By exposing the link between the growth imperative and today’s socio-ecological crises, post-growth thinking has made its way out of activist circles and into political institutions. But what makes the current system so difficult to challenge is its positive association with freedom in people’s minds. Moreover, denialist and reactionary movements have spared no effort to hijack freedom. To gain cultural and political hegemony to transform society, post-growth needs its own compelling vision and narrative of freedom.

In May 2023, the largest, most cross-cutting, and best attended post-growth conference ever organised took place in the European Parliament. It was undoubtedly a great success and a major milestone for theoretical and practical reflection on how to build, within the planetary boundaries, prosperity and wellbeing in Europe beyond economic growth.¹ Yet there was no discussion on a concept that has been central to the cultural and political battles of this decade: freedom.

Denialist and reactionary currents have spared no effort to make freedom their own. They present themselves as the true champions of liberty against “woke” and progressive movements. In an Orwellian inversion of the aggressor-victim, insider-marginalised dynamic,² freedom has almost become their exclusive patrimony. Through a revived neolanguage, Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen are resurrecting themselves as Martin Luther King,³ while X, the disinformation network, is championing freedom of expression. As in 1984, it seems that once again, “Freedom is slavery”.

Ecology – no matter which current – is in the crosshairs of this conflict. According to the reactionary narrative, we have been living under the threat of a “climate dictatorship” practising a “green fanaticism” for years, as apparently evident in the European Green Deal and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The international hate movement responds to this alleged fanaticism with assertions that freedom must be secured: freedom to drill, freedom to continue with fossil fuels, freedom to slander environmentalists – in other words, one-way freedom, without restrictions of any kind, ecological or otherwise. It is a harsh awakening: after a decade of cultural hegemony,⁴ ecology and climate protection no longer sell so well. On the contrary, they are presented as enemies of freedom.

While this denialist reaction is taking place, the climate crisis has not abated – quite the opposite.⁵ On a planet with finite resources, our current economic system and way of life, based on infinite growth and unbridled consumption, is at a dead end. Thanks to the best available science, we know that we are at a critical moment, both socially and ecologically, and urgently need to look beyond growth to achieve a future of sustainable and just wellbeing.

But being scientifically right is not enough to establish the dominance of an idea. What’s needed is to win people’s hearts and the collective imagination. Freedom is one of the most cherished values for European citizens.⁶ As such, and given the onslaught of the extreme right, the post-growth currents need to fully enter the conceptual and practical battle over freedom. This is a necessary condition for contesting cultural and political hegemony.

To do so, we need to ask ourselves some basic questions. How is freedom, a polysemantic term, understood by the majority today? What is the relationship between modern freedom and the perpetual growth system? And what kind of freedom would post-growth have to put forward?

Freedom and consumerism: a minimalist vision

Freedom is not anthropologically immutable. Aristotle’s Ancient Greeks experienced freedom differently from how Adam Smith’s industrial Europeans do. Donald Trump’s version of freedom stands in stark contrast to that described by Subcomandante Marcos. From an act in accordance with virtue and reason to the absence of oppression or an outlet on social networks, the concept of freedom has changed throughout geography and history.

As historian Sophia Rosenfeld rightly points out, the current meaning of “freedom”, especially in the American tradition, centres on the capacity to choose. In a world dominated by the capitalist market, homo economicus spends his time choosing – or dreaming of choosing, if he does not have sufficient purchasing power – his clothes, his mobile phone, or the destination of his next holiday.

In this context, freedom of choice is often conflated with the individual freedom to consume. This means that everything can be an object of consumption, even the freedoms inherited from the Enlightenment: democratic, religious, educational, and sexual. Liberal democracy – or at least the use made of it – has a certain marketing tendency to turn active citizenship into a passive clientele where selling a politician or an idea is little different from selling a match on Tinder or a dishwasher.

