Political language has been surrounding economic growth with reassuring adjectives – sustainable, green, inclusive, intelligent, resilient or responsible – which make the continuation of growth as dogma more acceptable. But changing the vocabulary does not necessarily change the material reality: if resource consumption, emissions, urbanization or inequality increase, growth remains wild, even if it is presented as “green” or “sustainable”. Therefore, knowing that continuing to grow indefinitely on a planet with finite resources is unsustainable, they try to sell it using new words, such as those heard recently in Andorra. There is talk of a new formula: qualitative growth. An idea, by the way, that has been raised by the Chamber of Commerce. When new elections are looming and there is a lack of ideas for election programs, the employers’ proposals arrive promptly.
But what exactly does “qualitative growth” mean? According to the president of the Chamber of Commerce, “we cannot slow down growth, but we must order it”. In the Council it seems that the idea has generated consensus. It is not the first time that the framework has been set by the employer. It already happened with “Andorra has a future”, presented as a “strategic agreement” and applied de facto by the Martí government in 2012. Then, as now, what was a prescription from one party became everyone’s common sense.
The problem is not the adjective, but what it leaves out. “Qualitative” growth continues to measure success in GDP and therefore continues to require more activity, more construction and more consumption of water, energy and land in a country of 468 square kilometers sandwiched between mountains. The formula does not say where the limit is or who decides when we have reached it. Better distribution of what is produced may be necessary, but it does not answer the previous question: how much is enough? That’s why the consensus is so comfortable: everyone can see what they want and no one has to give up anything. And a consensus that does not give up anything is not a change of course, but the way of not having one.
The challenge is to assume what this question asks for: a paradigm shift. And in this Council, that is unthinkable. Today, whoever talks about degrowth, about stopping the capitalist machine, is politically dead. And the general councilors have done nothing but officiate the cult: in the PIB cathedral, the economy, turned into dogma, does not tolerate heresies.
