Welcome to another week of Shaken Not Burned! 

If you live in today's world, you may be inclined to think that capitalism is the only viable way for our economies to exist. After all, it's been like that for centuries, but this system is not serving the vast majority of people, and certainly not the environment. 

Most companies today have the main goal of growth: expanding their market share, increasing revenue and profits, boosting returns to shareholders. However, we live on a planet that has finite resources – endless growth is just not possible. 

The concept of degrowth has emerged as an alternative to the current extractive system, proposing that economic activity focuses on human needs and well-being. In this week’s episode, Giulia interviews Sara Mahdi, degrowth scholar at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, to unpack the meaning of degrowth and how it can be applied in practice.

It’s worth pointing out that what we’re seeing playing out on the global stage is degrowth by executive order – actions that destabilise the very systems on which the global economy relies.

Yet the chaos reveals a deeper truth: our current financial system is built on extraction, where gains for some mean losses for others. It prioritises short-term profit over long-term value, ignoring ecological, social, and cultural capital. As capital clings to the past, we face a collapse of meaning as much as money.

To move forward, we need new systems – monetary, philosophical, and institutional – that value stewardship over ownership and regeneration over extraction. The path ahead won’t be smooth, but in the rupture lies a chance to rebuild from the ground up.

Reading materials:

• What is degrowth?

• Degrowth can work — here’s how science can help

• Stakeholder capitalism: A brief history of GDP and its use

• Our episode on stakeholder capitalism

• Degrowth lessons from Cuba

• A starting point for degrowth: The Costa Rica “Pura Vida” meaning

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