Heal Capitalism, Not the Planet: Why the Post-Growth Story Needs a Rewrite
Obviously, we want to stop emissions. We want to end waste, halt exploitation, and reduce harm. These are sane and shared goals. But the usual story — the one that says we must “save the planet or be damned” — is not just tired. It’s misleading.
It tries to scare us into responsibility, by turning the biosphere into a dying deity and humanity into guilty children. It casts climate action as penance, and post-growth as sacrifice. And while that story may move some hearts, it fails where it matters most: it doesn’t give ordinary people a reason to want it.
In the paragraphs that follow, I’ll show why that framing is wrong — and why a truly compelling post-growth vision must begin, not with saving the planet, but with saving ourselves from a dysfunctional economic system we actually have the power to fix.
The Earth Doesn’t Need Us — And That’s the Point
"We don't owe the biosphere anything. Biodiversity collapse has happened more times than we can count. 300 million years ago, bacteria wiped out 95% of all species. Life didn’t end — it reshaped. Not even extinction is exceptional. The Earth will go on, almost certainly teeming with forms of life that surpass everything we now call kin. So stop the mass delusion of exceptionalism."
Let’s be clear: the Earth is not fragile. It’s ancient, brutal, resilient, and patient. It has endured supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts, planetary winters, and continent-sized blooms of life-extinguishing bacteria. If we push it too far, it won’t die. We will suffer.
In the worst-case climate scenario, we may lose coastlines, ecosystems, millions of lives, and centuries of human progress. But some form of society will likely persist. Billionaires will build enclaves. Air conditioning will be rationed like water. AI will optimize crop yields while most of humanity scrambles to survive.
That’s the real tragedy: we can continue this economic system into climate hell.
It doesn’t break when the biosphere does.
So if you tell people to change because the planet needs saving, the honest answer is:
Why should I care if someone else is still profiting while the world burns?
Post-Growth Is for Us — Not for the Planet
This is where the usual post-growth and degrowth movements fall short. They assume that ecological collapse will motivate change. But fear of collapse doesn’t spark solidarity — it breeds fatalism, denial, and disengagement.
We don’t need a climate morality tale.
We need a reason to want something better.
Post-growth is not about austerity. It’s about liberation.
It’s the refusal to keep living in a world of disposable goods, extractive work, and perpetual economic anxiety. It’s about no longer being trapped in systems that produce endless "growth" but leave us personally, socially, and spiritually impoverished.
We don’t want to heal the planet. We want to heal capitalism.
Because the real crisis isn’t planetary collapse — it’s civilizational mediocrity. It’s being stuck in a system where everything is broken by design:
- Jobs don’t nourish us.
- Products don’t last.
- Cities don’t breathe.
- Effort doesn’t translate to dignity.
That’s what needs to end.
The Good News: We Can Fix That
The biosphere may be beyond our repair — but capitalism? That’s child’s play.
We built this machine, and we can redesign it. We are not passive consumers of its failure. We are its authors. Post-growth is not a cosmic obligation. It is a creative opportunity to build something actually worth inheriting.
We don’t have to keep chasing infinite growth in a finite world.
We don’t have to accept that everything must be monetized, gamified, extracted, or optimized.
We don’t have to be cogs in a system that treats people and resources as equally disposable.
We just have to want better — and then get serious about building it.
Let’s End the Guilt Story
This is not a call to give up on climate goals. It’s a call to change the story that gets us there.
We don’t fight for post-growth because the Earth demands it.
We fight for it because we deserve more than what this system offers.
Dignity. Resilience. Craftsmanship. Local autonomy. Creative freedom. Lifelong tools. Liberating work.
That’s what post-growth can give us — and that’s why it’s worth everything.
And here’s the final truth: infinite growth capitalism is a Ponzi scheme.
It depends on ever-rising consumption, ever-expanding markets, and ever-cheaper labor. It only works as long as the base keeps widening. But the base is already collapsing — ecologically, socially, demographically.
This system will fail. The only question is:
Do we crash into that wall in debt, or build an exit ramp while we still can?
Post-growth isn’t about stopping something beautiful.
It’s about quitting something unsustainable, before it quits us.
🦣 Find me and discuss this on Mastodon: @thilosch@mastodon.social