudan as somebody who lived there for three years 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:17.840 and covered that country for three years. If you haven't 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.359 thought about Sudan and you're making some big grand point, 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:22.879 then I've got some things to say to you. And 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.680 so it was fascinating to hear them say, oh, no, no, no, 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:27.879 we're not saying that these countries that need to grow 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.080 are the problem. We're asking about the manner in which 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.880 they grow. I mean Sudan and its oil money. That's 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.960 not a great thing for degrowths. However, it is a 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.439