Andy Burnham says the city region wants to "pioneer a new model for economic growth" in the next decade.

Local Plans are what guide the pattern of a land use and and building across a council area. In the case of Greater Manchester (excluding Stockport), the Joint Strategic Plan, Places for Everyone sets the scene, as does the government’s National Planning Policy Framework. That means that there are some very real constraints on what can be put into a so-called Local Plan (not very local – in the case of Manchester it covers the whole city). Manchester’s Draft Local Plan has been published and is out for consultation until 17 November. This page on the council website has all the links you need to read the plan, comment on it, and (much further down the page) check the supporting documents: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/6572/local_plan/2 (opens in a new tab). We have written **our draft response** – it might change somewhat before submission but we think it worth sharing it as you might find it helpful in making your own submission. You can respond to the consultation using the online form or by sending a response by email – all the information you need is on that council page. **Our draft response** notes some glaring problems. They include the underlying model of continued economic growth and the continuing building frenzy; unsubstantiated housing targets (handed down by central government), although we do support the emphasis on social housing for those homes that do need to be provided; an acceptance that aviation will continue to grow and the wager of economic prosperity on the back of this poisoned chalice – and !! no consultation question on this; an overemphasis on functional zoning instead of a more locality focus such as the 20 minute neighbourhood model; flawed assumptions on compensating for damage to nature and biodiversity…. and more. Do take a look at our thoughts. We don’t answer every question, and you don’t need to either. And then do put your own response in (links above) however brief. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Local Plans are what guide the pattern of a land use and and building across a council area. In the case of Greater Manchester (excluding Stockport), the Joint Strategic Plan, Places for Everyone sets the scene, as does the government’s National Planning Policy Framework. That means that there are some very real constraints on what can be put into a so-called Local Plan (not very local – in the case of Manchester it covers the whole city). Manchester’s Draft Local Plan has been published and is out for consultation until 17 November. This page on the council website has all the links you need to read the plan, comment on it, and (much further down the page) check the supporting documents: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/6572/local_plan/2 (opens in a new tab). We have written **our draft response** – it might change somewhat before submission but we think it worth sharing it as you might find it helpful in making your own submission. You can respond to the consultation using the online form or by sending a response by email – all the information you need is on that council page. **Our draft response** notes some glaring problems. They include the underlying model of continued economic growth and the continuing building frenzy; unsubstantiated housing targets (handed down by central government), although we do support the emphasis on social housing for those homes that do need to be provided; an acceptance that aviation will continue to grow and the wager of economic prosperity on the back of this poisoned chalice – and !! no consultation question on this; an overemphasis on functional zoning instead of a more locality focus such as the 20 minute neighbourhood model; flawed assumptions on compensating for damage to nature and biodiversity…. and more. Do take a look at our thoughts. We don’t answer every question, and you don’t need to either. And then do put your own response in (links above) however brief. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Local Plans are what guide the pattern of a land use and and building across a council area. In the case of Greater Manchester (excluding Stockport), the Joint Strategic Plan, Places for Everyone sets the scene, as does the government’s National Planning Policy Framework. That means that there are some very real constraints on what can be put into a so-called Local Plan (not very local – in the case of Manchester it covers the whole city). Manchester’s Draft Local Plan has been published and is out for consultation until 17 November. This page on the council website has all the links you need to read the plan, comment on it, and (much further down the page) check the supporting documents: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/6572/local_plan/2 (opens in a new tab). We have written **our draft response** – it might change somewhat before submission but we think it worth sharing it as you might find it helpful in making your own submission. You can respond to the consultation using the online form or by sending a response by email – all the information you need is on that council page. **Our draft response** notes some glaring problems. They include the underlying model of continued economic growth and the continuing building frenzy; unsubstantiated housing targets (handed down by central government), although we do support the emphasis on social housing for those homes that do need to be provided; an acceptance that aviation will continue to grow and the wager of economic prosperity on the back of this poisoned chalice – and !! no consultation question on this; an overemphasis on functional zoning instead of a more locality focus such as the 20 minute neighbourhood model; flawed assumptions on compensating for damage to nature and biodiversity…. and more. Do take a look at our thoughts. We don’t answer every question, and you don’t need to either. And then do put your own response in (links above) however brief. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

_A contribution to the ecosocialism vs horizontalism debate. In the series Prospects for Degrowth_ _**by**_**Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton*** A debate is in progress between alternative strategy prescriptions for degrowth. On the one side, what we might call minima-maxima or degrowth as under-labourer in a democratic socialist transformation. ‘Minima’ because it realistically notes that degrowth (whether it is a movement or not) “ _does not have the capacity to achieve power and implement policies_ “; ‘maxima’ because it aims for nothing less than transformation through a wider socialist project of seizing state power. In this, the degrowth movement would be a kind of ‘under-labourer’, beavering away to have a catalytic influence on a mass socialist party, so it became both ecosocialist and anti-growth in orientation and programme. This is essentially the view advanced by _Jason Hickel in a recent interview_ , and elements of it were advanced by ourselves in recent pieces in the Degrowth UK series __Prospects for Degrowth__. We say, elements, because our perspective was more nuanced and multi-level than what Hickel was able to put forward in his interview (a written piece, at greater length and reflection might have been less one-dimensional in tone than what could be captured in an interview). On the other side, there is the ‘pluriversal’ perspective, which is less prescriptive, recognises the plurality within the degrowth movement and privileges direct democracy and the transformation of everyday life. This ‘pluriversal’ approach, wherein dialogue with, membership of and influence on the labour movement are legitimate but insufficient strategies, is the view of _Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson and Terry Leahy_ , in their response to Hickel. There are some similarities to this view in the responses of both _Manuel Casal Lodeiro_ and _Mark Burton_ to Ted Trainer’s _anarchist prescription_ for the degrowth movement (almost the mirror image of the Hickel piece), again in _Prospects for Degrowth_. Like Liegey et al., we argued for a multi-level strategy, although in Mark’s case also defending a Marxist and state-oriented approach as a vital part of the package, a position then elaborated by _Anna Gregoletto_. A caricature of the two visions – created from public domain sources However, the above summary misses some critical dimensions of the various contributions and in what follows we will address each in turn, identifying the positions outlined by the protagonists, with an attempt at a more dialectical synthesis from us. In the rest of this article we articulate a synthesis between the two positions, that we call (ana)dialectical (or simply ‘analectical)’, that will allow us to reconcile these two positions in an attempt at strategic unity1. In recognising that the current task is to organise the degrowth movement where it is currently at, our intention is two-fold. Firstly we want to move beyond what could be the danger of polarised positions: we have great respect for the work and views of both Jason Hickel and Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson and Terry Leahy. Secondly, we believe (like Gasparro and Vico)2 that neither of the two positions is sufficient: we can move beyond them while taking the best from both. ### Our analytical framework We used these headings and definitions to create our analectical synthesis. **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- The approach set out in Hickel’s recent piece. Historical precedents: the socialist revolutions of the 20th Century. | The approach