Europe | Charlemagne

Meet the lefty Europeans who want to shrink the economy

De-growers of the world, unite!

In 1972 a collective of grandees known as the Club of Rome set out to establish the limits to economic growth. Worried about the state of the planet, they fed a computer all they knew about farming yields, natural resources, population trends and so on. The rudimentary machine crunched the data and spouted a grim answer: given ecological constraints, the highest standard of living possible was one stagnating at half the American level of the time. Anything beyond that risked imminent disaster, a “sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity”.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Meet the de-growers”

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From the May 20th 2023 edition

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French President Macron visits the Notre Dame Cathedral, in Paris

Emmanuel Macron shows off the gloriously restored Notre Dame

Five years after it was gutted by fire, the cathedral is more beautiful than ever

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