Thread by @AukeHoekstra

I think prioritizing GDP over happiness is obvious insanity and and refusing to nudge people away from mindless overconsumption is an intellectually lazy surrender to Mammon (hypercapitalism).

But for the rest I 100% agree with Noah here.

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1434879307361492992

By the way, @chrisnelder reached a similar conclusion a while back already.

https://twitter.com/chrisnelder/status/1434969386729672708?s=20

And that's before we go down the rabbit hole of entropy pessimism espoused by economists who fancy themselves engineers without understanding entropy and using tortuous mathematics to avoid straightforward observations of energy abundance.
innovationorigins.com/en/tomorrow-is…

I think there are more consistent and thoughtful approaches to staying within planetary boundaries without surrendering to the Mammon, like @KateRaworth's Doughnut Economics.
doughnuteconomics.org

I also love @MazzucatoM's idea of making economies mission driven with governments steering companies towards the common good instead of letting hypercapitalism run wild like in the financial crisis (that cost tens of trillions and went uncorrected). marianamazzucato.com/books/mission-…

So I sympathize with degrowth: our economy is out of control and prioritizes money flows over happiness, wealth, and planetary boundaries. But degrowth only increases the focus on the bad metric GDP, is deeply confused about energy, and doesn't offer a pragmatic alternative.