Throughout his undergraduate training, programs on environmental humanities spurred conversations about alternate options methods of dwelling – these not fixated on limitless, capitalistic progress.
“We realised that most of the narratives we’ve been instructed, like how we are able to have financial progress whereas addressing environmental impacts and reducing carbon emissions and materials use, will not be correct,” he stated. “We are able to’t have each on the similar time.”
In January this yr, Lim based Publish-Progress Singapore, a motion that advocates for prioritising wellbeing and concord with nature over the pursuit of limitless financial progress.
Whereas the phrases “post-growth” and “degrowth” are sometimes used interchangeably, they differ within the depth of the change they suggest. Publish-growth broadly acknowledges the necessity to rethink our financial programs to suit inside ecological limits, whereas degrowth requires a scaling again of each manufacturing and consumption.
If we go round telling folks we want degrowth in Singapore, we will probably be shut off instantly.
Lim Lecarl, founder, Publish-Progress Singapore
Forward of Publish-Progress Singapore’s open home on 23 June, Lim spoke to Eco-Enterprise about what degrowth might imply in Singapore and the challenges of selling an idea that’s politically taboo.
Inform us extra about Publish-Progress Singapore.
Publish-Progress Singapore strives in the direction of a future that prioritises human wellbeing in a socially simply and equitable method, and in concord with nature. It tries to current an alternative choice to the cesspool of relentless manufacturing and consumption, and goals to be a motion grounded in care, sufficiency and connectedness.
We use the time period “post-growth” slightly than “degrowth” primarily as a technique – if we go round telling folks we want degrowth in Singapore, we will probably be shut off instantly. There may be nonetheless stigma across the idea of degrowth – that’s, scaling again financial progress to restrict environmental and social hurt.
Publish-growth and degrowth don’t advocate for a recession, however slightly, to revamp and reorganise our societies. It must be executed in a method that continues to realize significant employment, whereas fulfilling our primary wants.
What impressed you to begin the Publish-Progress Singapore initiative?
Earlier than I began Publish-Progress Singapore, I used to be the co-chairperson for the Inter-College Environmental Coalition (IUEC), a youth collective bridging the space between youths and the federal government, and constructing platforms for studying.
This is among the communities that impressed me probably the most. Being within the area and interacting with different youth environmental leaders helped me to see the gaps in Singapore’s environmentalism scene.
My associates and I believed that we would have liked to introduce post-growth conversations to Singapore. These ideas will not be new – ecological economists and environmentalists have been speaking about them, and other people world wide have been mobilising for and training what I name “now-topia”. These are ecovillages the place they apply post-growth ideas. The World Ecovillage Community is one such community of practitioners.
Now, we have to introduce the dialog to Singapore and see how we are able to construct communities and ground-up practices right here.
What are among the key tasks that Publish-Progress Singapore has undertaken?
At the beginning, we screened the movie known as “Outgrow the System”, which superbly articulated post-growth ideas in a digestible method. We didn’t count on so many individuals to come back for the screening – about 300 folks signed up for it. This gave us an indicator that a variety of Singaporeans are desirous about post-growth ideas, and they’re from all walks of life, not simply from the environmental neighborhood.
Now, we’ve weekly dialogue circles known as “Publish-growth Circles”. Each Sunday since February, we collect and unpack what post-growth ideas are, their ideas, and the way these is likely to be operationalised in Singapore.
“Publish-growth circles” is among the occasions organised by the group. Matters mentioned embrace submit progress ideas, different enterprise fashions and citizen-government relations. Picture: Publish-growth Singapore
These conversations are essential as a result of we can not reproduce the neocolonial dynamics of the West. We didn’t wish to merely cut-and-paste coverage to Singapore. It was obligatory for us to combine the social ideas within the context of Singapore and see the way it would possibly work right here.
Has anybody challenged the group’s ideology?
Folks generally reply with scepticism, which is sort of comprehensible. After we are addressing environmental issues, we frequently name for programs change. There may be a well-liked quote from the activist neighborhood that goes “Methods change, not local weather change.” Trying on the system with all its complexities, energy dynamics and politics, one would possibly query how it’s doable to vary once we can’t get away from capitalism.
