ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the freedom case for a post-growth economy. Taking economist Niko Paech’s vision of such an economy as a paradigmatic starting point, the chapter makes three contributions. It expands the analysis of the central distinction of a commercial and decommercialized area in such an economy, introducing next to (commercial) market provision, modes of self, communal, public, and professional provision. Drawing on a capabilitarian conception of freedom, Ziegler presents three arguments why an expanded conception of the economy with a plurality of modes is freedom-enhancing. It improves the recognition of diversity, of choice and participation on economic matters, and it recognizes the value of niches for long-term societal stability and resilience. The chapter tests this case with a view to the prima-facie central “anti-freedom” policy demand of this post-growth vision: the demand for a significant reduction of commercial wage labour hours. The chapter concludes noting the limits of the freedom case, and pragmatically points to the emergence of new types of (social) innovation already shaping a de facto plural economic space.