This is the ideological victory of Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism. The more choice the consumer has in their life, transformed into a permanent marketplace, the more freedom they enjoy, and vice versa. Speaking at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump called the Green New Deal a scam and rallied against electric cars before stating: “We’re going to let people buy the car they want to buy.”⁷ Outside of any regulatory framework, individual freedom to choose and consume anything, as the hallmark of an electorate resentful of its socio-economic degradation and at the same time a prize for multinationals, takes precedence over the general interest or the climate.

The rise to power in the US of techno-libertarians like Elon Musk adds a further twist. Individual freedom and the elimination of state restrictions (if not the elimination of public institutions altogether) is the alpha and omega of the crusade to get rid of all social and ecological barriers. Beyond the dubious effectiveness of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), its creation is above all a warning: the state and its regulations – starting with environmental rules and solidarity mechanisms – are superfluous.⁸ This has a clear consequence: the winners of Muskian freedom – the oligarchy and Silicon Valley – do so at the expense of the most vulnerable groups and the planet.

Paradoxically, this individualistic entrepreneurial libertarianism fits very well with an authoritarian and centralised conception of power, as well as with illiberal democracy. In this framework, as Rosenfeld notes, “Freedom, reduced to freedom of choice, makes it possible to maintain a semblance of democratic ethics, while the political system has, for the most part, become authoritarian.”⁹ In other words, liberalism for the few, authoritarianism for the many.

The Faustian bargain between freedom and growth

Obviously, this minimalist understanding of freedom as merely the capacity of consumers to choose takes little to no account of the negative socio-ecological externalities that result from it. In its most recent and extreme version, this version of freedom is accompanied by attacks on, and fake news around, ecological and climate policies.¹⁰ But make no mistake: it is not by chance that we have arrived at this reduced conception of freedom. Its roots are deep. In order to understand our present, including from a post-growth point of view, it is essential to look at the evolution of ideas around freedom from a material and historical perspective. The direction that ideological, philosophical, or economic currents take depends on the material, energetic, and technological conditions of each era. They also express a relationship with the socio-ecological environment in which they evolve.

As French philosopher Pierre Charbonnier notes, the alliance between freedom and growth was born in the 17th century within what he calls the “geo-ecological structures of politics” and took off with the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to the massive exploitation of a new energy source, coal (and later oil and gas), and the intense exploitation of the lands and raw materials of the new colonies in America and Africa, Western Europe raised and expanded its welfare states, its enlightened development, and its modern democracies. This system of “extensive growth” inaugurated a new ecological regime, which, in addition to birthing new systems of politics and production, created consequences that are still visible today.

In the eyes of this regime, abundance is no longer just a myth of antiquity; rather, it now lies within reach of humans. With the end of the era of scarcity and physical limitation, resources no longer seem finite, and our desires no longer appear to have any limits. This horn of plenty opens the door to a new concept of freedom, conceived as individual and collective autonomy emancipated from all material dependence. In these circumstances, satisfying abundance, and thus freedom, becomes a socio-economic and political priority. Structurally, through the partnership between state and market, between democracy and free trade, this means ensuring the expansion and permanent availability of new sources of energy, raw and critical materials, water or land at local and global levels. Without growth, there is no abundance. And without abundance, there is no freedom. It is the Faustian bargain of modern freedom.

Thus, in modern Western industrialised societies, economic growth is logically regarded and defended, consciously or unconsciously, as an essential tool and condition for freedom and a basic underpinning of democracy.¹¹ At the same time, the market capitalism that accompanies this system – supported and reinforced by the state – is often seen as an example of genuine freedom. As a corollary, any obstacle to growth can be seen as an obstacle to freedom. Any project that clashes head-on with, or at least criticises, the growth dogma is intrinsically in collision with the dominant model of freedom.