set out by Liegey et al. Historical precedents: the anarchist movement, peasant and worker rebellions, the moment of 1968 and the counterculture. | An approach that seeks (dialectically) to synthesise and transcend the two other views, while being open to the voice of those excluded from the debate (_analectics_). Historical precedents: only imperfect and transitory ones – the early years of the Bolivian Movement for Socialism and the alliance that brought it to power 2006, Popular Unity in Chile, late 1960s-1973. Rojava, aspects of the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, the Caracoles in Chiapas. ### Degrowth as a movement **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Degrowth is not a movement: “Degrowth is an analytical frame that has convinced a lot of people, and has a lot of traction particularly among academics, students and activists, but it is not a movement as such and does not have the capacity to achieve power and implement policies.” | Degrowth is a movement: “Degrowth is a movement in movement(s). … Degrowth, as a movement, represents an international network, containing a diversity of networks, activities and activists. Some activists and advocates might feel relatively isolated yet are still influential …” | Degrowth is a weak but diverse movement, part of an ecology of movements including a set of movements from the Global South, that could be characterised as post-development in orientation. It comprises scholars and activists, thinkers and doers. However, degrowth is not a _political movement_ , one that is in a position to make the necessary transformation in society and economy that degrowthers believe in Despite an impressive research and teaching portfolio, a literature and a plethora of practical degrowth-consistent projects on the ground, the (real) degrowth movement, does not (yet) look like a movement with the ability to catalyse the transformation that is needed for an ecologically safe and dignified future for humanity. ### Defining degrowth **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- “…a planned reduction of excess energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a safe, just and equitable way….at the same time ending poverty, improving human well-being, and ensuring flourishing lives for all” | Is about more than “minimising throughput and use of materials and energy…It is an invitation to explore new imaginaries and ways of life, for instance, from work and technology, to democracy and property” | The core of degrowth is managed and ethical, or just, reduction of the material basis of the economy, the planned reduction of energy and resource use to keep within ecological and earth system limits while maximising human equality and dignity. However, there is also a set of associated elements that while not central to the definition, are strongly associated with it: democracy, justice, decoloniality, liberation, sufficiency, frugality and the critique of economism (the turning of everything into a commodity). These associated elements are so strongly tied to the core proposition, that they may be considered defining for the degrowth movement. In our core definition, we acknowledge the risk of yielding to a restricted definition of degrowth that is prevalent in the English speaking academic sphere, namely a reduction to measurable material dimensions of economic scale. As Fitzpatrick notes3 (2025) the original French definition focussed more on the rejection of economism and hence growth, not in terms of scale but as refusal – a changing the subject, or as Latouche put it, “ _leaving the society of consumption_ ” 4, or “ _leaving the imaginary of development to reintegrate the field of the economic with the social and the political_ ” 5. However, we believe that to deny the centrality of the problematic of material scale is to empty degrowth of real meaning and risks making it a general anti-modern, anticapitalist, anti-economic position: remember that the first use of decroissance was by Gorz (1975) in the context of discussion on the Meadows et al. Limits to Growth report6. What he said was,_“And this is the heart of the problem: global equilibrium, in which no-growth – even degrowth (decroissance) – of material production constitutes a basic condition, is this equilibrium compatible with the survival of the[capitalist] system?”._ So we recover those anti-economistic meanings, and for us as Marxists, opposition to commodification is central, in the ‘belt’ of associated elements that are closely linked to the core. We assert that that core definition is materialist but not economistic, since it is (orthodox) economics that reduces material factors (material flows, geophysical stocks and sinks, diverse and complex ecosystems, etc) as well as human relations and qualities, to monetary terms. That is our dialectical attempt to resolve the discrepancy between the two positions under discussion here. ** Capitalism** **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Capitalism is the central problem. “Under capitalism, production is controlled by capital… the purpose of production is not to meet human needs or achieve ecological goals, but to maximize and accumulate profit.” Certain sectors need scaling down but they are profitable and supported by (capitalistic) governments that won’t therefore take necessary action…. | Capitalism as such isn’t problematised although, “Degrowth thinking is replete with speculative thinking around rich, convivial and authentic postcapitalist futures” and elsewhere, “In terms of the flagrant abuse of planet Earth, we know that capitalist production and trade has increasingly out-stripped its regenerative capacity for the last 50 years.” ” ..it is clear that calls for keeping capitalism on the more qualitative tracks of development consistently failed.” | Capitalism depends on relentless expansion, based on the extraction of value from labour, using natural resources as its substrate. It was preceded by an equally toxic colonial expansion, and the enclosure of the commons in the imperialist countries. These episodes devastated ecosystems and lives. Capitalism, the enclosure of commons and imperialism-colonialism have become intrinsically linked: capitalism cannot survive without expansion into ever more territories and domains, turning everything into a commodity. A degrowth future is incompatible with capitalism and therefore degrowth means the replacement of capitalism with a political, economic and social system that prioritises both humanity and ‘nature’. ### Theory of change, the State and democracy **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- We need “something like a mass-based political party that can advance a wholistic alternative vision, achieve state power, and implement transformative policies.” Within this vision, degrowth is “an element within a socialist transformation … a consequence of socialist transition.” “… now our efforts are fragmented into a hundred disparate movements.” “The Green parties should dissolve themselves and reconstruct around ecosocialist policy and discourse and aim to build a working-class base.” ” Our historic task at this juncture is to regain democratic control over our own productive capacities so that we can build a better civilization.” | Theory of change centred on direct democracy and horizontalism: “Degrowth celebrates postcapitalist imaginaries and strategies that respect principles, perspectives and practices that centre on the transformative, anarchist and utopian-socialist inspired political forms of the 21st century. Think horizontalism, Holloway’s anti-power and Castoriadis on autonomy, which are central to degrowth practices and to other key movements of the 21st century.” A political strategy, as such, is not described; it is more as if, somehow, these dispersed developments will come together to yield transformational systemic change. The “ambition is to alter relationships in the process of transformation, not simply as a result it. … we try to prefigure direct democracy as a means, not simply an assumed end.” | It is difficult to see the scale of the necessary transformation being achieved without a direct engagement with State power, and that does require that a political party, or more likely parties, adopts a degrowth-consistent approach. However, a mass democratic eco-socialist party is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a degrowth transformation. Relying solely on a political party to deliver the necessary ecosocialist and degrowth transformation will not be sufficient because there can be no political revolution without a social revolution to back it up. That is why the degrowth movement, in effect, has a more multi-level and multi-faceted approach, combining the work on policy frameworks, practical experiments and local ‘real utopias’, and political campaigning and mobilisation and networking with those in leadership positions (influencing the influencers). Without this multi-level, multi-sectoral approach, one that relies predominantly on a party or parties to enact the needed change will fail, since it will not be able to call on a pan-societal coalition of support and potential mobilisation. We advocate for some formalisation of this, so that there is an articulation between these spheres of action, building a counter-hegemonic power bloc that will be capable of mounting a systemic transformation and, critically, defeating both capitalist extraction and material accumulation on a world scale7 and the highly resourced and violent forces that will oppose us. #### **Three Myths on Eco-socialism** _Myth One: The Eco-socialist party is top-down and undemocratic_ This first myth has a double sided