"Liberation from Abundance" is the title of the recently published book by Oldenburg economist Niko Paech. In it, he calls for consistent climate protection - which is only possible without the ballast of prosperity. Paech in an interview about his model of a "post-growth economy".
QUESTION: Mr Paech, you write that we as consumers are living beyond our means. How do you measure this?
PAECH: From a climate protection perspective, this applies to everyone in Germany who produces more than 2.7 tonnes of CO2 per year - directly or indirectly. This figure is quoted by reputable sources such as the German Advisory Council on Global Change. The fact that we in Germany are at around eleven tonnes shows how much we are living beyond our means in ecological terms.
QUESTION: In your opinion, the increase in prosperity in Western societies has little to do with increased productivity ...
PAECH: ... but all the more with increasingly ruthless exploitation of nature. Overall, technological progress has merely changed the nature of ecological plundering. Take all the devices that the physicist Hans-Peter Dürr called "energy slaves"! These are devices that serve only one purpose - to convert externally supplied energy in such a way that humans no longer have to exert any physical effort to perform certain tasks. Whether mechanisation, electrification or digitalisation: we were and are surrounded by energy slaves. The prosperity that we believe to be the result of human creativity is generated by machines that convert energy and resources.
QUESTION: So most technical innovations since industrialisation are the devil's work?
PAECH: I'm not saying that. But I doubt that there have ever been any technical innovations, which are also capital-intensive, that have brought benefits to mankind without having to be bought at the price of creeping ecological destruction. The side effects of ground-breaking innovations only become apparent in the long term. It is then almost impossible to press the stop button.
QUESTION: Are you not pinning your hopes on the expansion of renewable energies?
PAECH: Wind power, photovoltaics and bioenergy also have side effects that are usually concealed. If we take climate protection seriously, the hope of green economic growth or a "Green New Deal" is illusory. Instead, we must turn away from the dogma of economic growth, which in turn means moderating our consumption and mobility behaviour by reducing it.
QUESTION: What does the model of a post-growth economy that you propose look like?
PAECH: Global industry should be limited to areas where it is unavoidable. Wherever possible, a regional economy should take its place. Instead of the current 40 hours, employees should only work around 20 hours a week to earn money. The remaining 20 hours would not only be used for leisure, but also for creative self-sufficiency: Growing fruit and vegetables, mending and repair work, home production ... Some goods and services could be exchanged in the social environment. A modern subsistence economy could compensate for the reduction in cash income by "refining" a reduced quantity of goods through in-house maintenance and repair, i.e. allowing them to be used for longer.
QUESTION: A paradise for hobby craftsmen and passionate gardeners. A serious problem for everyone else, isn't it?
PAECH: Even a completely cerebral person would survive that. Why not invite someone to your garden for a lecture on Immanuel Kant in exchange for a bike repair? Or help a neighbour to use the Linux operating system? Everyone should be able to acquire two or three modern subsistence skills in the 20 hours outside of gainful employment that they use in their local network.
QUESTION: Is it really desirable to have to negotiate a service or the shared use of a device with your grumpy neighbour instead of simply going to the nearest shop with some money?
PAECH: The importance of negotiating shared use would undoubtedly increase in a post-growth economy. And many would certainly initially perceive this as a loss of freedom. But I think it is unenlightened to propagate a freedom that cannot be justified in the long term. Incidentally, one of the madnesses of today's societies is that we want to make ourselves independent of other people through purchasing power on the one hand, but on the other hand we spend a lot of time on Facebook in order to feel like social beings via the digital back door. In the long term, increasing personal contact while slowing down our lifestyles could make people happier.
QUESTION: To improve climate protection - and as part of a post-growth economy - you are calling not only for the regionalisation of the economy, but also for greater sedentarisation. So cheap holiday flights abroad would be taboo?
PAECH: That would depend on your carbon footprint and your personal preferences. If you have 2.7 tonnes of CO2 per year, you have to do the maths: You might not have a detached house, a car, a TV or a mobile phone - in which case a flight might be possible from time to time. Or you could borrow half a tonne each from several friends, which you then have to pay off. We have to get used to reckoning with CO2 as if it were a non-renewable budget.
QUESTION: So many people would only know foreigners from television? Your ideal of sedentarism sounds like 1950s mustiness.
PAECH: What is needed is a compromise between intolerant couch potatoes and uptight cosmopolitan contemporaries who maximise ecological damage. Can tolerance and cosmopolitanism only be achieved through excessive mobility or is this just a way of talking up a ruinous pleasure? Nobody asks whether frequent travelling is just as likely to confirm prejudices about certain cultures. I don't want to ban anyone from travelling, I just want to point out that climate protection and global mobility are incompatible. Anyone who rejects the rule that each person is entitled to no more than 2.7 tonnes of CO2 per year either doesn't want climate protection or global justice and should say so openly.
QUESTION: How could the idea of a post-growth economy gain acceptance?
PAECH: A political majority in favour of such an economic model can hardly be expected at present. I see two main trends working in favour of a post-growth economy: Firstly, creeping collapses of certain subsystems - let's think of the financial crises, the scarcity of resources or the next signs of climate change. On the other hand, cultural avant-garde movements have already emerged that practise alternative lifestyles. Think of the "transition town" - initiatives for local and sustainable economic activity. Or "urban gardening" - the shared agricultural use of urban areas. Or the "I fix it" movement. These are people who are having fun again repairing everyday things in small social networks. Decommercialised concepts of community use are also worth mentioning.
QUESTION: To what extent are you yourself already living in the spirit of a post-growth economy?
PAECH: Well, that sounds negative to some (laughs). But well: I don't have a detached house, no car, no mobile phone, no TV and have only flown once in my 51 years of life. I've been a vegetarian since 1979 and try to eat seasonally, regionally and organically. And I use things until they break, have trousers and shoes mended. I repair bicycles, bake bread and have also acquired a few other subsistence skills.
QUESTION: And you encourage your friends, relatives and colleagues to live the same way?
PAECH: Never! That wouldn't achieve anything anyway, especially as it's not clever speeches that are credible, but only lived practices. Only those who ask me will get an answer. I'm not a party pooper who reproaches others. That would be terror!
NikoPaech: Befreiung vom Überfluss. On the way to a post-growth economy. Oekom Verlag, Munich 2012, 14.95 euros.