Decoupling freedom and growth

In this context, the challenge of post-growth vis-à-vis modern freedom is enormous. By openly calling for a more or less radical construction of a prosperous society beyond growth, without growth, or with negative growth, post-growth and degrowth currents are hardly compatible with consumerist and growth-oriented freedom. Proposing to ban or restrict polluting cars and energy sources or wasteful behaviour runs counter not only to freedom without eco-social regulation but also to the mere promise of infinite material abundance. Even mentioning that ecological limits exist can be understood as a restriction of freedom conceived through the prism of non-restriction.

But no matter how directly it confronts the growth-abundance-freedom triad, post-growth cannot abandon the struggle for freedom.

This is firstly because freedom is much more than the ability to choose and consume without restraint in an ever-expanding world. Freedom, and the debate about its meaning, existed before growth became a socio-economic dogma. It is perfectly possible to think and disseminate another concept of freedom beyond non-restriction. For example, in line with thinkers such as Philip Pettit or Jürgen Habermas, freedom can be understood as non-domination, security, and protection against arbitrary power, as well as emancipation from subordination.¹²

In this framework, public policies for environmental and social justice, as well as the rule of law, are cornerstones for eradicating the domination of certain people or groups over others.¹³ Reducing this “over-power” and “power-over” is a sine qua non condition for expanding the freedom of the “power-to-do” of the majority of the population and, at the same time, guaranteeing the rights of minorities and future generations. To this end, in the face of the techno-libertarian and reactionary offensive, reconnecting the very idea of the state and the public as the guarantor of a freedom that protects against the powerful and the law of the jungle is a priority.¹⁴ However, in light of the historical role of the state in the mercantile and productivist spiral and the ecological crisis, we need to rethink its function beyond generating welfare based on consumption and growth.¹⁵

Second, we should not throw all modern liberty out with the bathwater of growth. As much as many individual freedoms were born in the heat of the material expansion of the 17th and 18th centuries, and with all the contradictions that this entails, the freedoms inherited from the Enlightenment – and even modern democracy itself – are also a legacy of the struggle against absolutism, intolerance, injustice, and authoritarian and arbitrary power. Self-determination and autonomy, whether for political, religious or sexual orientation or personal and intimate self-development, are individual and common goods to be zealously defended – and all the more so in the face of attacks on democracy and civil, political, social, and cultural rights.

At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the paradox surrounding the freedoms of recent centuries. In the Faustian pact described above, freedom has been thought of as emancipation from any material dependence. At the same time, however, it has been constructed on the basis of infinite material growth on a finite planet. In the 21st century, we know that the Promethean dream of emancipation is not possible for the majority of the population. The fruit of this combination of freedom and growth can only be enjoyed by a privileged few. They enjoy a good life in their ultra-securitised neighbourhoods and countries or otherwise dream of migrating to Mars, while the rest struggle to survive, the Earth being their only reference point and horizon.

To avoid falling into these eco-fascist scenarios, it is essential to decouple freedom from growth. The post-growth project of human self-determination is more akin to a “frugal freedom”, one that can be enjoyed with the smallest socio-environmental impact and material footprint.¹⁶ In the same way that the degrowth movement made it fashionable to “live well with less”, we could use the slogan “be free with less”. At the same time, although it may seem initially counter-intuitive, this low-impact freedom need not entirely forgo abundance. Just as a post-growth society does not mean that everything has to decrease, freedom beyond growth does not mean that there cannot be an abundance of pleasures and non-productive activities.

In this ecological framework, to be free is not to work and earn more in order to accumulate more material goods but to work less so that one can have more time to take better care of one’s family, the environment, and democracy. To be free is not to engage (often without real choice) in paid activities simply to raise one’s social status without taking into account the collateral effects but to work in a profession that gives increased meaning to life and brings more ecological and social value to society. To be free is to be able to make ends meet without contributing to the end of the world. The goal, in other words, is more security and more sustainability. Enjoying freedom responsibly, ecologically, justly, and democratically today allows us, and those outside our geographical and temporal borders, to enjoy more freedom tomorrow.