We encourage folks to not fall into this disaster of creativeness. We have to see the long run as one thing we may be lively brokers in, slightly than be resigned to dwelling in the identical state. Be a part of a neighborhood the place you could find solidarity and assist in case you are feeling overwhelmed. When you have been benefitting from the established order, and due to this fact see no want to vary it, possibly it’s price questioning your place of privilege.
When it comes to misconceptions, some assume that post-growth means returning to the stone age. Many of those ecological ideas will not be a step again, however a step ahead. It recognises that we’ve made errors previously, however we are able to construct and goal for higher, based mostly on what we’ve learnt and the applied sciences we’ve.
One other false impression arises as a result of post-growth seeks to check an alternative choice to capitalism; some say that it’s a communist motion. It isn’t a dichotomy between capitalism and communism. Publish-growth appears at ideas like financial democracy and solidarity economics, that are arduous to classify beneath capitalism, communism, or all the pieces else.
Is the degrowth idea possible in Singapore, the place such ideas are politically taboo?
Within the narrative the place we want progress to satisfy Singaporean wants, there’s a large query we’re not asking: is it even doable to develop eternally? Are there limits to progress that we’re not speaking about? I feel the reply is sort of clearly ‘sure’. We can not develop eternally as a result of there are ecological and social limits.
Publish-growth is an important dialog for Singapore as a result of we’re a late-stage capitalist economic system, and we are able to count on not more than 2 per cent earnings progress year-on-year. In time, we’ll presumably expertise low progress, no progress, or recession eventualities.
Some would possibly say that it’s not politically possible to advocate for post-growth. Whether or not we prefer it or not, we’re going to hit the boundaries of progress. If we don’t reply the query of how we are able to thrive in a post-growth world now, we’ll hit these limits of progress actually arduous. If we begin having conversations now of thriving in a post-growth world, then we stand a greater likelihood.
What are among the boundaries to implementing post-growth methods in Singapore?
Most societies have been constructed on the concept we are able to develop eternally, and that we are able to meet folks’s wants by growth-based establishments. This has made a lot of our establishments extremely depending on progress, similar to our social welfare programs.
We’ve positioned ourselves in a scenario the place we rely on extra progress to handle the social prices that include this extra progress. It’s a cycle that turns into more and more costly to each society and the surroundings. Unpacking and understanding these progress dependencies is tough. Shifting away from these progress dependencies and constructing alternative routes to enhance folks’s wellbeing turns into much more tough.
However there may be hope. There are lots of ground-up initiatives that I’ve interacted with and realized from previously few years, which show doable alternate options to this progress system. We must always look to those ground-up initiatives and see them as potentialities for constructing in the direction of this technique.
What do you envision progress to appear like in post-growth Singapore? What are some metrics we are able to use to measure this kind of progress?
There are numerous interpretations, however post-growth to me isn’t a state which you can say you may have reached. It’s a fixed strategy to construct in the direction of a future that prioritises folks’s wellbeing in an ecologically smart method.
It’s to not say that Singapore has not been doing that; in truth, we’ve many ground-up initiatives which are attempting to satisfy folks’s wants with out making the extreme earnings. However there stay city planning practices and industrial priorities that proceed to evade ecological or social sense.
For a lot of ecological economists, there’s a want to make use of not only one indicator, however a basket of indicators, and to be snug with complexity. We have to use each quantitative and qualitative ones to derive perception into societal wellbeing, slightly than have a tendency in the direction of a single indicator to resolve if Singapore is heading in the right direction.
Many nations see Gross Home Product (GDP) as a proxy indicator of wellbeing, and to some extent, that is likely to be true. Nonetheless, it’s a deeply flawed analysis. Since 1999, GDP progress has not led to general equality enhance in Singapore; as an alternative, the extra progress has include higher prices to the folks and the surroundings. The problem is to create alternative routes to measure and attempt for collective wellbeing.
One of many methods to conceptualise post-growth can be by doughnut economics. Doughnut economics supplies a framework with a number of social indicators [for example addressing poverty, hunger, and inequality]. We have to meet these social indicators with out trespassing on ecological limits.
What are you hoping to realize with the initiative?
We wish to deepen our understanding of post-growth ideas and what which may appear like in Singapore. We hope to assist different ground-up initiatives which are working in the direction of a post-growth imaginative and prescient, and we need to begin a working group for that.
We additionally want to proceed conversing with folks, particularly those that would possibly disagree with us, and enhance our outreach and training efforts. We encourage everybody to come back with an open thoughts.
