Zero growth and degrowth proponents should consider what has happened to countries that have gone through this process. One of its most harmful effects is the paralysis of social mobility, and making it impossible for a growing number of people, born in disadvantaged areas, to escape fates sealed in advance.
In fact, in times of recession, more than any other, the higher we get in the hierarchy of functions, the less available positions are abundant and known; but to insiders, that is to say, those who hold them, those who know in advance which positions will become vacant, those who know how to get there, and those who have connections with those who allocate them. These people, these « insiders, » and this is perfectly understandable, or legitimate, generally help first their children, the children of relatives, members of their communities, organizations or clubs in securing these positions. Most privileged people would act to help relatives who find themselves in a less advantageous position than they previously were.
That is the one true big social network; and those proposed by the Internet, from Facebook to LinkedIn, do not constitute genuine social networks that provide relationship building and mutual cooperation, because generally they connect only persons of the same generation, with no effective means of helping or counseling each other, except when they connect people to each other who are otherwise connected by other connections far stronger.
Those who have no powerful family or high-level connection, have nothing to hope for, in particular, with no growth: No advice, no guidance, no training, no jobs; they are condemned to the CAP, Bac Pro, dead-end jobs. Or their equivalent in other countries. The glass ceiling is becoming an iron curtain, whose victims turn against those who « stick together, » accusing them of monopolizing positions and turn them into conspirators, manipulators, masters of the world.
One of the worst ways, more or less consciously, to break this mould, open up positions, is to have fewer children to provide assistance to. The weak population growth is therefore a consequence of weak economic growth, while exacerbating it, as we know in Europe and Japan.
A least adverse course is to organize a more equal access to privileged positions, through better career guidance for children from the most underprivileged backgrounds, with better access to work experience in enterprises, assistance in writing their CVs, preparing for interviews, by recruitment methods that are less nepotistic. That should be a prominent educational reform, focusing on primary school and counseling on academic matters, training teachers so that they do not instinctively send all the children of workers to carpentry shops and all the children of teachers to the Grandes Ecoles.
The best way to break this mould is to not expect anything from anyone, not wait on an existing position but create one for yourself, from your own initiative. Society has to allow this and provide the resources. There is no escaping: If we do not want the most demanding among the humiliated to keep seeking a future elsewhere, from Silicon Valley to Daesh underground bases, if we want our society to achieve true growth, the potential of all those who want to express their potentialities must be unleashed.
j@attali.com