This is frugality in a material sense but abundance in other senses: solidarity, quality, sustainability, democracy, wellbeing, safety, security, protection, and social bonds. It is, in other words, a profound and positive re-signification of what freedom and a good life mean. That can help to gain ground in the fight against the monopolisation of freedom by negationist and reactionary currents, to recover control of the narrative, and to position post-growth as a transversal alternative for the majority, desirable and credible.

At a historical moment of generalised self-absorption, and in contrast to imaginaries of withdrawal that can arise in the environmental and green movement, this is also an offensive strategy to win hegemony in the field of the values of European society. There is one goal: to make freedom and sustainability beyond growth two sides of the same coin.

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1. In mainstream economics, GDP growth is understood as a measure of welfare and the ultimate goal of modern economies. To go deeper into this issue, see e.g. Jean Gadrey, Florent Marcellesi & Borja Barragué (2012). Adiós al crecimiento. Vivir bien en un mundo solidario y sostenible. Barcelona: El Viejo Topo.
2. Incels are victims of women, whites of Blacks, heterosexuals of LGBTQIA+ people, and so on.
3. Both have compared themselves to Martin Luther King: Trump while ordering the deportation of migrants from the US on 20 January 2025 and Le Pen after being convicted of embezzling public funds on 6 April 2025.
4. From the Paris Agreement to Pope Francis’ Laudato sí encyclical, the European Green Deal, and the pre-pandemic youth climate mobilisations.
5. Some reports foresee temperature rise scenarios of 4 degrees Celsius in Western European countries such as France.
6. Mainly freedom of expression but also freedom of movement or religion. See: European Parliament (2025). Winter Survey 2025. European Parliament. Available at <https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3492>.
7. Donald J. Trump (2025). “Special Address by President Donald J. Trump at the World Economic Forum.” World Economic Forum. 23 January 2025. Available at: <https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/davos-2025-special-address-donald-trump-president-united-states/>
8. As illustrated by the removal of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s funding for renewables, the dismantling of the federal education department, and the end of international development aid via USAID.
9. Marion Dupont (2025). “Historian Sophia Rosenfeld: ‘The rhetoric of freedom-as-choice is appealing not just to a lot of voters but also to the tech oligarchs’.” Le Monde. 4 February 2025. Available at: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/02/04/sophia-rosenfeld-historienne-notreconception-moderne-de-la-liberte-est-calquee-sur-le-modele-consumeriste_6530519_3232.html.
10. This is a hallmark of the new reactionary Right, the direct result of which is, among other things, the attack on environmental policies in the European Parliament.
11. At the same time, it is perfectly possible to have a growth-abundance bargain without freedom. See, for example, the Chinese model.
12. For Pettit, “An agent dominates another, if and only if he has some power over that other, and in particular, an arbitrarily founded power of interference.” Philip Pettit (1996). “Freedom as Antipower”. Ethics, 106(3), pp. 576–604.
13. Be it between the rich and the poor, employers and employees, creditors and debtors, men and women, parents and children, heterosexuals and LGBTQIA+ people, bureaucrats and citizens, majority and minority groups, coloniser and colonised countries, etc.
14. “State” here can be broadly understood as the government of a region, a country, or a group of countries like the EU.
15. See, for example, Florent Marcellesi (2013). “¿Más allá del Estado?”. Ecología Política, 45, pp. 7-12. Available at <https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/45.pdf>.
16. It is the ecological application of John Stuart Mill’s “do no harm” principle, which is present in an attenuated form in the “do not significant harm” of European legislation.

Teaser photo credit: Rococo personification of the Americas with an alligator, a parrot, and a cornucopia, all symbols of the New World, designed by Johann Joachim Kändler and produced by the Meissen Porcelain Factory, c.1760, porcelain, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, US. By Johann Joachim Kändler – Daderot, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54840528