This San Franciscan Says Infinite Economic Growth Is a Lie

Chad Baron, one of the big brains behind Degrowth California, speaking at Stanford in early December. (Silicon Valley Taiwanese Fatty Otaku Photographer)

Sitting at the English pub the Pig & Whistle on Geary Boulevard, beanie-clad and iron-jawed Chad Baron described the inner workings of conservationist economics to a table of college students. He did it because no one in the group really knew what he meant when he said “degrowth,” a semi-complicated theory meant to call citizens and governments to reduce the resources they produce and consume — to “degrow” economies. When I met Baron at the University of San Francisco, I was struck by his optimism and belief in natural beauty, pining about the San Francisco Common Yellowthroat and other casualties of climate change.

Now Baron has launched an organization to take degrowth to the next level in the United States. Degrowth California is a new nonprofit with a cause familiar to educate, discuss, and enact state- and country-wide projects to downscale production and consumption. