“Liberal Environmentalism Without Capitalism’s Endless Growth”

Abstract: Eco-socialists argue that capitalism is incompatible with environmental sustainability and democratic egalitarian values. They argue that capitalist reforms, including ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth,’ fail to take capitalism’s growth imperative seriously. I argue that Rawls’s justice as fairness offers a reasonable alternative to eco-socialism. Rawls rejects capitalism as incompatible with democratic egalitarian values. I argue further that Rawls’s distributive principles do not require growth, and his account of intergenerational justice requires controlling growth. Justice as fairness , however, offers two ways to realize justice. First, a property-owning democracy (POD) broadly disperses control and ownership of productive means. Second, liberal socialism socializes ownership and disperses control of productive means. Socialists respond that POD keeps capital intact and therefore cannot control growth. I argue that the empirical literature on growth shows that the capital process is insufficient to explain growth. I contend that POD should implement degrowth policies to address the other growth imperatives.