Post-Growth Economics, Sustainability and Equality: Towards a Green Republican Political Economy

This paper seeks to make the case that a fruitful bridge between green politics and civic republicanism is the political economy of 'post-growth' economics. Republicans see the economy as a politically created arena of human activity, with an associated institutional infrastructure. It is neither ‘self-regulating’ or beyond legitimate political and democratic regulation and, where necessary, interference. Republicans do not see a difficulty with interfering with market relations for important non-economic, political reasons, such as to preserve civic freedoms, promote solidarity or shared common goods. A green republican conception of political economy, however, is one that also begins its analysis from the observation that we live in societies with economies nested within them. Departing from liberalism in a radical manner, a green republican perspective on the economy is therefore interested not simply in the efficiency or productivity of economic relations. Nor is it simply interested in economic growth at any costs. Indeed, it rejects the conventional priority given to undifferentiated economic growth for at least three reasons. Natural limits to growth Inequality is the problem Growth and human flourishing We have enough evidence that orthodox economic growth beyond a threshold undermines human well-being, is corrosive of community cohesion and social solidarity. There comes a point where in answering the political economy question ‘what the economy is for?’ involves the threshold beyond which economic growth becomes ‘uneconomic growth’. For this reason we need to remember that while the end or limiting of economic growth is a major problem for capitalism, this does not automatically translate into this being a problem for individuals or communities. But only if we adopt the invitation of a green republican political economy perspective, and begin to politically and creatively imagine ‘economic policy’ beyond ‘neoclassical economics’; the ‘economy’ beyond the ‘market’; and ‘work’ beyond ‘employment’.