The No-Growth Society

Two policy proposals are particularly notable and owe nothing to the long-standing controversies between left and right. Rather they suggest new perceptions of reality and a changing sense of values. They are thoroughly radical and indeed subversive since they attack two fundamental features of modern society: its tendency to exponential growth and its assumption of continuous progress. The two proposals are zero economic growth and zero population growthQuite apart from the question of the desirability of a no-growth society or even the possibility that it may even be a necessity what properties should it have? How would its social political and economic systems function? What would people be like in such a society? What sort of culture or consciousness would be appropriate in it?...A careful examination of the no-growth proposals helps to reveal a number of the most fundamental failings and fears of modern lifeFrom the Introduction