Brilliant essay Paul. But poor title. Only the degrowth choir will hear you singing. As Kenneth Boulding said, "anyone who believes in infinite growth on a finite planet is either a mad man or a economist", or both. But we still need to deal with those economists who promote infinite financial growth, excluding most innovation. Real US growth has been in decline since the first oil embargo. It is all about the wank now: https://medium.com/@daneke/when-the-wank-became-swank-money-banking-and-the-evolution-of-the-all-debt-economy-22e334f8ee3e

However, conventional growth worldwide is so vital to the great debt machine, that comprehensive degrowth policies will never be allowed to take hold. Plus it is more than a bit obtuse to expect third world nations to not want what we had.