origin story. On the one hand, it comes from real disappointments coming from attempts to make significant change within existing bourgeois parties. These attempts, as good and strong willed as they could be, faced the constraints of parties that were inherently capitalist and would never offer ways to think of a world without capitalism. In this sense, democracy within bourgeois parties is inherently limited. Freedom of thought and action is constrained within the limits of the liberal-capitalist world, while a large technocratic apparatus seeks to limit as much as possible member participation to elections every four or five years. However, an eco-socialist party would most likely be an entirely different beast. It would be based on member-led democracy, unbound by the constraints of bourgeois democracy, and it would focus on empowering people and communities as one of its strategic goals.That is because the objective of an eco-socialist party is not purely electoral, rather it is to build and cohere revolutionary consciousness. Popular protagonism is the vital energy of the mass socialist party. On the other hand, the idea that an eco-socialist party would be undemocratic has a source in the anti-communist ideology that has hegemonised Northern countries since the Cold War and has only intensified since. We all carry the baggage of a history heavily shaped by long and murderous anti-communist campaigns waged by the United States and its allies. We live in the shadow not only of the Red Scare campaigns, but of the disillusionment that affected the Left after the fall of the Soviet Union. This ideological campaign has implanted an unquestioned association between socialism and authoritarianism within public debate. Yet, this view applied to today’s left is naive and entirely ignores a whole body of activist literature written by leading left organisers in which democracy is a central focus, as well as ignoring the practices of actually existing socialist movements and perpetuating US propaganda that has often harmed Southern States . In short, dismissing eco-socialism or all other forms of socialism as undemocratic has very little to do with how the left is developing at the moment. _Myth Two: The Eco-socialist State would be undemocratic and despotic_ Liegey et al. mention the historical reality of some socialist parties, and especially once they’ve achieved power, becoming authoritarian and even repressive and dictatorial. While it is true that this belief shares some of Myth One’s ‘intellectual’ roots, being part of US imperialist propaganda, Myth Two also points to a danger that the need to maintain cohesion and a clear line in the face of internal opposition and external threats can lead to authoritarian measures, the most famous example being the Soviet Union under Stalin, and the most extreme the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Even in what is perhaps the best case of a socialist revolution and a government of the people in power, Cuba, (and in the face of relentless destabilisation, even terrorism, from the USA) there has been excessive bureaucratisation, and at times repression, together with a slowness to correct inevitable mistakes. Yet the answer is not the model of liberal democracy, with pro-capitalist parties competing, but probably lies in a more thoroughgoing development of democracy with greater autonomy for mass organisations from the State and the party. Freed from the profit imperative, an eco-socialist state would be best positioned to reorganise political life around well-being and popular participation. Cuba is also instructive here. Emerging as a socialist country after defeating a totalitarian dictator, it had to invent the institutions of popular power and people’s democracy: it has done this well but the result is not perfect – maybe it never can be. Further, we stress that any evaluation has to be made in the light of the fact that the country and its leadership, has been, for six and a half decades under a state of siege, due to the continuing US blockade, renewed and intensified again and again: its achievements, including those in participative democracy and environmental restoration, are extraordinary considering this. Secondly, the reliance of ecosocialism on economic planning is contested from the horizontalist perspective, even to the extent of seeing planning as despotic. Yet, any large scale coordination of economic and social activity and development requires planning. In other words, degrowth requires planning. Put simply, there is no reason why an eco-socialist society would be despotic. _Myth Three: Eco-socialism privileges industrial workers_ Misunderstanding is widespread that the concept of ‘working class’ equals ‘industrial workers’. Following Marx, the working class is those who have to sell their labour power to live – that is all of us, including those who have a what is effectively a discretionary exemption from the labour market (children, people with severe disabilities, unpaid carers, retirement pensioners). Although the working classes might be internally divided between those who have access to higher wages and those that are extremely exploited, the definitional characteristic of the working class is one of exploitation by the ruling classes worldwide (via the expropriation of surplus value – and we’d also include those facing more overt expropriation via ‘primitive accumulation’). Industrial workers would be part of a coalition of oppressed peoples against capitalism/imperialism8. #### **The pitfalls of The Party** The minima-maxima proposal is a wager that degrowth can indeed capture or convert the majority of socialists to a degrowth-informed eco-socialist understanding and programme. It is rather a tall order, but as the systemic crisis deepens, not entirely implausible. Another problem with a purely party-based strategy is the risk of co-optation. Many attempts at party building have fallen into the electoralist trap: the sphere of politics shrinks to fighting for elections. There is also a practical problem with the minima-maxima idea. This proposition does not take into account the current state of the actually existing degrowth movement, which at the moment is unlikely to get behind the eco-socialist banner. A very large part of the degrowth movement has done a lot of research and experimentation on prefigurative strategies and attempted the creation of ‘nowtopias’. Certainly, this vision has enormous problems if left isolated by broader political projects, as we will analyse below, but we also do not want to ignore that this praxis is very important for degrowthers. Indeed, this orientation towards utopian thinking, if part of a political project and organisation, could be able to reach terrains that a strategy only focused on seizing political power would not. Strategies that focus on seizing political power through the party instrument address one aspect of the struggle against capital, but there is a broader reality of the capitalist ideology-action-structure complex that these strategies take insufficient account of.9 In this way, the capitalist system is not only sustained by the state but by this complex that, while including the state (within its structures), also goes beyond it to acknowledge the role of ideology (“socially embedded and embodied systems of thought about the way things are and how they should be”) and action (daily activities and practices of social reproduction). This means that transitioning out of capitalism requires us both to break with the existing system and also to replace it with a different way of living and reproducing ourselves. It is the critique of commodification that distinguishes reformist social democrats from revolutionary socialists, including, we would argue, eco-socialists. That is why ecosocialism is so compatible with degrowth. Unless the transformation also includes the totality of the way we live, we will be stuck with some form of capitalism and continued oppression of people and destruction of ecosystems. So while a party is a necessary and unavoidable instrument of revolution, focusing on the party alone will not be enough to carry out a full transition out of capitalism/imperialism. We will also need comrades whose focus is building the alternative institutions to substitute those of the growth-based capitalist order. Not only that, those alternative institutions will also help us to build consciousness and capacity to wage more effective struggle in the present. This is what actually existing degrowth spaces could contribute to a broader strategy that attempts to both seize political power and build an alternative world. To put this into terms perhaps more familiar within the degrowth movement, we will need the combination of all kinds of strategy, interstitial, symbiotic and ruptural10. #### **The pitfalls of Horizontalism** Liegey et al. seem to deny the need for a political carrying force for degrowth, it seems preferring instead to rely on an organic massing of influence from the degrowth pluriverse. As they say, this is a horizontalist approach. Yet, the recent experience of horizontalist movements serves as a cautionary tale for this type of political organisation. The 2010s were a decade in which these type of movements proliferated in the North. The world was shaken by Occupy, various student protests, and the rise of the climate movement as we know it today, through the Fridays for Future strikes and then with Extinction Rebellion and all the groups that spawned from it.11 These movements were the protagonists of moments of jubilant moments of protest. It is important to interrogate ourselves on why these movements were ultimately unsuccessful in generating the kind of system change they called for. We identify three main critiques of the exclusively horizontalist strategy. 