When we talk about economics, it’s important to highlight that a global capitalist market economy is only part of the picture. In fact, the very framing of the global economy as homogenous is part of the challenge that many groups around the world face — particularly Indigenous groups, feminist groups, and those focused on self-sovereignty. In reality, there are diverse forms of economy: some of them involve a formal market, but there are a multitude of economies we rarely hear about.

In a global system of formal market trade, which is where the Post Growth Institute focuses a lot of its interest, we see increasing inequity and forms of neocolonialism — and these are a direct outcome of a system that is inherently racist and predicated on the need to grow. We live in an economy that is playing out, in a way, just as it’s designed to — which is to effectively present trade as ‘raising all boats’ when it’s actually exacerbating the exploitation and inequities that are baked into the capitalist, neocolonial form.

If we take growth as synonymous with a capitalist economy — in the microeconomic sense of businesses needing to grow their profit margins, and the macroeconomic sense of needing to expand the money supply — the capitalist system will always see an accumulation of money into the hands and bank accounts of the wealthiest individuals, households, corporations, and, in a few select cases, the wealthiest governments. This capital accumulation stems from the profit maximizing imperative, which shows up in all forms of capitalism (even its most benevolent). At times, such accumulation can appear a mirage — the current growth economy has a veneer, to certain people of privilege (for example, those who can purchase whatever they want online and have it delivered to their door), that the economy works in the same way for everyone, everywhere. The truth lies far from this claim.

Read the full article about a post-growth economy by Sheeza Shah at Resilience.