Degrowth: A Controversial Ethical and Political Stance in Environmentalism

Date

2025-4

Author

Çeşme, Murat

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Environmental concerns worldwide have increased in recent years, especially concerning global warming and climate change. Feeling the impending threat of planetary collapse, the idea of degrowth has been introduced as a solution to the ecological crisis. This work aims to analyze degrowth as a political and ethical stance in the field of environmentalism, discussing whether degrowth can be suggested as a viable solution to the current ecological crisis. In this study, I assert that modern-day environmentalism has been stuck in a deadlock and is far from offering a realistic solution to the ecological crisis due to the wrong-headed policies of the liberal approach. In this sense, blaming one’s own consumption for causing the crisis and focusing solely on individual carbon footprint analysis will be criticized for deliberately misleading people. Indicating the capitalist mode of production as the primary cause of environmental degradation, I argue that ecological problems cannot be solved without a radical change in the capitalist mode of production. Since capitalism’s continuous exploitation of labor and plundering of nature are not separate issues, I think the ecological struggle should be a part of the struggle for social liberation against capitalism. To conclude, I assert that degrowth’s ultimate goal of maintaining ecological and social well-being through downscaling in the usage of material throughput and energy can be supported. Nevertheless, with its various problems and ambiguities, I think degrowth cannot be proposed as a realizable solution to the current ecological crisis.

Subject Keywords

Environmentalism, degrowth, capitalism, climate change

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114463

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis