My question about degrowth( or as I prefer self sufficienct economies), is can you have a strong enough military to defend against the likes of Russia under such an economy?
Quick thoughts on this:
I would not equate degrowth and self-sufficiency. While it’s plausible and possibly even necessary to increase self-sufficiency in a successful degrowth scenario, there should still be abundant international trade on important sectors. Degrowth is not a turn away from technology in eg. low-carbon energy production, electrification and bioeconomy.
Ensuring defense capabilities is of course vital, especially in the short term, and can be achieved through prioritization of resource use. Notably, in the long term the turn away from geopolitical competition, weakening the influence of fossil and military-industrial capital, increased self-sufficiency in resource use and increased global solidarity (in eg. trade policy, climate policy, development policy) would all greatly serve to promote peace and the decrease of tensions. This is not to say one should be naive towards governments like Putin’s authoritarian Russia.
While this might sound like a lot of things lumped together, for example this research article is helpful in understanding how all these things relate: https://zenodo.org/records/15529759
The EU has 10x the economy of Russia and 3x the population. The EU is at 31.8% low carbon energy today. Degrowth would still include building green alternatives, so GDP might half or so. That would still leave EU GDP at 5x Russias. Being self sufficient also means events abroad would impact the EU less. Not to mention that most potential enemies make most of their money by selling oil and gas. That very much includes Russia.
Just to say it, but Russia is not winning against Ukraine right now and European aid is not exactly massive compared to what would be used in a full scale war.
Interesting numbers. My own worry, related to the military one, is about the tech implications in general. It’s easy (in theory!) to achieve autarky and then go for economic contraction while maintaining living standards (via redistribution). But you’re inevitably going to get left behind by technology, which has always been a global game. AI is now supercharging this race, of course.
As this article hints, how do you get voters to accept that their currency is now too weak to pay for the latest gadgets? I agree it’s going to have to happen one way or another, but still.
