The plan to save the planet by 'degrowing' the economy might accidentally create a new era of feudalism.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Degrowth And The Structural Paradox: The "Ladder-Pulling" Trap in Macroeconomic Transition
SSRN · 6286878
The Takeaway
Deliberate economic 'degrowth' sounds like a cozy, eco-friendly way to live within our means. But this paper argues it leads to a 'social mobility freeze' where the current generation traps the next in a state of powerlessness. When an economy stops growing, the people who already have power stay at the top, and there's no 'room' for the next generation to climb up. This turns vibrant nations into 'museum cities' (Veniceification)—beautiful to look at, but stagnant and hollow. For young people, a degrowth world means being stuck exactly where you were born with no way out.
From the abstract
This paper analyzes Degrowth not as a moral choice about environmental protection, but as a constrained resource allocation problem. When total output is deliberately limited or reduced, the socioeconomic system is forced into severe trade-offs among four variables: citizen welfare (P), government capacity (G), short-term technological standing (S-short), and long-term sovereign potential (S-long). Through concrete analysis of sovereign debt, pension systems, capital flows, behavioral economics,