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Trump’s Economic Era

ignoring their impact on economic growth. By contrast,
the Trump Administration advocates fewer and simpler
laws and growth policies. Once we grow the economy
sufficiently, we can reduce poverty, reward risk-taking,
and attain full employment with an increase in workers’
real income.

THE DEGROWTH MOVEMENT

The English word “degrowth” became prominent
after the first international degrowth conference in Paris
in 2008. Degrowth is a political, economic, and social
movement based on ecological economics,
anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas. It is also
considered an essential economic strategy that responds
to the limits-to-growth. Another five international
conferences on degrowth were organized in the period
2010-2016, thus spreading the degrowth movement to
several countries around the world.

The idea that growth has limits is not new. Robert
Malthus was an economist who wrote a book The
Principles of Population published in 1798. Malthus
postulated that because the population increases
geometrically (2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) and the world’s food
supply can only increase arithmetically (one, two, three,
four, etc.), eventually the world will experience mass
starvation. History has debunked his theory because the
population has grown less than geometrically and the
food supply has increased more than arithmetically.

Degrowthers believe that because of the increase
in population, consumers have used an ever-increasing
share of the world’s resources. Therefore, growth
endangers the ecosystem and undermines the earth’s

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