1. The problem of an identity-based ‘creativity politics’: Jodi Dean called it the ‘politics of the beautiful moment’.12 A tendency within some leftist currents to mistake aesthetics, media attention and creativity for the achievement of real political objectives. Vice versa, organisation is treated as despotic regression, rather than a tool to help us win, to organise more effectively and distribute power.​​​​​​​13 The attraction towards this kind of tactics (too often mistaken for strategy) comes from the sad fact that identity-based ‘creativity politics’ appears more attractive and achievable “than the sustained work of party building because they affirm the dominant ideology of singularity, newness, and now.”​​​​​​​14 Further, this kind of politics often goes in tandem with a plethora of ‘alternative lifestyle choices’ that are at risk of becoming depoliticised escapist routes for affluent people, as Eva Martínez argued in _her piece on intentional communities_. 2. We cannot avoid the state: it is only possible to avoid the state to the extent the you don’t pose a serious threat to the status quo. The second a movement of any kind becomes a concrete threat to the capitalist/imperialist order, it will be subjected to relentless repression, ranging from infiltration, policing and worse.​​​​​​​15 Further, the state would also serve as an important instrument to protect a post-capitalist world from counter-revolutionary forces and interventions. This does not mean having illusions about the nature of the State: as Marx noted, under capitalism it functions as the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’. So an adequate strategy has to both weaken and dismantle the capitalist state, using the leverage it affords for both emergency action on the ecological and climate emergency and rebuilding society, but ultimately replacing it with another form of societal coordination, which might still be called the State, but might not. 3. The problem of disaggregation: one of the most stereotypical problems of the Left is the lack of unity and strategic or even principled cohesion. Forces that should be in coalitions are splintered in small, single-issue isolated struggles, sometimes not even knowing who is around them doing what, and often fighting each other as much as the system. Without a unifying, organisational force and structure “multiple resistances blur into the menu of choices offered up by capitalism, so many lifestyle opportunities available for individual diversion and satisfaction.”​​​​​​​16 So, if we refuse to engage with the party (or parties) as an instrument for political coherence, degrowth will risk becoming little more than a ‘lifestyle choice’ for Northern intellectuals tired of consumerist society and craving voluntary simplicity. After examining the pitfalls of both an exclusively party-based strategy and an exclusively horizontalist vision, we move beyond this binary altogether to demonstrate that the opposition between horizontal social movements and local initiatives and political parties is ultimately a false choice. #### **For an (Ana)dialectical Movement Ecology** We seek to resolve this apparent contradiction through an (ana)dialectical approach, one that seeks (dialectically) to synthesise and transcend the two other views, while being open to the voice of those excluded from the debate. We find that Nunes’s framework on movement ecology17 is helpful to articulate our vision. We believe that we can think “about what exists in ecological terms”.18 Using an ecosystem as a metaphor to describe the landscape of revolutionary forces, Nunes notes that “ _a healthy ecology needs several actors that combine the ability to intervene at certain key points of the chain with the capacity to think the chain as a whole_.”19 In this sense, a healthy movement ecology allows the flourishing of strategic pluralism, imagining the emergence and consolidation of a ‘prefigurative flank’ and a state-focused eco-socialist flank, while maintaining some political organisation that prevents us from falling into the ineffective and individualistic splintering that has been plaguing leftist projects for decades. In our view, working within an eco-socialist mass party and experimenting with degrowth ‘nowtopias’ would be part of the same revolutionary ecology. Jodi Dean and Kai Heron write that _“experiments in farming, urban gardening, and similar such survival oriented micro-initiatives can be expanded into the repertoire of party practices, treated as opportunities for building skills and camaraderie.”_20 In fact the British socialist and Labour movement did this in the period before the second World War / anti-fascist war, with its socialist clubs, socialist health insurance, cooperatives, educational institutions, cycling and gardening societies: similar cultural practices can be found in many successful social movements21. The distinction is between 1) engagement with the state and its institutions, either to reform it or replace it, and 2) building power, alternatives, prefigurative social relations, in the community (in its diversity). The one influences and informs the other, but critically, each depends on the other. That is why political parties tend to have reference groups whose interests they represent, obscurely as the pro-capitalist parties represent the interests of various sections and institutions of capital (companies, banks, individual rich people) or more transparently, as in the now fraying historical relationship between the British Labour Party, the co-operative movement and the trade unions. For the degrowth movement, the community represented is more diverse and, ideally, it could include campaigning groups on social and environmental justice, service delivery organisations such as agroecological co-ops or community energy co-ops, community associations, such as tenants and renters associations, feminist organisations, trade unions and others. The party too might not be monolithic but might actually be a cluster of parties – we can collectively hedge our bets! Further, opportunities abound for pluriversality, dissent and deliberation even within a single party. For instance, healthy, open factions provide a way for party members to build collective power around specific issues or politics, while remaining part of the unity provided by the party they belong to.22 In this way, the party provides a structured forum for different political positions to express dissent and participation in a way that is constructive and consequential. The relationship is likely to be tense at times, since multiple interests are involved, but the common factor is the pursuit of social and economic justice strictly within environmental limits, i.e. degrowth as ecosocialism, with a widening of democracy, social, economic and political. Together, these non-State institutions build alternative, ‘counter-hegemonic’ popular power, with a new de-ideologised, good sense (political consciousness is one component) that replaces the dominant ideology of capitalism, capable of effectively resisting the inevitable counter-offensive. Such an approach can avoid the twin perils of a left party that becomes authoritarian and unrepresentative, and a plethora of movements and groups that, while doing worthy things locally fail to scale to the needed transformation. There is more that can be said on this but it is essentially a reinvention of the Gramscian model of politics for the third quarter of the 21st century: (inter)national-popular, (counter) hegemonic, playing a war of position prior to the decisive taking of power. We stress, there is no such thing as ‘changing the world without taking power’, but the taking of power is a more complex process than storming the gates of government and implanting a new regime; it means stewarding the power delegated by the people, the community, using it responsibly and accountably, which means inventing new and effective forms of responsive representation and new channels of influence and counter-control – leaders will command while obeying (‘mandar obedeciendo’ as the Zapatistas put it). A lot more could be written here about the challenges of legitimacy and governability, but that is the stuff of any ethical government23. ### Tools for change **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- A mass party, pursuing ecosocialism, and able to foster strategic unity between the existing and currently splintered movements” Achieving transformation through the mass party, as an organisation that is able to create political consciousness and cultivate unity. | A diverse ecosystem of alternatives. | On the one hand, building a mass democratic eco-socialist party to achieve strategic unity and fight for political power. On the other, a coordinated and organised strategy to build alternative institutions and people’s infrastructure. This strategy takes advantage of what the degrowth movement is and has accomplished already, rather than imagining how the movement should be. ## **Conclusion** ### Urgency and immediate tasks **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Fighting for a public job guarantee in order to gain more control for workers over production. Eco-socialist politics needs to take advantage of the void left by the collapsing liberal order | Not stated in the Liegey et al. piece but likely continuing through a multitude of initiatives, loosely connected. | Practically articulating hope for a better world, one that is socially and economically just, together with taking emergency action to combat the existential emergency