ABSTRACT
This chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025) explores autonomy and freedom with respect to individual and societal transformation. Degrowth seeks fundamental reformation of existing social and economic relations to counter ongoing crises. This raises the issue of how radical transformation can be achieved while maintaining freedom, which in turn requires developing a better understanding of autonomy and freedom within democratic institutions. Hegemonic conceptualisations of freedom are recognised as limited to individual choice, and choice as commodity selection in a price-making market economy. Countering this position Castoriadis explored the connections between individual and collective autonomy as necessary to enable a free society to transform oppressive and exploitative structures. The argument developed in the chapter is that the substantive challenges for achieving social-ecological transformation go beyond establishing the basis on which strong democracy can be institutionalised and raise moral questions as to what constitutes the good in ‘the good life’ and how it can be achieved.
