, Columnist
DeFi And Degrowth: Or How Not to Fix Capitalism
Real generational problems won’t be fixed by dystopic thinking.
In the red or in the black?
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Capitalism is broken and must be replaced. That’s an increasingly held view among younger generations, whose future prospects have been darkened by financial crises, disease and war. But some alternative utopian narratives gaining traction in the aftermath of Covid-19 risk forgetting some of its most basic lessons — with potentially dystopian results.
At one extreme lies the philosophy of degrowth. Fear of a climate catastrophe as well as signs that critical infrastructure is already buckling in record temperatures have galvanized calls to curb economic growth and consumption habits to cut carbon-dioxide emissions faster.