On Saturday, September 19th, the attendants of the Constitutional Convention in Beaugency proposed the following Platform for convergence.

Facing a multidimensional crisis we respond by the radicality and consistency of the conscientious Objection to Growth.

After the Europe-Décroissance (Europe-Degrowth) campaign, first experience of a national political campaign advocating the concepts of Degrowth, do we have the audacity to extend this adventure and to create a political movement, which objectives will be the individual and collective emancipations, the well-being and the self-fulfilment in voluntary simplicity? And, consequently, do we have the audacity to present to individuals, associations, groups, networks, whether formal or informal, a platform defining the outline of our approach, welcoming all those who agree with it in order to strengthen it together and to shape other worlds that are to be ecologically and socially responsible, humanly decent and democratic.

The growth society dramatically combines all the crises: the energy crisis, the environmental crisis, the social crisis, the economic crisis, the cultural crisis and the political crisis. Fundamentally it is the expression of one and only one madness: a world that has become inhuman, as if the belief in « always more » was enough to make sense.

To the radicality of these crises, we oppose another consistency: the immediate exit from capitalism and productivism through all the practical alternative ways of life, already existing or still to create. That consistency is our radicality. We do not want any other development, any other growth, any other consumption or any other productivism. We want to leave behind the religion of growth, which increases inequalities, exhausts resources, wipes out the biodiversity and denies human dignity.

Even if an infinite growth in a finite world was possible, it would still be absurd. How to open paths to other worlds?

In contrast with the classical strategy of power overtaking as a prerequisite of any change, we put forward the radicality and consistency of the Snail’s Strategy.

Degrowth is not only the aim of such a project, it is also its path and its method. The political strategy of Degrowth is a strategy of break off, in opposition with the strategies of accompaniment. This Snail’s Strategy firstly implies to give up the illusion that the power overtaking – whether it is reformist or revolutionary – is a prerequisite of any change of the world. We do not want to « overtake the power » but to act against the dominations by weakening the various powers; and to create, without any delay, the conditions enabling us to give full meaning to our lives.

Nevertheless, our rejection of the absurd paths of this merchant globalization must not lead us to dead ends of the individualism or of the isolationism. Hence the Association of conscientious Objection to Growth (Association d’Objecteurs de Croissance – AdOC) wants to be present on the political scene and through all the political dimensions of the individual and social emancipation, without any exception:

The non-electoralist presence in the traditional political field, through demonstrations, petitions, election campaigns, critical and occasional support to political majorities so as to gain ground and perpetuate social, ecological and political successful field trials.
The experimental projects and the immediate exit from capitalism, through practical alternatives and counter-power.
The political project, through the various utopian branches tuned together into coherence.

With a view to strengthen our capacity to resist attacks, let us re-politicize society and re-socialize politics.

But since resisting is not enough and something new must be proposed in a Platform, which locally starts our global project, we plead for a serene and convivial Degrowth:
The core of our project is relocalization concerning: housing, travelling, producing, distributing, exchanging, decision taking. For conscientious Objectors to Growth those relocalizations are the only paths that make sense to regain control of our activities, to safeguard our territories, to re-appropriate our ways of life and to share the common goods.
The promotion and legalisation of the local currencies and the other non-speculative exchange systems.
An unconditional autonomy allowance that would enable people to freely choose their activities and put an end to the constraint work.
The upper limitation of the individual income based on a democratically discussed differential with the unconditional autonomy allowance.
Free public services and free use of what is recognized as socially useful and ecologically responsible.
Free access to responsible uses of water, land and every « essential » resource on the one hand and higher pricing or prohibition of their misuses on the other hand.
Leaving behind the society of energy overconsumption and waste, with its nuclear destruction threat as well as its car industry.
The rejection of the cult of the technology, which imposes a society of screens and goods instead of a society of ties: those of solidarity, through cooperation and sharing.
The establishment of democracy, putting an end to media and advertisement propaganda, choosing collectively about economical orientations, relocalizing democracy controls, setting up protection measures to avoid power abuses (short term offices for electoral mandates which are to be revocable and non cumulative, the monopoly of the people’s representatives in the domain of law making, a truly universal voting right).

To keep on developing this platform…

Beaugency, September 19th, 2009

- Décroissance mouvement (Degrowth): is a political, economic and social movement based on environmentalist, anti-productivist and anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-growth
- Décroissance (Degrowth): is a provocative slogan whose main goals are to explode the myth of GDP Growth and to open a debate on the western world models of societies.
- Association d’Objecteurs de Croissance (AdOC): is a political mouvement which promotes Degrowth ideas.