Yeah, capitalism is shit etc… but let’s get to the real root cause: we’re all still animals, and want our pack to be the best. The root issue isn’t money, it’s power. Many societies wouldn’t mind degrowth if it didn’t mean all the others would bury them & dance on their grave.
If one single country would actually degrow, all the others would dominate it financially, loot it for all its worth, and unless it can completely 100% sustain itself without outside trade (pretty much impossible in our globalized society), it would mostly collapse. And even if it could sustain itself, the power imbalance would be so huge we’d run in all other kinds of issues soon (hey, why not just conquer that country that is pretty much powerless now?)
Imo we’re all just animals knowing we’re headed for extinction, but at the same time it’s a big game of chicken on the road, the first to stray from this path will get fucked in so many ways by all the others who see their chance to improve their situation… And imo capitalism isn’t the cause of that, but one of the results of this. It’s just another way for us to compete and try to fuck eachother over like the animals we still are.
So either we get to some near global agreement on how to get out of this situation, or we just keep doing far too little since… what’s the point of trying to improve things if it just means you get annihilated by those that don’t, and things will remain the same despite your best efforts…