The article is written for me to reflect on an interesting debate I recently watched. Video: Capitalism|Doha Debates w/ Jason Hickel, Anand Giridharadas, and Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
When reading the latest news published by the European Union as it just sets a new standard for mobile devices, I am pleased to hear the news and cheer for our future [1]. As of 2024, all the mobile devices will be required to have a standardized charging port, USB-C across the EU, and laptop manufacturers will have to implement the universal charging port in their products by 2026.
According to the European Union, the policy will help save up to 250 million euros for consumers, reduce carbon emissions (yet quantifiable), and more importantly minimize the material footprint of products (reduce e-waste). I believe this can effectively avoid buying all types of chargers in a single household. This new policy also makes me reflect if it does really matter to make our economy continue growing when considering the concept of degrowth given by Dr. Jason Hickel over capitalism [2].
If I am to answer, then my answer will be YES and NO.
Degrowth is a new concept that just came into my world, and it is actually a conflict with my existing knowledge as I have been taught to continuously work on developing new technology in the environmental field. As Dr. Hickel defined, degrowth is to strategize energy and resource reduction plan and bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being [3].
Interesting! When I tried to dive deeper into this context, I figured out that Dr. Hickel used “Less is More” as his book title published in 2020 during the global pandemic. This concept is very similar to avoiding being greedy in Buddhism. Although this is a simple concept, it is much easier to say than done. In our current world running by 1% of the richest people and 99% of others, it is fundamentally impossible to reduce energy and resource use when they all believe in pursuing economic growth and especially when it is powered by continuous manufacturing and production.
According to the current economic model, economic growth is mostly from consuming natural resources, and of course, I personally believe that it is important to have economic growth for developing countries to improve their living conditions. After all, people who live in developing countries are only consuming ten times less material than those in developed countries [4]. On the other hand, economic growth is probably less important to those people who live in high-income (or developed) countries, and they instead should focus on improving equality and human well-being. My observation is Nordic countries perform pretty well but this is not yet seen in the United States.
Degrowth can be an option for us living in wealthy countries to think about, and it potentially is a good way to help us align with the Paris Agreement by 2050 or even earlier. Now, back to the universal charging port ruled by the European Union. The reason I believe it can be effective is the EU regulators are more rational, and they know it is extremely hard to manage desire present in a human’s mind. So, they leverage the power of the EU to apply an external force to help consumers converge and further reduce unnecessary waste production.
In the EU case, it may not be highly related to the concept of degrowth while it is one way to help human beings reduce energy and resource usage. All in all, degrowth is a super huge framework that can be applied to every part of our lives, and it is not an easy thing to take action right away. Nonetheless, I still love the concept of degrowth, so the next reflection for myself will be to understand how we can facilitate degrowth by reading the book and listening to Dr. Hickel’s speech which can be found here and there.
[1] The European Union Will Require All Mobile Devices To Have USB-C
[2] Degrowth And MMT: A Thought Experiment
[3] Do We Need to Shrink the Economy to Stop Climate Change?
