Questioning use of ‘Degrowth’ without some fundamentals of the Sun Paradigm

Frank Rotering@RoteringFrank
For Degrowth to contribute to ecological survival it must:
• Clearly support economic contraction
• Explicitly repudiate expansionary capitalism
• Help develop a sustainable economic theory
• Help develop a revolutionary strategy
Until then it’s just a confusing activist slogan.
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Valuable responses to the above Degrowth comments  by Frank Rotering@RoteringFrank
Peter Challen

 1. Fred Harrison: 
For Degrowth to contribute to ecological survival it must: Degrowth sends the reform agenda on the wrong trajectory, in terms of policy priorities. Modern humans came into existence over the past 200,000 years by growing! Growth includes spiritual, aesthetic and social, as well as material, dimensions; all of which are interlocked by the net income (rent) which people produce, to make these unique human attributes possible in the first place.
• Clearly support economic contraction. The contraction should be focused on those economic activities that degrade humanity, and human habitats (social and ecological).
• Explicitly repudiate expansionary capitalism. Capitalism is misrepresented. It is a hybrid system, a binary culture composed of (1) free riding [on people’s backs], and (2) value adding, with part of the value available for investment in the common good. Therefore, language should be used that directs attention to the specific problems, rather than relying on the glib concepts that do not oblige governments to act responsibly.
• Help develop a sustainable economics theory. Yes; but theorists (including those in academia) decline to confront the central moral and economic issue, because the vested interests shout the loudest, and therefore deter clarity of thinking; depriving people of the right to converse on ALL issues, to reach a consensus on the reforms that would actually deliver sustainable (responsible) growth.
• Help develop a revolutionary strategy. The fundamental reform is finance-based. While revolutionary in its impact on the fabric of human beings, and their Social Galaxy (as I call it), and in relation to the natural environment, would be accomplished by the simplest of fiscal adjustments, of the kind that would transform (= revolutionise) daily behaviour.
Until then it’s just a confusing activist slogan. Agreed: that is what we have, today – tons of slogans which (while they may refer to good ideas), end up by being self-defeating. I humbly suggest that Andrew Phillips reads my Book 2 of #WeAreRent (if Peter Challen is willing to endorse that recommendation).

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2. Rodney Shaklespeare: The Sun Paradigm website — www.sunparadigm.org —
is the only place where there is an answer to the conundrum of combining needed growth (eg for those who live on under $5/day) with a general downturn in overall consumption (which results from everybody having material security resulting in a change from homo economicus to homo co-operans).  Moreover, the website addresses the issue of burgeoning population levels and explains how the Sun paradigm results in the voluntary moderation, even reduction, of population levels.   And the Sun Paradigm website explains how interest-free (as opposed to interest-bearing) money can be used for environmental issues and a simple example is the clean generation of electricity in tidal lagoons (which is impossible at the moment because compound interest makes their construction unviable)