Downward mobility to grow smaller

by George Bailey.

This article continues a journey I have been traveling this year into the theology of environmental ethics, and its relationships to our theology and spirituality of salvation and holiness. See here on Theology Everywhere for earlier stages on the way (though I am not yet claiming to have a joined up account of all the ideas in these three articles!) – Capitalocene, new materilaisms and solidairty and Growing Resurrection.

Over the summer I was able to do some reading into critiques of capitalist models of economic growth, and some proposals for how escaping the need for constant growth could contribute to a significant and positive response to the climate crisis – pursuing the aim of an economy that maintains a steady state of equilibrium and so ceases to have an ever-increasing negative impact on the environment. Efforts have been made over the last 25 years to explore this potential for a postgrowth society, to be worked towards through a period of degrowth, arriving in time at a Steady State Economy,^[1] with a primary aim throughout being the ongoing improvement of human wellbeing.

Degrowth is a provocative term, and to some extent intentionally negative in order to challenge the dominant assumptions. Alisa et al. defend the degrowth agenda against the criticism that it is overly negative – it also offers an optimistic and radical vision for the future:

‘On the constructive side, the degrowth imaginary centres around the reproductive economy of care, and the reclaiming of old – and the creation of new – commons. Caring in common is embodied in new forms of living and producing, such as eco-communities and cooperatives and can be supported by new government institutions, such as work-sharing or a basic and maximum income, institutions which can liberate time from paid work and make it available for unpaid communal and caring activities.’ ^[2]

Degrowth is not simply about decreasing economy activity to reduce environmental impacts, but also taking more helpful decisions about how resources are used to most effectively improve human wellbeing. Milena Büchs and Max Koch analyse the arguments in favour of a postgrowth society and the steps that might be required to pursue it. ^[3] They propose that a key aspect of this is the recognition that core societal values (which have their roots in post-Reformation Protestant Christian spirituality) have developed in association with the economic growth paradigm, and that these will need to be changed to achieve a Steady State Economy.

‘Core societal values and orientations such as “achievement”, “upward mobility” and “social position as result of own work and merits”, which are of crucial significance for the maintenance of the growth paradigm, have their structural basis in the specifically historical features of the capitalist production and accumulation process that present themselves as natural features of economic activity.’^[4]

This is the point at which, for Christians, critical analysis of some key doctrines and the theological and practical expressions of them becomes vital – in order to understand the role of our theology in shaping our core economic and environmental values, and how we might change them.

The shortest, simplest, and yet also most profound, contribution I have read so far on this topic is from the early 1980s by Henri Nouwen – The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life.[5] Nouwen is significant as a theologian who wrestled with questions of spiritual pride and the drive to succeed within the Church and the academy, and in the latter part of his life followed a personal path out of high-profile academic leadership and into caring ministry and solidarity within a L’Arche community, a vocation that is often overlooked outside of one small network of personal relationships. He proposes the term ‘downward mobility’ to describe this theological turn from upward progress and growth as the central metaphors of the Christian life. He calls on people to resist the temptations within Christian discipleship which can distort the concept of growth: ‘The problem is not in the desire for development and progress as an individual or community, but in making upward mobility itself into a religion.’^[6] The alternative downward way that Nouwen offers is shaped by the way of the cross of Jesus Christ, but also enabled by the Spirit which fills those who follow this way.

‘The way of the cross, the downward mobility of God, becomes our way not because we try to imitate Jesus, but because we are transformed into living Christs by our relationship with his Spirit.’^[7]

Too often our theology of spiritual growth, reasonable and sensible in itself, can be skewed into an assumption of the need for ‘upward mobility’ which shapes our economic decisions in ways that ultimately affect the environment negatively. Assuming that constant growth and ‘bigger is better’ are helpful in the spiritual life can lead us (even if in unintended, unseen ways) into abusing and damaging the planet more than might be justifiable even within our own environmental ethics. What we need are positive actions in pursuit of ‘downward mobility’, which might seem initially to make little economic, or even spiritual, sense. Perhaps the key way to grow in Christian spirituality and maturity is actually to grow smaller.

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[1] This term has a long historical background from John Stuart Mill onwards, with various interpretations possible – see analysis of this development in Herman E. Daly and Joshua C. Farley, Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications (Island Press, 2004), 54-56.

[2] Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria and Giorgos Kallis, “Introduction” in Kallis, G., G. D’Alisa, and F. Demaria (eds.), Degrowth: A vocabulary for a new era (Routledge, 2015), 3.

[3] Milena Büchs and Max Koch, Postgrowth and Wellbeing: Challenges to Sustainable Welfare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

[4] ibid., 17.

[5] Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2007); originally published as a series in Sojourner magazine, 1981.

[6] ibid. 26.

[7] ibid., 44.