Manifeste pour une Dotation Inconditionnelle d'Autonomie

Published in Les Z’indigné(e)s n° 16, June 2014.
The idea of “Protectionism” recurs often when we are trying to imagine solutions to face up to the horrors of Liberalism. Our friends from the Left often prone it and, even though we might share their approach, it is not without any reservations. As Growth Objectors, we remain prudent, not only with regard to their diagnosis and proposals, but also with the term itself for many reasons.

Protectionism reflects a society of fear… we must free ourselves from this domination by the oligarchs and the Far Rights:
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For over a year, « A Degrowth Project » has been invited to participate to Institute of Desirable Futures’s Lab Session. Lab Sessions provide “a two-way journey into the complexity during which some 20 participants from diverse horizons explore the limits of our reality to better overcome them”. The Lab Session provide a prospective experience in deciphering the present using contemporary world cartographies and experimentations, testimonies and know-hows, weak signals and questions.

Here is the summary of our last session with Sophie Dumaret, a resident journalist at Lab#4:
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How to escape from the “steel cage” of capitalism?

By Yves-Marie Abraham
Published in Les cahiers de lecture de l’Action nationale, Volume VIII, numéro 3, été 2014, p. 25.

The project of a “sustainable Degrowth” entered the public debate over ten years ago. Rather, ideas formulated during the 1960s-70s that had been eclipsed by the conservative and ideological revolution that is sustainable development, re-appeared under a new form. Here is a summary of the main ideas: the economic growth argued for by our “representatives” as being a prerequisite to solve our problems is in fact the cause of our problems. This endless race for the production of goods, measured by the GDP, is destructive, unjust and alienating. Not only this infinite growth is impossible in a finite world, it is also not desirable if we want to respect of equality and freedom meant to be our values. At the collective level, we must break away from the dogma of Growth and commit ourselves to build post-growth societies.
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« A Degrowth Project » will participate to several events on the summer, some of them in English:

• On Thursday the 10th of July, in Barcelona, to present the spanish edition, Proyecto Decrecimiento, invited by our friends of Research&Degrowth in the frame of the Degrowth Summer School.
• In Hungary at the Ozora Festival on the 1rst, 2nd and 3rd of August.

• At our French Degrowth Summer University in CanDecreix in Cerbère on the 28th, 29th and 30th of Auhust.
• From the 3rd to the 6th of September at Leipzig for the 4th International Degrowth Conference.
• Etc.

More info on : http://www.projet-decroissance.net/?cat=35 (thanks to Evelyne)

We are also pleased to announce that our collective join the Post-Growth alliance with around 50 other organizations dealing with Degrowth, Post-Growth and Transition.

We also support the « Endless growth on a finite planet? Demand economic alternatives! » petition.

Have a nice Degrowth summer,

Christophe Ondet, Vincent Liegey, Stéphane Madelaine, Anne-Isabelle Veillot, 
« A Degrowth Project – Manifesto for an Unconditional Autonomy Allowance« , Utopia, 2013.

“ […] the prerequisite for the transfromation of the economy is “ a strong adhesion from all and a participation to this desire for change”. That is the least … But we have to start somewhere and this stimulating book contributes to it undoubtedly”. Hervé Kempf in Le Monde.

“ And the success of the book may suggest that “transition is well underway”. Emmanuel Daniel in Slate.fr.

And also:

• « A Degrowth Project » in Libération: Vincent Liegey : “We can no longer grow in a finite world”
• « A Degrowth Project » in « Le Monde »
• The transition is underway! – In Reporterre.net
• Vincent Liegey : “The freedom to consume is a costly illusion” – A Degrowth Project in Bastamag.
• Momentum Institute analyses Basic Income / Unconditional Autonomy Allowance: « Living income for free and egalitarian societies »
• « A Degrowth Project » : Yesterday’s utopia has become today’s reality!

An abandoned city, another one plagued by demonstrations fuelled by petro-dollars… nothing new really. Except that we are not talking about Detroit, the Greek crisis or the arrival of massive investments into our industries originating from the Gulf countries. No, today, the collective “Un Projet de Décroissance” (« A Degrowth Project« ) takes a look at sports. Sport that created the Olympic city of Sotchi that is already in ruins and ruined; sport which embarrasses Rio for the outrageously costly World Soccer Cup. Of course, it is soccer country but it is also favelas country; the sport also receives massive investments funds from the Gulf countries, as if money were the fuel of sport, leading it to its downfall. Sport is not a simple game anymore. It is far more, rather, far less.

Published on Reporterre.net on the 10th ofJune 2014.
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This text is a transaltion of an article published in Hungarian on the 15th of April: « MESE VIKTOR ÉS A NEM-NÖVEKEDÉS TALÁLKOZÁSÁRÓL » on VS.HU. Its autor, Vincze Szabo, imagines Viktor Orban wiking up after the 6th of April elections in opening his eyes…

The crowing of the coq woke Viktor up. With great difficulty he gets up and peering through the window, he watches the dawn dancing on the thatched roofs. Yesterday’s Hazi Palinka does not sit well but the odious heaviness of the mind is compensated by a great victory: the revolution initiated in 2010 through the ballot box is confirmed: absolute power. Again. Institutions have been reformed, a great change, a true change is finally initiated unlike in 1990. Against all odds, Hungary, this small Central European country, has successfully faced up to the external complot attempts by the banks, the corporations, the Troika, and the Westerners have not been able to turn the Hungarians away form their history. These Liberal puppets that have brought the country down during the 2000s are so discredited.

Whilst he is rearranging an anarchic mop of hair in front of the mirror, Viktor is thinking about the four long years ahead. What should he do? Hungary, this small, misunderstood country, this isolated island in the middle of Central Europe, is at a crossroads.
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