A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

specific solutions that should be achieved, which brings us down, once
again, to the local level” (Ibid: 18). Therefore, ‘local eco-development’,
rural and/or urban, seems to be an obligatory point of departure.
As for Latouche, he advocates downgrading ‘good-having’ in order to
advance ‘good-living’, so that for him the central problem is not in changing
the patterns of value so much as starting to change values themselves
and to start drawing the consequences for the concepts
(Latouche, 2008:82). The society of ‘degrowth’, according to Latouche,
involves limiting economic growth and therefore capital accumulation.
However, it can only happen if there is a reduction in the patterns of
spendthrift consumption, which would have a negative effect on surpluses,
the rates of profit and capital accumulation. This should imply a
biophysical ‘degrowth’, both in material and energy flows. Latouche
however is not clear or consistent because at times he seems to refer
simply to economic ‘degrowth’ as though it were equivalent to biophysical
‘degrowth’.
Accordingly, biophysical degrowth or ‘sustainable degrowth’ 18 has been
defined in the following terms:
“an equitable down-scaling of production and consumption that increases
human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the
local and global level, in the short and long term … [is a tendency in
which] certain social qualities, small/medium-scale economic activities
and impoverished groups or regions may still selectively need to grow.
[…Therefore] sustainable degrowth should be accounted at multiple levels.”
(Schneider et al, 2010:512).
Biophysical degrowth can only come about, not as a result of negative
fluctuations in the economy such as crises or recessions that merely
discourage consumption, but by establishing concrete limits and reductions,
in absolute terms, in the use of materials and energy. Thus the
concept of degrowth, according to Schneider et al., implies the need “to
construct an alternative for a sustainable future” (Ibid.) -in other words,
18 I prefer to use the term ‘biophysical degrowth’ given the ambiguity in the meaning
of sustainability (see foregoing paragraphs on this subject).
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