At the end of World War 2, the Western nations were beset with paranoia about what the USSR might be planning. The West had essentially relied on the Soviet armed forces to defeat the Nazis through their efforts on the Eastern front, after Hitler had launched – Operation Barbarossa – which effectively ended the – Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact – signed in 1939 between Germany and the USSR. Following the War, the ‘spectre of Communism’ drove the Western political leaders to embrace social democracy and introduce policies that created the mass-consuming middle class in most countries, which was seen as a bulwark against the development of a revolutionary working class movement and any further spread of Communism. While the interests of capital hated the welfare state and the rise of trade unions, they saw these developments as a means to protect their hegemony in the new world and the uncertainty that the – Cold War – engendered. Mass consumption was akin to Marx’s claims about religion being the ‘opium of the people’ and it has been a dominant part of life in advanced nations in the Post War period. It is one of the reasons that people think a degrowth strategy can never be embraced by the political class because it would confront a population besotted with material accumulation and consumption. However, research from Japan suggests that a strategy designed to reduce material consumption will not “reduce individual happiness and collective wellbeing” (Source) and a decoupling between growth and human happiness is indeed possible, which means the political class, if they are courageous enough, can introduce policies that promote degrowth.

The recent federal election in Australia saw the conservative opposition coalition lose further seats in parliament building on their disastrous 2022 result. The coalition is made up of conservative urban types (the so-called Liberal Party) and the National party, which represents the rural lobby. The Nationals are essentially climate-change denialists and because the Liberals require them to have any hope to govern, the smaller rural lobby can dominate policy choices. To convince the Nationals to adopt a net-zero by 2050 stance, the Liberals had to agree to propose a shift to Nuclear power, which was neither realistic in a logistical sense or economic in a cost sense. The electorate clearly rejected that option at the recent election. Now the Liberals, who are facing an existential crisis after the devastating loss, has to make a choice – stick with the Nationals and jettison net zero or break the Coalition and pitch a climate policy that will be acceptable to voters. The problem is that neither option will deliver them electoral success. Progressives are enjoying some rare schadenfreude over this conservative dilemma. It seems that the British Labour Party has got itself into a similar dilemma, with pressure from the Right-wing Reform Party to water down its climate policy. But what is more interesting in the UK setting is the role played by Labour’s former Prime Minister, who is also now attacking ‘green’ stances. I predict that will not end well for Starmer and Co. Fortunately, the Australian Labor party, which is also in government is sticking to a more ambitious climate agenda, although, even then, it is not ambitious enough. However, governments that are pursuing a net zero agenda must provide security for communities and regions that will bear the brunt of the policies introduced. The resistance to change that political forces such as Reform UK exploit can be easily offset if governments accompany their net zero agenda with a Just Transition framework. However, there is an absence of policy development in that area.