Social policy in a future of degrowth? Challenges for decommodification, commoning and public support

The paper addresses how social policy might function in a future of degrowth, asking what inherent challenges arise for feasibility, desirability, and public legitimacy when aiming to secure human wellbeing within planetary boundaries. Against the backdrop of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological degradation, the study argues that affluent economies require transformations beyond technology and efficiency. It reviews degrowth as a pathway toward a wellbeing economy grounded in ecological economics and critiques of 'growthism', and sets out to condense recent literature while deriving three key challenges: growth dependencies embedded in welfare states, the role of public provision alongside expanding informal/commoning economies, and securing popular legitimacy beyond the green or new left. The importance lies in integrating ecological-economic constraints into mainstream social policy analysis and clarifying where formal public provision should expand or potentially recede in a sufficiency-oriented political economy.

The paper synthesizes literature defining degrowth as a planned reduction in energy and resource throughput to realign economies with ecological limits while reducing inequality and improving wellbeing. It traces origins to ecological economics (evidence on insufficient absolute decoupling of environmental pressures from GDP; strong rebound effects; limits to circularity) and critical theory (critiques of consumerism, materialism, and status-driven wellbeing). Degrowth envisions needs-based and sufficiency-oriented wellbeing and a cultural shift from hedonic to eudaimonic values. Reviewed policy families include redistribution with income/wealth ceilings and floors, universal basic income (UBI), universal basic services (UBS), vouchers, working time reduction, job guarantees, caps on resource use/emissions, expansion of not-for-profit/cooperative forms, and commoning/convivialism. Empirical strands indicate: (a) equality and public services can weaken links between resource use and needs fulfillment; (b) carbon inequality mirrors income/wealth inequality; (c) coordinated economies and universal welfare regimes may better adopt strong environmental policies and foster supportive public attitudes, although material footprints remain high in affluent countries. A crucial theme is the welfare state's co-evolution with growth, yielding dependencies in financing, cost dynamics (Baumol effects), demand growth, rent-seeking, and output-based management. Literature also explores transformational strategies (interstitial, symbiotic, and less frequently ruptural) and public opinion patterns showing environmentalism often aligned with the left and mixed support for degrowth-related policies. Overall, the review identifies unresolved tensions between expanding decommodified public provision and the envisioned rise of informal/commoning economies, and highlights limited evidence on public acceptability of radical degrowth policies.

This is a narrative review and conceptual discussion. The author synthesizes and critically engages with recent academic literature on degrowth, ecological economics, social policy, and public opinion to derive three inherent challenges for social policy in a degrowth context. The approach draws on prior systematic mappings and metareviews, comparative welfare regime research, studies on decoupling, inequality, and public attitudes, and integrates them to identify feasibility constraints (growth dependencies), institutional balance (public provision vs commoning), and legitimacy issues (public support and value change). No new empirical data are generated or analyzed.

- Three inherent challenges for social policy in a degrowth future: (1) Growth dependencies of welfare states (financing tied to economic activity; rising relative costs in labor-intensive care due to Baumol effects; increasing service demands; rent-seeking; for-profit ownership; output-based management that rewards growth), implying the need for new financing mixes (e.g., progressive and environmental taxation), governance changes, and possibly curtailing some service demand. (2) Tensions and complementarities between state-led decommodification/UBS and expansion of informal/commoning and convivialist practices; questions arise over where public provision should recede or be complemented by commons-based provisioning; working-time reduction is central to enable commoning and to decouple wellbeing from consumption. (3) Public legitimacy: degrowth and radical ecosocial policies currently attract strongest support on the green/new left; broader majorities remain uncertain. Evidence shows mixed but nontrivial support for growth-critical stances and selected policies, yet left-right ideology is a dominant predictor. - Supporting evidence for equality/decommodification: More equal societies and stronger public services are associated with weaker links between resource use and needs satisfaction (e.g., Vogel et al., 2021); inequality raises the energy required to assure decent living standards (Millward-Hopkins, 2022); emissions are disproportionately driven by the richest groups (e.g., Chancel et al., 2023). - Decoupling and technology limits: Absolute decoupling of CO2 from GDP observed in a few high-income cases remains insufficient relative to Paris targets; no broad absolute decoupling of overall resource use/impacts once trade is accounted for; strong rebound effects and limits to circularity are documented. - Welfare regimes and environmental policy: Coordinated economies/universal welfare states tend to adopt stronger climate policies and exhibit more supportive public attitudes, though consumption-based footprints remain high and the needs–impact trade-off is not yet broken. - Public opinion data points: In Sweden, support was about 50% for work-time reduction; ~40% for a wealth tax; ~30% for a meat tax; ~25% for maximum income; ~15% for basic income (Khan et al., 2022). Around one-third of Spaniards hold growth-critical stances (Drews & van den Bergh, 2016b). UBI support in Europe ranges from large minorities to clear majorities depending on country (ESS-based studies).

The synthesis shows that achieving wellbeing within ecological limits requires more equal, decommodified provisioning and a reorientation toward needs-based, eudaimonic wellbeing. However, because existing welfare states are growth-complementary, degrowth-aligned social policy must rework fiscal bases, governance, and incentives to minimize growth dependencies, especially in care-intensive sectors. Concurrently, degrowth strategies pair top-down reforms (UBS, redistribution, resource caps) with bottom-up commoning and cooperative provisioning. This raises strategic and normative questions about allocating roles between state, market, and commons, including where to scale back formal public provisioning and where to foster commons-based or foundational infrastructures. Finally, legitimacy remains pivotal: while there is meaningful potential support for specific measures (e.g., working-time reduction, wealth taxation), broader acceptance of a degrowth transition is constrained by ideological divides and prevailing hedonic, consumption-driven norms. Reframing toward a wellbeing economy and leveraging social tipping dynamics may expand coalitions. Overall, the findings clarify how the three challenges jointly shape the feasibility and desirability of social policy under degrowth and underscore the need for integrated strategies that adjust fiscal/management systems, cultivate commons, and build durable public support.

The paper concludes that degrowth implies transformative social policy combining redistribution, decommodification, and a shift toward needs-based provisioning, but faces three core challenges: (1) curbing welfare-state growth dependencies to secure fiscal and organizational viability beyond growth; (2) defining the balance between formal public provision and expanding commoning/convivialist alternatives in a sufficiency-oriented mixed economy; and (3) broadening public legitimacy for radical policy change beyond current green/new-left constituencies. It calls for further research to specify sufficiency-oriented foundational economies, clarify which aspects of social reproduction should be publicly provided versus supported through commons, and explore fiscal/monetary reforms (including insights from MMT) to fund public provisioning without reinforcing growth imperatives. Achieving value shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic conceptions of wellbeing and triggering social tipping points in public norms are seen as crucial for long-run legitimacy and implementation.

The article is a narrative review and conceptual synthesis; it generates no new empirical data. Evidence on public support for degrowth-specific policies remains limited and context-dependent. While it references comparative and decoupling studies, it does not provide original quantitative analyses nor a systematic review protocol. The discussion is primarily oriented toward affluent democracies, potentially limiting generalizability. The paper highlights the need for more empirical research on the limits and design of formal public provisioning in a sufficiency-oriented economy and on strategies to expand public legitimacy.