of climate and nature. It means the holding together of these two goals, via policies for an Emergency Brake (on emissions, on the destruction of ecological and geophysical systems) and a Plan for Reconstruction24. That means aligning climate and nature mitigation actions with protecting and enhancing people’s livelihoods. The immediate task is to promote this “not only but also” model of hope and campaign for its realisation, in alliance with the plethora of civil society organisations, who also need to be convinced of this. That is a campaign that fuses political education with both electioneering and community building and protection. We find both the minima-maxima mass political party and pluriversalist-horizontalism inadequate to the very real challenge of changing our society and economy into a degrowth one. We do see degrowth as a planned and equitable material contraction (the core) that simultaneously rebuilds a society based on the values of, as the permaculturalists put it, care for the earth, care for each other, and care for ourselves (the integral belt). However, to achieve that is no easy task and to cast it in either vertical or horizontal forms means failing to get to grips with the political challenge and with the many potential pitfalls along the way. Our vision of a political organisation also means eschewing simplistic, ‘magic trick’, sound-bite ‘solutions’, favoured by some in the degrowth and related communities. Examples include Universal Basic Income, a Jobs Guarantee, sovereign money, Modern Money Theory, or partial but inadequate measures such as the Frequent Flyer Levy and Carbon Tax, or the now in vogue wealth tax. Of course, some of these policies might be part of a degrowth transformation, but none of those either alone or together, represents a theory of transition. How, though, can coordination be achieved between the two necessary means of securing a degrowth future, party-style political organisation and civil society activism with its practical projects? One model is to construct a kind of degrowth observatory, whose task would be to gather and disseminate information, not just on the various elements but on the way they contribute to the whole, shared project. Such an institution could help us to systematically map the movement and act as a necessary first step to more coordinated activities. This could be what one of us has elsewhere described as ‘prefigurative action research’, wherein the successes, triumphs, failures and defeats can be analysed to identify more precisely both what has to be overcome and (with contextual sensitivity) what works25. The intelligence that such an ambitious exercise would yield, for example as a standing programme of the International Degrowth Network (as a kind of Degrowth Observatory), could, perhaps, inform some kind of shared institution that might ultimately have a coordinating role, subject to a constituent assembly. That in itself would prefigure the new governing arrangements for the new society that is being striven for. ### **Notes** * The authors are the coordinators of the degrowth uk website. 1 The term ‘analectical’, comes from the work of liberation philosopher, Enrique Dussel it is a contraction of ‘anadialectical’ a fusion of two concepts, a) the dialectic, as a resolution of two opposites through a synthesis that transcends them, and ‘ana’, from the Other, giving critical voice to the oppressed and excluded. Our realisation of this aim, in this piece, can be only partial, but it is important that prescriptions and proposals are in the interests of the global popular majorities, and we try to reflect this. See globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/dussel-enrique/ 2 _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/neither-the-either-nor-the-or-for-a-sideways-degrowth_ 3 Fitzpatrick, N. (2025). ‘Degrowth’ and the implications of English language hegemony. In A. Nelson & V. Liegey (Eds), Routledge handbook of degrowth. Routledge. 4 Latouche, S. (2012). _Salir de la sociedad de consumo: Voces y vías del decrecimiento_ (First Spanish edition). Ocataedro. 5 Latouche, S. (2012). _La sociedad de la abundancia frugal: Contrasentidos y controversias del decrecimiento_. Icaria. page 20. 6 Marcuse, H., Bosquet, Michel (André Gorz), Morin, E., Mansholt, S., & others. (1975). _Ecología y Revolución Herbert Marcuse, Michel Bosquet (Andre Gorz), Edward Morin, Sicco Mansholt et al._ (Nueva edición. First published in French by Le Nouvel Observateur, 1975). EBOOK. (Quotation is MB’s translation from the Spanish translation). 7 Pineault, E. (2025). Fossilised metabolism: The social ecology of capitalist growth. In A. Nelson (Ed.), _Routledge handbook of degrowth_. Routledge. _https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/f0d99b9c-b15f-48cd-aa94-dca46806489a/book/epub?context=ubx_ 8 Dean, J., Heron, K. _Climate Leninism and Revolutionary Strategy_ , Spectre Journal, 2022. 9 Kagan, C., & Burton, M. H. (2018). Putting the ‘Social’ into Sustainability Science. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.), _Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research_ (pp. 285–298). Springer International Publishing. _https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63007-6_17_ 10 Chertkovskaya, E. (2022). A strategic canvas for degrowth: In dialogue with Erik Olin Wright. In N. Barlow, L. Regen, N. Cadiou, E. Chertkovskaya, M. Hollweg, C. Plank, M. Schulken, & V. Wolf (Eds.), Degrowth & strategy how to bring about social-ecological transformation (pp. 56–71). Mayfly. 11 Bevins, V. If We Burn, London: Wildfire, 2023. 12 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 125. 13 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 125. 14 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 21. 15 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018. 16 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 259. 17 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 18 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 19 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 20 Dean, J., Heron, K. _Climate Leninism and Revolutionary Strategy_ , Spectre Journal, 2022. 21 Williams, R. (1973). _The country and the city_. Chatto and Windus. p. 36 Williams, R. (1982). _Socialism and Ecology_. SERA. Burton, M. & Steady State Manchester. (2012). _In Place of Growth: Practical steps to a Manchester where people thrive without harming the planet._ Steady State Manchester. _pp. 39-40 Box: Historical memory and lived culture https://steadystatemanchester.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/inplaceofgrowth_ipog_-content_final.pdf_ 22 _https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/08/05/in-defence-of-factions/_ 23 Dussel, E. (2008). _Twenty theses on politics_. Duke University Press. Devine, P. (2002). Participatory Planning Through Negotiated Coordination. Science and Society, 66(1), 72–85. _http://gesd.free.fr/devine.pdf_ 24 See Getting Real: **–** serious policies for the triple crisis. _https://gettingreal.org.uk_ 25 Kagan, C., & Burton, M. (2000). Prefigurative Action Research: An alternative basis for critical psychology? _Annual Review of Critical Psychology_ , _2_(73–87). ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Local Plans are what guide the pattern of a land use and and building across a council area. In the case of Greater Manchester (excluding Stockport), the Joint Strategic Plan, Places for Everyone sets the scene, as does the government’s National Planning Policy Framework. That means that there are some very real constraints on what can be put into a so-called Local Plan (not very local – in the case of Manchester it covers the whole city). Manchester’s Draft Local Plan has been published and is out for consultation until 17 November. This page on the council website has all the links you need to read the plan, comment on it, and (much further down the page) check the supporting documents: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200074/planning/6572/local_plan/2 (opens in a new tab). We have written **our draft response** – it might change somewhat before submission but we think it worth sharing it as you might find it helpful in making your own submission. You can respond to the consultation using the online form or by sending a response by email – all the information you need is on that council page. **Our draft response** notes some glaring problems. They include the underlying model of continued economic growth and the continuing building frenzy; unsubstantiated housing targets (handed down by central government), although we do support the emphasis on social housing for those homes that do need to be provided; an acceptance that aviation will continue to grow and the wager of economic prosperity on the back of this poisoned chalice – and !! no consultation question on this; an overemphasis on functional zoning instead of a more locality focus such as the 20 minute neighbourhood model; flawed assumptions on compensating for damage to nature and biodiversity…. and more. Do take a look at our thoughts. We don’t answer every question, and you don’t need to either. And then do put your own response in (links above) however brief. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Coming in August 2027 the 12th Conference will take place in Ireland, with satellite gatherings in Covilha (Portugal) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania). With a thematic focus on "policy, practice and culture" the event aims to help accelerate the decolonial momentum of the just transition, celebrating diverse, pluriversal voices from around the world and turning a critical eye on the extractivist policies.

by Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton1 In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ _pdf version of the article_ ## **Overviews of the current conjuncture – openings and risks** We opened the series with Mark’s stock take _,___Prospects for Degrowth 2025__ of the current situation of polycrisis2, which presents a multitude of challenges but also opportunities for degrowth horizons to flourish. He offered a system diagram, showing how a number of factors interact to shape the current global conjuncture in relation to the goals of degrowth. These factors were, * Collapsing planetary and ecological systems in the face of insignificant mitigation and excessive material flows. * The internal and external limits of capitalist expansion. * Bankruptcy of political leadership. * Renewed growthism – backtracking on environmental and social protection. * Geopolitical conflict and population displacement. * Right populism, fascism and racist movements. Mark went on to argue that despite this depressing picture, there are some openings for the degrowth movement to influence and create an alternative future: * Disenchantment of sections of the left and centre-left. * Popular resistance to mega-projects, fossil fuel expansion and other extractivism, data centres, green space erosion. * Interest in demonstration projects and degrowth-friendly alternatives. * Anti-fascist resistance and solidarity movements. He proposed that following a multi-level strategy, the degrowth movement, despite its small size, could be key in building an effective counter-hegemony, an alternative ‘good sense’ of the kind of world we want and need, and how we can struggle together to get it. As he noted, _“We do not expect to win but we cannot afford to lose. Our approach will be collective not individual, caring, sharing and resisting, while always showing the way along the alternative degrowth pathway that we will be constructing as we go. Or at the very least, helping prepare for a ‘better collapse.”_ Following Mark’s opening gambit, Vincent Liegey offered another analysis on the current conjuncture and what that means for degrowth in ‘ __Nothing surprises me__ ’. Drawing a caricature of the growthist, capitalist, neocolonial paradigm, Vincent offered an analysis of the polycrisis not dissimilar to Mark’s, commenting on how the extreme degree of the current system’s corruption can represent a paradoxical opportunity for anti-systemic efforts: “ _It forces all those, who are truly sincere in their progressive and emancipatory aspirations, and in their understanding of ecological reality, to stop kidding themselves.”_ As the message ‘no infinite growth in a finite planet’ becomes ever more intuitive, it is clear that no solution would be complete without being anchored on the imperative of social justice and radical democratic participation. In this way, Vincent offers us a powerful warning that not all anti-systemic efforts (or not all those that claim that label, at least) will be able or willing to provide such a solution. He brings the example of illiberal Hungary, his country of residence, which has acted as a test bed for the authoritarian and nationalistic politics and policies that are now becoming more mainstream in multiple locations. In an echo of one of the originators of the degrowth concept, Castoriadis, he concludes the article by posing the dichotomy of _degrowth vs barbarism_. Mladen’s piece, __Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery__ _,_ self described as a ___“semiperipheral recipe for meaningful degrowth prospects in the present conjuncture”,_ had its origins in the same discussion that Mark’s and Vincent’s pieces grew out of. However, in his case he was frustrated by,__ “ _… the tacit assumption that the material juggernaut of the human socio-economic activity entangled with the raging climate transformation and living world die-off will simply keep spinning for the foreseeable future. We seemed to be discussing micro-politics, whilst it seemed to me we had been ignoring the proverbial elephant – or their imminent heart attack. That is, we were engaged with the daily tactical choices, worrying about greater representation in institutional structure, as well as our daily navigation through social structures.”_ Mladen found hope, or at least a semblance of it, through two examples. Firstly, the 1920s Zagreb activist August Cesarec, a Marxist who, acknowledging anarchist and utopian sensibilities, drew on the natural world with concepts such as ‘sensible organizing and solidarity’ and ‘general principles of justice’, in the attempt to build a narrative that made sense for those from his semi-peripheral context. Mladen suggests that in a similar way, we might draw on a broad understanding of life in the natural world, its _“biophysical trends and their aggregate effect on us, each only a few degrees of separation from the weather extremes, the food failures, and other interacting lifeforms”_ to paint _“the bigger picture of what is and can be done”._ Secondly, he draws inspiration from the 1970s Limits to Growth debates in the context of self management in socialist Yugoslavia. While “ _the growthers won”_ , o _ne of the lessons was the organisational power of the ‘one world’ perspective … a genuinely one-world perspective in which the resources, benefits and human commitment are all limited and require deliberation over distribution. A willingness to share radically, to see and understand the other, and to fully accept the collapsing world narrative.“_3 Ultimately, Mladen finds inspiration in the collective effort to tell a better story of what might be, or at least how, taking the beautiful and powerful forces of nature very seriously, we might live through a better collapse4. As he says, quoting Oxana Lupatina5, imagining the end of capitalism, or the end of the world, is different in the global periphery and semi-periphery, than in the still (but for how long) dominating world cities. Words of warning came also from Aurora Despierta’s piece, ‘ __Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam__ ’, in which she outlines the worrying possibility of the ruling class appropriating degrowth discourse: “We cannot pin our hopes on the collapse of capitalism”. Her analysis is reminiscent of Nancy Fraser’s _Cannibal Capitalism_ _6_ , since Aurora also understands capitalism as an essentially cannibalistic, illogical, brutal system. In the physical impossibility of further economic growth, the system would find something else to cannibalise on. Hence, we need to insist on “an anti-capitalist and voluntary degrowth”. The last article of the series examined very current developments in Left British politics and what they might mean for degrowth. In __As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda?__ , Mark offers a nuanced critique of the left turn of the Green party, with the election of Zack Polanski, and the slow and troubled creation of a new left party, provisionally named Your Party. Mark’s piece notes that, although both of these constitute positive developments for the Left, neither of them seems ready to confront the ecological reality of overshoot that we all live in, together with the necessity to equitably but urgently downscale our economies. Certainly, Your Party is not a fully formed organisation and there is no political programme critique just yet. However, given the latest leadership spats and internal divisions, questions arise as to whether it will ever be. ## **The degrowth movement – critique and defence******(Ted, Manuel, Mark) The previous pieces, more focused on creating a concrete understanding of the conditions in which we’re operating, were accompanied by other articles that confronted the question of what, as degrowthers, we should be doing in order to face these circumstances. Ted Trainer’s ‘ __Friendly Critique of Degrowth__ ’ led to a three-way exchange. Ted’s critiques of the movement include the following key points: degrowth has to be just about reducing consumption, the rest is the movement is losing focus on the imperative to change lifestyles over everything else (turning to his proposed ‘Simpler Way’) he criticised the focus on the State in favour of a consciousness raising strategy to create prefigurative spaces. Perhaps as a result of their respective European standpoints, both Manuel and Mark had difficulty in recognising Ted’s portrayal of the degrowth movement – their experience is clearly different from his. _Manuel’s_ __Reply__ brought attention to the existing literature, particularly Spanish and French literature, to which we might add some English- speaking authors, such as Jason Hickel, which does recognise the need to (qualitatively) reduce consumption and rejects capitalism. Manuel’s piece also highlighted the compatibility between anarchist visions, like the Simpler Way, and the broader degrowth movement, advocating for a ‘dual strategy’, combining bottom-up and top-down strategies. Following Manuel’s, Mark’s reply, __Degrowth, the Movement, the State, Socialism and Marx__**,** noted that, insofar as degrowth activists focus on government and its institutions, this can be seen in terms of non-reformist demands waged both within and outside a State that is always a terrain of contestation. The dichotomy of top-down and bottom-up is a simplification, and like Manuel he advocated a combination of strategies. In response to Ted’s disparaging comments about socialism and Marxism, he argues that Marxism is not inherently productivist, despite there having been a strong productivist strand in that tradition, a claim also shared by Anna’s later article. ## **Aspects of and approaches to degrowth** (Graham, Eva, Richard, Anna) This discussion also sparked reflections on other aspects of degrowth. Eva Martinez’s __Proposals for Degrowth__ built on