Décroissance
de-growth (trad. angl.) ; à entendre comme « a-croissance », sur le modèle d'« a-théisme »
The slogan coined by Serge Latouche to describe the voluntary exit from the growth society—the abandonment of the cult of growth for growth’s sake. Neither recession nor "negative growth," but a break with an *imaginaire*: the one that treats economic expansion as an end in itself and humans as mere means. Latouche calls this "a-growth": not reducing production within the same world, but changing worlds.
De-growth is not, in my view, the same thing as negative growth. That expression is an absurd oxymoron, but it is a clear indication of the extent to which we are dominated by the imaginary of growth.
The word is a slogan, and Latouche embraces it: an “explosive term” designed to “silence the chatter of those addicted to productivism.” He does not advocate décroissance for décroissance’s sake—this would be as absurd, he says, as preaching growth for growth’s sake. The slogan does not denote a quantified target but a demand: to abandon the pursuit of exponential growth, which is driven solely by the quest for profit and reduces society to an instrument of the productive mechanism, ultimately turning humans themselves into waste products of the system.
Hence the theoretical correction Latouche deems decisive: “strictly speaking, we should speak of a-growth, in the same way we speak of a-theism.” The task is to “abandon a faith or religion—that of economics, progress, and development—and reject the irrational, quasi-idolatrous cult of growth.” Décroissance is thus not just another economic measure: it is the apostasy of an economy elevated to the status of religion. It is only conceivable, he adds, “within a décroissance society,” meaning a system founded on a different logic. The alternative he presents is stark: “décroissance or barbarism.”
Its proximity to collapsology is real—both reject the idea of humans dominating their productive fate—but the two are not identical: Servigne and Stevens study the impending collapse, while Latouche prescribes a deliberate scaling back to avert it. Décroissance extends Illich’s concepts of counter-productivity and conviviality: beyond a certain threshold, tools and institutions turn against the very purposes they were meant to serve.
Décroissance ≠ recession: recession is a suffered contraction within a growth-based society, and Latouche himself describes its ravages—unemployment, the dismantling of healthcare, education, and social welfare. Décroissance, by contrast, is a choice made within a different framework.
Décroissance ≠ negative growth: an “absurd oxymoron,” mere growth in reverse, still trapped in the very imaginary it seeks to escape.
Décroissance ≠ sustainable development: Latouche dismisses this phrase as one of the oxymorons that claim to reconcile the irreconcilable; décroissance does not sustain development—it breaks free from it.