Week 5: Post-Growth in the Global South (Gerber & Raina)

Question 1

What is Herman Daly’s impossibility theorem as referenced by Gerber and Raina in “Post-Growth in the Global South”?

Answer 1

Western-style high consumption is unfeasible for 7.5 billion people due to** ecological and resource constraints.**

Question 2

What are the three focuses of post-development as outlined by Gerber and Raina?

Answer 2

Post-development focuses on
- the good life
- solidarity and community economies
- and post-extractivism, rejecting GDP as a measure of well-being.

Question 3

Why do Gerber and Raina argue that current growth patterns in the Global South are unsustainable?

Answer 3

High growth in countries like India has led to
- massive social and environmental cost:
- debt-driven economies
- rising inequalit
- pollution
- lifestyle diseases
- and a wave of farmer suicides due to debt.

Question 4

How do Gerber and Raina challenge the idea that growth is necessary to overcome poverty?

Answer 4

• growth often benefits elites and thus exacerbates inequality, and results in “jobless” growth that exploits labor and resources, leaving basic needs unmet for many.

Question 5

According to Gerber and Raina, what should replace the policy focus on growth?

Answer 5

The policy focus should shift to
- fulfilling basic needs sustainably and democratically,
- distinguishing true needs from “false consciousness.”

Question 6

What role does inequality play in post-growth thinking, as discussed by Gerber and Raina?

Answer 6

• They argue: Many problems stem from unequal distribution rather than lack of growth.
• Radical restructuring is needed to address systemic capitalist and imperialist inequalities.

Question 7

How do social movements in the Global South align with post-growth ideas?

Answer 7

Post-growth unifies diverse movements
- including environmental justice
- indigenous rights
- peasant and artisan movements
- socialist feminism, and progressive spirituality.

Question 8

What are some thinkers from india that have had early ideas of post-growth principles, and what are their propositions?

Answer 8

Thinkers like Gandhi, Tagore, and Kumarappa advocated for
- local economies
- criticized industrial societies,
- sustainable, community-oriented practices.

Question 9

what are bhutans policies that exemplify post-growth principles?

Answer 9

Bhutan’s policies include
- free education and healthcare
- restricted advertising and restrictions on car imports, mass tourism, and mining
- and environmental conservation (60% forest cover)

Its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index measures holistic well-being, replacing GDP as a success metric, 9 domains, 33 indicators

Question 10

What are the cristicisms of post-growth paradigms in the global south?

Lecture

Answer 10

• Decreased consumption in the North can have negative impact on global south economies (Chiengkul, 2018, Dengler and Seebacher, 2019)
• Danger of neocolonial agenda setting, depriving countries in the South of road to prosperity that Western countries took (Dengler and Seebacher, 2019)
• Degrowth is doomed to be a Eurocentric project (Muradian, 2019):
  1. Degrowth does not pay sufficient attention to importance of social mobility
  2. “frugality as a choice is not very appealing to those who live frugality as a social condition”
  3. Wave of conservative values in lower income classes moving in opposite direction

Question 11

What are some similarities in indigenous worldviews ?

Answer 11

• Land seen as borrowed from future generations
• The group is accountable and responsible for peace
  and harmony
• Values: harmony, spiritual interconectedness, unity and collaboration

Question 12

X of the world’s biodiversity are to be found in
areas under guidance (in various forms) of
Indigenous Peoples, which make up only X percent of the population

Answer 12

75%, 5%