Paper short abstract:

'Defensive expenditures'; 'failure demand', and 'consolation goods' are 'down-stream' efforts to heal and hence preserve the current system. This paper will question how efforts to 'sustain' support a growth-ist agenda and undermine debate about a new economic paradigm.

Paper long abstract:

Responses to the impact of the various crises facing the world invariably entail traditional models of state-led redistribution and down-stream amelioration and treatment. Mechanisms include: 'defensive expenditures' (a term from ecological economics) which refers to costs incurred to deal with harm to the environment; 'consolation goods' purchased by individuals seeking to ameliorate stressful lives (Latouche, 2009); and 'failure demand' which describes spending driven by the failure to address inequality (Christie, 2012). Such 'down-stream' efforts to heal and hence preserve the current system. Moreover they are often expensive, inefficient, and politically vulnerable (especially in a context of inequality). They are also reliant on economic growth which is not only ostensibly challenging to realise, but also otentially inappropriate for GDP-rich countries in a time where scientists tell us the world is pushing beyond four of the nine planetary boundaries identified by the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stefan et al, 2015). This paper will question the different notions of sustainability from the perspective of uneconomic growth, asking if 'sustainability' has become coopted by a growth-ist agenda to enable debate about a new economic paradigm.