Degrowth

Coming up with new indicators is actively having the discussion on what our societies should value in the economy. The idea of growth is to improve the life of everybody. No society last with only negative ideals. The idea of less and less for the sake of less is a call for universal suffering.

That is why degrowth as a term has so many problems. Any idea trying to make life worse for everybody is never going to be popular. That is why capitalism has no need of capturing the term and in fact is using it to make green groups look like a problem. Instead pushing for life improvements outside GDP is a good idea. For example reducing the maximum allowed work week means unemployment goes down, which improves workers negotiating position giving them a larger share of the profits. That means less money for the rich and fewer private jets and super yachts. If you do it hard enough it can also lower production, but still improve quality of life, due to more free time. So drop in GDP, raise in more useful indicators and even more importantly something positive to sell. It is not you have less stuff, but it is you have more free time.