ABSTRACT
In defining the contours of a post-growth economy, we reach an impasse that is produced by an interaction between behavioural changes at the level of the individual – wired to develop an “acquisitive mentality” – and the responses to such changes at societal level, which reinforce this mentality and encourage acquisitiveness as a survival strategy for the individual in an environment that puts competition above cooperation. Moreover, although a small but growing percentage of public opinion acknowledges the limits to growth, the means by which to steer society in a different direction remain vague and contested. These two constraints impede our ability to move away from the inherited system. The collective action problem posed by the need to move beyond growth, however, can also be seen as a promise: for we can only escape the cage by recognizing that the transition calls for a plurality of solutions, because there are a number of ways to unlock the system. We are clearly in a cage, but we are not in a labyrinth that only allows for a single escape route: it is by building on this twofold characteristic that we can imagine governance tools which will enable a post-growth society to emerge.