this exchange adding a critical perspective of lived experience on living in intentional communities and of other interstitial approaches. Eva says, _“communities are in danger of becoming a hideaway for members to escape conditions of mainstream society”._ Her piece also interrogates the uncomfortable question of the privileges of the Simpler Life. In other words, who can actually afford to lead that kind of intentional life? Eva concludes her piece by urging those living in intentional communities to engage with organising efforts in their localities, or in urban neighbouring spaces, to re-politicise their lifestyles. Anna’s piece, __Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition__ _,_ echoing Manuel’s concept of dual strategy, investigated and affirmed the need for a State strategy, as part and parcel of ecosocialist degrowth, in conjunction with more local and non-State strategies. There is an echo of this in a recent interview with Jason Hickel, who argued that degrowth _is_ a socialist trajectory, but one that needs a mass class-based movement to take on the vested interests that govern the State under late capitalism7. Anna sets out the advantages of engaging with the State, while being clear that at present it protects the interests of capital. She also argues that there is a need for a revolutionary (and ecosocialist) political force, built painstakingly from the various strands of the left – a daunting task indeed. Richard Muscat’s __Creatively disrupting capitalism__ traces the genesis of a degrowth activist in the making,rom the privileges of what we might call an ecomodernist lifestyle as a worker in climate tech, to the uncomfortable realisation of the reality of ecological collapse and its entanglements with the capitalist-imperialist system, to his experience as an activist and advocate for degrowth, led Richard to offer some suggestions to the movement. One of his recommendations is simplifying the way that we share our theories to become more accessible to ‘regular people’, in favour of which Richard proposes the need for even more anti-capitalist, degrowth ‘instruction manuals’. Richard ends his article by returning to the creativity he mentioned in the title, the very antithesis of capitalism. Creativity is the centre of Graham Janz’s piece, __Familiarizing degrowth: art and grounded communities__ _,_ is a prefigurative exploration of the problematic of how to anchor degrowth in communities, and, more boldly, how to transform degrowth ideas from academic niches to wildly popular discourse. Put more simply, how to ‘familiarise’ them. The answer for Graham lies in the arts. Graham imagines ways of picturing glimpses of post-growth living through the visual arts while at the same time pushing for the creation of community spaces that enable degrowth lifestyles and democratic participation to flourish. In __Th__ __e Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there…__ , Jon Cloke gets specific about the material dimension of growth and degrowth, focusing on the neglected global problem of waste. The accelerating scale of all kinds of waste is truly incredible and as Jon notes, this presents a series of problems for even imagining a degrowth future, although only degrowth will address the issue: _Before any practical degrowth policies can be implemented, the fundamental reality of growth and increase have to be challenged as concepts and policies at the very root. But this devious, diabolical ‘reality’ is cunning, greedy and has more disguises than can be imagined – the most important of which are that growth and increase are invisible, unstoppable, inevitable and that terminating them is outside human reality._ ## Conclusion: Thinking of Silences and Further Prospects We conclude this appraisal by pointing out some areas of silence in the series, as well as areas that present further prospects for degrowth thinkers and activists. The first of two major silences we identify is on degrowth and decolonisation. While anti-imperialist commitment was mentioned in a couple of the pieces, no article centred on the relationship between the two. It is possible that this reflects a general silence within the degrowth literature. However there are some notable exceptions8. At the recent _Oslo conference_ , there was a ‘degrowth and delinking tent’, with discussions and events organised around _Samir Amin’s concept of delinking_ from the global economic system. This was not a theme of the conference but nevertheless acted as a contemporaneous commentary and critique. The second absence within the series has been gender, feminism and queer perspectives to degrowth. The relationship of feminist thinking, economics and ecology has added an important perspective to the degrowth scholarship in recent years through the work of theorists like Stefania Barca and networks like FaDA. This is a topic on which we invite contributions for future articles in the series or stand alone articles. The final prospect, unfolding at the time we’re writing this closing piece, is captured by two developments for us in the UK. Firstly, the launch of a new Left party (provisionally called ‘Your Party’) by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, and secondly the apparent leftward and social movement orientated shift in the Green Party’s leadership team. Do these developments have the potential of shifting the prospects outlined for degrowth in this series so far? Is there a serious prospect that either force, or an alliance of the two, will take the degrowth agenda seriously? As Mark _explored, in the piece noted above_ , the Green Party of England and Wales tends to downplay their position against growth, and Your Party has hardly mentioned the climate and ecological crises so far. Against this, in the UK and internationally, there is an extremely worrying turn to xenophobia and outright fascism, together with moves to curtail even the inadequate policies in place for environmental and climate protection. _Malign and dangerous forces are in play_ and they are the sworn enemies of degrowth. As we write this, we hear that the Tory Party too has now broken with the already grossly inadequate consensus of the mainstream parties on decarbonisation targets. Dangerous times indeed. What our series shows is that despite the storm clouds, there is a lively and pluralistic degrowth movement waiting in the wings, with a life-belt to hand, since it is degrowth that is the only hope for a viable future. ### Notes 1 Anna and Mark are the coordinators of the website, _Degrowth UK._ 2 Mark prefers the term ‘pancrisis’ since we are faced with an all-embracing crisis with multiple dimensions and ramifications. That crisis is the crisis of capitalism’s endless, growth-demanding destruction of people and planet. 3 See T Hirvilammi, Tuuli, et al. _Towards a Postgrowth Policy Paradigm. Report on the Theoretical Framework on Sustainable Wellbeing and Transformation_. Zenodo, _https://zenodo.org/records/14899252/files/D1.1%20Towards%20a%20postgrowth%20policy%20paradigm.%20Report%20on%20the%20theoretical%20framework%20on%20sustainable%20wellbeing%20and%20transformation%20.pdf?download=1_ section 4.2. 4 Burton , M. _Prospects for Degrowth 2025_ 5 Lopatina, Oxana. “Where Is Hope?” _Postgrowth Futures: New Voices, Novel Visions_ , edited by Vedran Horvat and Lana Pukanić, IPE, 2025, pp. 13–18. https://gef.eu/publication/post-growth-futures-new-voices-novel-visions/ 6 https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism 7 _https://breakdownjournal.substack.com/p/interview-with-jason-hickel-degrowth-a84_ See also this response to Jason Hickel: _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/debating-degrowth-a-response-to-jason-hickel_ We plan to pick up this debate with our own response later. 8 Some degrowth thinkers have, moreover, emphasised the extractive colonial nature of the capitalist, growthist, accumulation model. Based in the Global North, examples include Joan Martínez Alier, Ulrich Brand, and Jason Hickel, while in the Global South, Ashish Kotari, Vandana Shiva, Alberto Acosta, Max Ajl, and Maristella Svampa are degrowth-aligned thinkers among many others. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

by Carolyn Kagan **Games as a tool for Awareness-raising** From the Sougandhika Parinaya Manuscript (1821 CE); Krishnaraja Wadiyar III, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Naomi Klein1 asks the question _How do you change a world-view, an unquestioned ideology?