De-Growth vs. a Green New Deal

Overview

About twenty-five pages, an essay by Robert Pollin, published in New Left Review in July-August 2018. Pollin argues against the degrowth movement, which holds that the climate emergency requires rich economies to shrink, and for a global Green New Deal instead.

He calculates that the emissions cuts needed cannot be reached by contracting GDP without mass unemployment, and that investing about 1.5 to 2 percent of global GDP a year in clean energy and efficiency could cut emissions while expanding employment. He treats degrowth as a moral position without a programme and the Green New Deal as a workable one.

What happens

Setting out degrowth’s claim. Pollin opens by setting out the degrowth movement’s central claim, that the climate emergency requires rich economies to actually shrink rather than merely restructure their existing patterns of production and consumption.

Calculating against contraction. Pollin calculates that the emissions cuts genuinely needed cannot be reached by contracting GDP without mass unemployment, directly challenging degrowth’s practical feasibility as an actual policy response to the climate crisis.

Proposing the Green New Deal alternative. Pollin proposes a global Green New Deal as the workable alternative, a policy framework built around substantial investment in clean energy rather than deliberate economic contraction.

Quantifying the necessary investment. Pollin calculates that investing about 1.5 to 2 percent of global GDP annually in clean energy and efficiency could cut emissions while actually expanding employment, offering a specific quantitative counter-proposal to degrowth.

Distinguishing moral position from programme. Pollin treats degrowth as a moral position without a programme, a distinction separating ethically admirable aspiration from politically and economically implementable policy capable of actually being enacted.

Positioning the Green New Deal as workable. Pollin positions the Green New Deal specifically as workable, arguing this framework offers genuine practical machinery for achieving climate goals that degrowth’s moral stance alone cannot supply.

How to read it

Read Pollin’s calculation that necessary emissions cuts cannot be reached by contracting GDP without mass unemployment as directly challenging degrowth’s core practical claim, insisting economic contraction alone cannot deliver climate goals without severe social costs.

Pay close attention to Pollin’s alternative calculation, that investing roughly 1.5 to 2 percent of global GDP annually in clean energy could cut emissions while expanding employment, as offering a specific quantitative counter-proposal rather than merely gesturing toward green investment.

Notice how characterizing degrowth as a moral position without a programme, against the Green New Deal as workable, stakes out a considered distinction between ethically admirable aspiration and politically implementable policy, with consequences beyond this specific climate debate.

Consider that publishing this argument in New Left Review, a venue with genuine socialist and environmentalist credibility, lets Pollin challenge degrowth from within rather than outside the broader left coalition most invested in the climate emergency.

Read this essay alongside the Ecomodernist Manifesto to compare two distinct approaches to addressing the climate emergency that both reject economic contraction, one grounded in Keynesian employment-focused investment, the other in a more explicitly technological framework.

Questions it raises

• Does Pollin’s calculation that necessary emissions cuts cannot be reached through GDP contraction without mass unemployment successfully refute degrowth, or might degrowth advocates respond that unemployment concerns reflect capitalism’s specific structure rather than an inherent limit on economic contraction itself?
• How persuasive is Pollin’s specific investment figure, 1.5 to 2 percent of global GDP annually in clean energy? Does this calculation rest on assumptions about technology and implementation that might prove more uncertain than the essay’s confident framing suggests?
• What does characterizing degrowth as a moral position without a programme accomplish rhetorically? Does this framing fairly represent degrowth’s own proposed policies, or does it understate genuine practical mechanisms degrowth advocates have developed?
• How should a reader weigh Pollin’s employment-focused argument against degrowth’s own concerns about consumption, resource limits and ecological overshoot beyond carbon emissions specifically? Does the Green New Deal adequately address these broader degrowth concerns?
• Given that this essay was published specifically in New Left Review, addressing an audience already committed to left political and economic analysis, how does this context shape the argument’s framing and the specific objections it anticipates and addresses?
• What does this debate between degrowth and Green New Deal approaches suggest about broader tensions within climate politics regarding the proper relationship between economic growth, employment and ecological sustainability? Does either position adequately resolve this underlying tension?