I first uttered the words "We're fucked" on DU in 2006.

[GliderGuider]

43. Politics of any sort can't fix this.

There is no political constituency for degrowth, anywhere on the planet. Especially not for the scale of reduction in both population and economic activity that it would take to bring the world back into balance. That goes for any kind of government you can name, from monarchies, dictatorships and theocracies to any sort of democracy.

Politics can only shape growth, it can't (and in general has no desire to) halt or reverse growth. There has never been a political body in human history that has actively reversed the growth of the society it governed.

There have been two - just two - examples of deliberate steady-state societies in the last mumblety-thousand years - Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868 and the tiny Pacific island of Tikopia. Every other society has been based on the principle of "growth if possible."

Even Bernie or Jill Stein wouldn't reverse the growth of the American economy as a matter of policy.