Social Policy Without Growth: Moving Towards Sustainable Welfare States

Abstract

Growth-dependent welfare states contribute to climate emergency. The ecological economics, degrowth, and sustainable welfare literatures demonstrate that to re-embed Western production and consumption patterns in environmental limits, an encompassing social-ecological transformation would need to be initiated very soon. This article focuses on the potential roles of the welfare state and social policy in this transformation, applying the concepts of ‘sustainable welfare’ and ‘safe-operating space’. Based on two Swedish studies, it also provides an empirical analysis of the popularity of selected eco-social policies designed to steer the economy and society towards this space: maximum and basic incomes, taxes on wealth and meat, as well as working time reductions. In analogy to the historical role of the state in reconstituting the welfare-work nexus in the post-WWII era and its present engagement in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, it is argued that a more interventionist state is required to grapple with climate emergency.

Participation Income

“…Universal basic income (UBI) does not fit well with the call for a more interventionist state to grapple with the climate emergency (Koch 2021). Participation conditions could be extended to cover eco-social activities (see Swaton 2018).…”

“…The transition is based on the notion of a "post-productivist" welfare state architecture, wherein income transfers and public services are targeted at meeting essential needs, rather than catalysing labour productivity and economic growth. The notion acknowledges the fact that social policies have ecological impacts (see also Koch 2021).…”

Social policy research and climate change

“…Similarly, there are still both theoretical and empirical gaps in our understanding of how the instruments of welfare states (income transfers, provision of health, social and employment services, social regulation) may play constructive roles in enabling the societal transformation to low-or zero-emission societies. Conversely, some authors take a critical approach to economic growth and ask how much economic growth (including some forms of social investment) will contribute to climate change, including the extent to which the welfare state increases people's purchasing power and overall consumption, and through this, lead to higher GHG emissions (Koch, 2020(Koch, , 2021Büchs, 2021). Issues like these provide a foundation for future social policy research on climate change.…”

“…Since proponents of the 'sustainable welfare' perspective point to the need for 'degrowth' or 'post-growth' (e.g., Jackson, 2017;Büchs, 2021;Koch, 2021), it is significant that both the WCED and the UN Sustainable Development Goals that were endorsed nearly two decades later embrace economic growth: 'Far from requiring the cessation of economic growth, [sustainable development] recognizes that the problems of poverty and underdevelopment cannot be solved unless we have a new era of growth in which developing countries play a large role and reap large benefits' (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 51).…”

Enabling Participation Income for an Eco-Social State

“…The necessity of transitioning towards an ‘eco-social’ (Koch, 2018) welfare model is increasingly acknowledged. As argued in several contributions to this themed section (Gough, 2021; Koch, 2021), this will require re-anchoring welfare institutions in a ‘post-productivist’ architecture wherein income supports and public services are targeted at meeting essential needs rather than catalysing labour productivity and economic growth. While there is now a growing consensus about the need for such an eco-social policy agenda, there is far less agreement about what specific social policies might contribute to this reorientation.…”