Presentation short abstract

Modelling tools that push technocratic boundaries and engage with the multiple interlinked socio-ecological crises while projecting degrowth in the North may be an interesting ingredient of collective deliberation and socially inclusive economic planning.

Presentation long abstract

Modelling and economic assessment has for long been relegated to the terrain of squarely quantitative and ‘objectivist’ science. Yet, modelling tools that push technocratic boundaries and engage with the multiple interlinked socio-ecological crises facing humanity, including soaring wealth inequalities, while projecting degrowth in the North, have been increasingly employed (Lauer et al. 2025, Van Eynde et al. 2024). As an illustration, studies present degrowth dynamics through shrinking metabolic throughput, or associated policy interventions like an introduction of a Job Guarantee, A Basic Income and working time-reduction, funded by progressive wealth tax (D’Alessandro et al. 2015). One may argue that attempts to represent societies that are not underpinned by the ‘growth imperative’ and the core tenets of capitalism (such as economic accumulation), may be conceptualized as planning lenses, or rather approaches to inspect the multiple entry points from where the disentanglement with financialization and profit-seeking in our capitalist systems could actually emerge.

A core question for much of this modelling work, however, is whether, how and under what conditions could progressive eco-social macroeconomic modelling be grounded in a wider democratic and deliberation processes? This could imply consulting many underlying assumptions, indicators, and knowledge premises with multiple publics and epistemologies. The other way round may also be also relevant for economic planning: democratic deliberation that stems from pluriversal visions may also benefit from assessments and calculus that have been produced under assumptions and knowledges that have been inclusively negotiated and equitably decided upon.