_ Much of what we do in Steady State Manchester is to endeavour to change world-views, unquestioned ideologies about economic growth and the exploitation of environmental resources. We seek to enable people to discuss, challenge and develop their ideas and thinking; to help others see that their interests coincide with tackling climate change and securing a viable economic future; to offer hope and possibilities for living better within planetary boundaries; to share practical ways of doing things differently; to provide critiques of current practices but at the same time offer alternatives2. Games and simulations have been used in training and development arenas for some time and across many different places and groups. They include table top games; video games, educational games, small or large scale role play or simulation games. In September 2025 we explored the role that games might play in helping to change world-views. We invited people attending our AGM to: _Bring along a game, almost any game will do. The idea is that most games could be adapted around the ideas of Degrowth. So there’s the challenge: bring a game and ideas about how it might be adapted or used to inspire a new game that explores or promote_ _s_ _Degrowth._ **Ideas for games** The ideas we came up with were mostly small in scale, table top games. **Adaptations of existing games:** **Degrowth Pictionary:** Aim: to understand and explore concepts underpinning Degrowth. Following the format of the well known game of Pictionary, cards are prepared with Degrowth concepts written on them – anything will do for example, anti-capitalism; climate change; collapse; cooperation; commons; fair shares; Limits to Growth; planetary boundaries; tipping points, overshoot; carbon emissions, simplicity. Participants take a card and without speaking draw the concept related to Degrowth, while others guess what it might be. No words are allowed during the drawing, but discussion after each concept is revealed, or after two or three concepts, will help to clarify understanding of the concepts and may identify strategies for change. The challenge is for the sketcher to capture the essence of the concept and for the guessers to articulate what that concept might be. **Versions of Monopoly** 3, products of mind games. The aim would be to develop a deep understanding and help move toward collective intelligence and wisdom. Proposed versions of Monopoly included Civil-opoly; Techn-opoly; Polit-opoly; Plent-opoly; Co-opoly – each version emphasises a theme relevant to Degrowth and build on the idea of telling different stories (each shown via clever and captivating graphics in the text). **Degrowth Snakes and Ladders:** Aim: particularly for younger players, to understand the hazards and actions that can be taken in achieving a viable economy or the green transition. Snakes and ladders boards can be prepared, with short messages on the squares rather than just numbers. Ladders represent actions towards a viable economy and snakes the hazards that detract from a viable economy. The Board could be labelled in terms of general Degrowth (e.g. ladders: waste is recycled; government funds adaptations to homes for insulation and electric heating; a neighbourhood has all it needs for local people; public transport is good; e.g. snakes: you fly several times a year to go on holiday; you buy new shoes and chuck out the old ones which are still good etc.). Alternatively boards could reflect a Degrowth theme: for example inequality; climate change; biodiversity. Discussion takes place throughout so all players explore why the ladders make progress and the snakes do not. **Patience** : the well known card game, known in the USA as Solitaire, embodies in and of itself many features of a Degrowth future. The aim of playing Patience is to help players appreciate a move towards a slower, way of life, with intrinsic satisfaction in playing the game itself. Patience is slow, with no particular end point. There is no element of competition and players have to accept they cannot win, but just call and end to the game whenever they like. **Degrowth draughts** : in conventional draughts (North America, ‘chequers’) the aim is to eliminate all your opponent’s pieces. In Degrowth draughts, the aim could be to jointly reach a pre-defined, right-size complement of pieces. However, each player has to move in turn and if an opponent’s pieces can be taken, they must be, as in the original game, or you will be ‘huffed’. The game would introduce the ideas of degrowth to a steady state and of co-operative action to correct the bloated economy. **Existing games that feature (some) aspects of Degrowth** ### Carbon City Zero: a board game to get people talking (and learning) about the choices our towns and cities needed to make in order to take action on climate change. available to buy. https://www.wearepossible.org/carbon-city-zero **Daybreak** : Daybreak is a cooperative boardgame about stopping climate change. It presents a hopeful vision of the near future, where you get to build the mind-blowing technologies and resilient societies we need to save the planet. The game requires players to work collaboratively. Available to buy _https://www.daybreakgame.org/_ **Class Struggle:** The Workers move around a board while trying to survive against the Capitalist player who controls everything. As the Workers unite they take power from the Capitalist player but if they do not succeed in uniting the Capitalist will win. Out of production but it might be possible to find second hand copies. **Computer or App-based games** : It would be possible to build an App to feature a Regional focus of Degrowth, highlighting decision making and trade-offs. There are many existing computer games4 about climate change if not about Degrowth in particular. For example, * It’s unclear what the name of the game is but its gist is: Implement the company’s policy of controlled Degrowth to bring balance back to human lives and nature. Remove buildings to facilitate an orderly transition to compact cloud-based living for the citizens. _https://cryptomnesic-softworks.itch.io/degrowth_ * A game about modern monetary theory. Dive into “ _Anything We Can Actually Do, We Can Afford,__(external link)_ ” a unique text-based interactive game created by Sheridan Kates. Through the engaging format of Choose Your Own Adventure, this game challenges conventional economic wisdom, guiding players through scenarios that illustrate the principles of degrowth and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)5 _https://explore.degrowth.net/degrowth/how-do-we-pay-for-degrowth/#play-a-game-about-mmt_ * Variety of climate simulations and games – computer based and interactive _https://teachingthefuture.eu/climate-simulations-and-games/_ * Computer and group based games and simulations. The _Pew Research Center_ estimates that nearly half of American adults play video games. The vast majority of these games serve purely to entertain. However, there are a growing number of games that aim to make a difference. https://www.climateinteractive.org/blog/19-climate-games-that-could-change-the-future/ In addition there are simulations that attempt to explore complex systems change – for example, _https://socialsimulations.org/_ **What makes a game a game?** Games are only one vehicle through which Degrowth and a Viable Economy can be communicated and world-views challenged. So what are the features of games? * are fun to play * not boring * challenging * involve element of jeopardy * usually include an element of competition and winning, although a challenge is to adapt these kinds of games to require collaboration on order to win, and to move from ‘winner takes all’ to ‘all are winners’ 6 * Are non-hierarchical * Can involve any number of players * build relationships as they are played * transcend age and background and provide a common basis for difficult discussions * stimulate ideas across professional and life course boundaries * provide a safe environment in which it is possible to experiment with ideas As long as the rules are easy to understand, and not too many group members harbour desires always to win at all costs, games engage players but also, in creative and effective ways. As tools for engagement they build on everyday cultural practices of games and include familiar everyday formats that seem to have widespread applicability, although it must be remembered that these cultural practices are not universal. To be most useful, any game used to communicate or explore elements of Degrowth and the Viable Economy would need to be clear about: * Target group of players * Aim and intended outcome * Rules **Conclusion** Through games (and simulations), reality is demythologised through dialogue between players: players begin to understand the current social order and sets of social relations that sustain it, as well as the ideology supporting the status quo7 and possibilities for alternative realities. This emerging critical consciousness is what Paulo Freire8 called ‘conscientisation’ and is seen as a necessary foundation for taking action. As such, games are important tools for communicating about, and moving towards a Viable Future9. ## Notes 1 Klein N (2015) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Penguin, London 2 Emanuel, J. and Kagan, C. (2018). Communicating Climate Change in the Greater Manchester region: A whole systems approach to climate change. In Walter Leal Filho, Ulisses Azeiteiro, Evangelos Manolas, and Anabela Mariza Azul, (eds) _Handbook of Climate Change Communication Vol. 2._ New York, Springer pp 401-419. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-69838-0 3 These examples of some mind games are part of a much longer set of arguments. See J. Ravetz (2020) Mind Games in Deeper City: Collective intelligence and the Pathways from Smart to Wise. Routledge ISBN 978-0-415-63897-6 4 Unsurprisingly many of these are USA in origin. There are more than those listed here, and some simulations can involve many players from different parts of the world, over long periods of time 5 MMT is a framework that some degrowthers advocate as an alternative approach to fiscal policy. 6 See https://woodcraft.org.uk/resources/games/ for examples of alternative, co-operative games. 7 Kagan, C. and Duggan, K.(2013) Games for participation and conscientisation. _Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3 (4), 279-285_ Kagan, C. and Duggan, K. (2011). Creating Community Cohesion. The power of using innovative methods to facilitate engagement and genuine partnership. _Social Policy and Society, 10_ (3), 393-404 8 See for example, Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth, Penguin. Freire, P. and Faundez, A. (1989). Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation. Geneva, World Council of Churches. For an introduction, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_consciousness 9 Burton, M., Kagan, C., Vandeventer, J. and Riddle, M. (2022) _A Viable Future? Explorations in post-growth from Steady State Manchester._ Manchester, Steady State Manchester. Reprinted 2023 with new Introduction. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_