Degrowth challenges the capitalist pursuit of growth at all costs and "focuses on what is necessary to fulfill everyone's basic needs," said Kohei Saito, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo and author of "Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto." The idea, he noted, applies mostly to the Global North, where production and consumption have come to exceed basic needs in ways that harm the environment. Societies should be striving to create "a different kind of abundance," he said, offering free education, medical care and transportation instead of continuously making more goods for consumption.
