Decroissance : Not 'The' Question of Growth, but 'Which'

Is economic growth really desirable? Recent critiques of economic growth in the Anglo-Saxon world tend most often to be based on environmental grounds. In Europe, and especially in the school of thought known in France as decroissance, opposition to growth rests at least as much on humanistic grounds. This book review examines decroissance first through a collection of essays by the late French philosopher Andre Gorz, and then through the movement's leading philosophical journal, Entropia. A slightly shorter version of this review appeared in Japanese in the quot;Growthquot; themed issue (Summer 2008) of Nikkei Business Management [Nikkei Bijinesu Manejimento] under the title quot;'Genseichouron' ga tadasu tsukurareta GDP seichouquot; (Y. Sunada, trans.)