Degrowth: The word that refuses to be tamed — and why that’s its greatest strength

Imagine standing in a crowded room where everyone is talking about saving the planet. The air is thick with comforting phrases: wellbeing economy, green transition, post-growth, ecosocialism. Soft words. Hopeful words. Words that make you feel warm, like a cup of herbal tea handed to you during a storm.

And then someone says degrowth.

The room falls silent.

Degrowth has long been treated as the unruly child of economic language — too loud, too sharp, too likely to ruin the party. Critics say it’s a “bad word”: people don’t like how it sounds, so we should hide it behind prettier names. Replace it with something friendlier. Something that won’t scare politicians or the public.

But what if this entire line of thinking is based on a misunderstanding?

What if degrowth is not a bad word at all — but a brilliant one?

And what if the newest research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, finally proves why?

The great misunderstanding: It was never about the word

For years, the debate has gone like this:

Critics: “People hate the word ‘degrowth’.”

Advocates: “But the policies are good!”

Critics: “Doesn’t matter. Change the name.”

But the new study cuts straight through this circular argument. Researchers did something shockingly simple: they showed thousands of people in the UK and US two things —

1. The full degrowth proposal without any label: A package of policies that includes better public services, shorter workweeks, housing security, redistribution, ecological protection, and a reduction of harmful, unnecessary production.

2. The degrowth label alone, with no explanation.

What happened?

When people saw the proposal (without the word), support skyrocketed. In the UK, 81–82% supported it. In the US, 72–73% supported it. Not a fringe minority. A solid majority. But when people saw only the word, stripped of its content? Support fell to 13–28%.

This isn’t a “gotcha” moment. It’s a revelation: The issue has never been the word. The issue is emptiness. Show people the policies — they like it.

Show people the word alone — they don’t understand it. This is not a branding crisis. It is a communication crisis. The word isn’t the problem.The context is.

Once the researchers combined the label with the full proposal again, support shot back up to 68–74%. Practically identical to the content-only version.

In other words: “Degrowth” is not a barrier. Lack of explanation is.

Why degrowth is brilliant — precisely because no one can bend it

Now here’s where the argument becomes interesting.

Critics love to compare degrowth to softer labels like “wellbeing economy” or “ecosocialism.” And indeed, the study shows that when people see these labels alone — without any explanation — many react positively. Support ranges between 51–84%.

And this is supposed to be an argument for abandoning degrowth.

But what if this popularity is actually a warning sign?

Soft, feel-good labels are popular for the same reason blank notebooks are popular: anyone can write whatever they want inside them. A wellbeing economy can mean income redistribution — or it can mean a government claiming GDP growth will “improve wellbeing.” Ecosocialism can mean systemic transformation — or it can be stretched so broadly that it loses any operational meaning.

This is how political capture happens.

• Governments have already begun using “wellbeing economy” to justify business-as-usual growth
• Ecosocialism has been stretched so widely it now shelters both radical and conservative agendas
• Sustainability — once revolutionary — has been hollowed out for decades

A word everyone loves is a word no one controls. A soft container invites soft politics.

Degrowth is the opposite: it has hard edges.And that is precisely why it is powerful.

Degrowth names the direction, not just the destination. It tells you — plainly — what must change: A planned reduction of energy and material throughput to bring economies back within planetary boundaries while improving human wellbeing.

You cannot twist that into green growth. You cannot stretch it into a business-friendly sustainability slogan. You cannot use it to justify more airports, more pipelines, or more extraction.

Degrowth refuses to be tamed. That’s the point.

Clarity builds support — not likeability

One of the most important insights from the study is this: People support degrowth not because the word is warm and fuzzy, but because the policies are. It is clarity, not likeability, that builds support.

Showing people the word without the policies is like handing someone a closed book and asking them to rate the story. Of course they resist — they don’t know what’s inside. But once you open the book — once you show them the world inside — the story speaks for itself.

The lesson is unmistakable: We must always link the word to the policies. Degrowth is not a vibe. It is a programme.

And a compelling one. The study also reveals something fascinating: support for the full proposal is not determined by income, or demographics, or even political ideology as much as by two deeper psychological traits:

1. A belief in ecosystem integrity — the understanding that nature has limits.

2. A desire to address global challenges with bold ideas and action.
   
   

In other words:

Degrowth resonates with people who want real change — not slogans.

Why adoption isn’t enough — and why words matter more than ever

One of the great political illusions of the last 30 years is the belief that adopting a word leads to transformation. We have watched terms like “sustainability,” “green economy,” and “wellbeing” be enthusiastically adopted into political speeches, corporate reports, and conference banners—only to watch emissions rise, ecosystems collapse, and inequalities widen.

Adoption is cheap. Transformation is expensive.

A word that everyone likes is easy to adopt — and easy to empty out. That’s why degrowth matters.

Degrowth cannot be turned into a marketing slogan. It cannot be stretched into growth with nicer colors. It cannot be hijacked by those who want the appearance of change without the substance of it.

Degrowth forces honesty.

It demands specificity.

It requires us to name the real problem — and the real solution — rather than dance around it.

The word that does the work

The irony is almost poetic: the word that critics feared would doom the movement may be the only one strong enough to protect it. Degrowth is not brilliant because it is popular — it isn’t.

It is brilliant because it is incorruptible. It carries its politics in its name. It contains the solution inside the syllables.It names the direction of travel rather than allowing it to drift.

And when people finally hear what degrowth actually means — when they hear about guaranteed public services, shorter working weeks, secure housing, redistribution, ecosystem restoration, and the intentional reduction of wasteful, harmful production — they don’t run.

They nod. They recognize themselves in the policies, not in the label. They support the substance. Degrowth the word opens the door, grabs their attention and the policies invite them in. 

The path forward is clear: We do not need to abandon the word. We need to explain it.

We need to connect it to the world it describes — a world of sufficiency, fairness, repair, and wellbeing built within planetary boundaries. Because once people see the picture, the word makes perfect sense.

What happens when we dare to say what we mean?

Degrowth has always asked an uncomfortable question: What if the problem isn’t the planet, but the economic story we tell about it?

To answer that question honestly, we need a word that can’t be twisted, softened, or coated in corporate gloss. A word that forces us to look directly at the crisis — and the possibility — in front of us.

A word that insists on meaning what it means. That word is degrowth. It may never be the most popular word in the room. But it may be the only one that can’t be used against us.

And maybe — in a world hungry for truth — that is exactly what we need.

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Source

Krpan, D., Basso, F., Hickel, J. E., & Kallis, G. (2025). Assessing public support for degrowth: Survey-based experimental and predictive studies. The Lancet Planetary Health, 9(1)