Climate change and the rising global awareness of our planet’s limited resources have intensified the discussion on the necessity of a new (economic) paradigm that would oppose the hegemonic ideology of development and (infinite) growth. The concept of degrowth, which is becoming increasingly common in scientific and activist literature and practice, is based on the notion that we need to transform the foundations of modern capitalist societies. A society organized around the strategies of degrowth will have to create new principles of political organization that derive from the emancipatory and democratic processes of degrowth and strengthen them. Based on this argument, the authors hold that it is impossible to pursue degrowth within a capitalist state, since it is based on perpetuating capitalist accumulation on the foundation of growth. The second part of the article is dedicated to the possibilities for a new political organization of society based on the principles of degrowth. The authors draw from emancipatory and radical theories of democracy and politics as well as the emancipatory power that resides in the concept and practice of degrowth itself. According to the authors, degrowth theories, especially buen vivir and related modalities from the Latin-American geographical and epistemological space, have important political implications.
