Presentation short abstract

Post-growth futures must centre care. This paper analyses a Chinese elder-care charity. In 2011 a Buddhist monk set up a free vegetarian canteen, today there are 900 and a non-profit care home. This organisation practices degrowth-like solutions to problems inherent in growth based ageing societies.

Presentation long abstract

Care work is central to 'the ecological question'. Post-growth futures can be described as ‘always and everywhere…about care…economy as care’ (Jackson, 2025). Using theoretical insights such as reclaiming the commons for degrowth communism (Saito, 2024), frugal/radical abundance (Hickle, 2019; Plomteux, 2024) and ‘postfiguring’ (Munoz-Sueiro & Kallis, 2024), I interrogate a Chinese elder-care charity. Set up in 2011 and founded by a Buddhist monk, the organisation began a free vegetarian lunch establishment mainly catering for the elderly. Without centralised control the idea grew spontaneously with around 900 branches today. Linking traditional philosophical theory, including ecological narratives, with a critique of capitalist logic and modernity, this organisation is creating practical solutions to problems inherent in growth based ageing societies. Using Saito’s (2024) argument that sites of production are more important than sites of consumption to undermine capitalist logic I argue, through textual analysis and participant observation, that this organisation can be seen as an example of ‘actually existing degrowth’ as it is producing something ‘radical’ in a capitalist system – elder care that escapes the capitalist profit motive and does not fully rely on the state or the nuclear family. This is further exemplified by the organisation setting up a non-profit, volunteer organised, pay-as-you-can elderly care home in 2019 next to their Buddhist temple. The paper will ask whether this organisation should be seen as ‘postfiguring’ or prefiguring China’s inevitable march into a post-growth future by critically engaging with the idea of ‘postfiguring’.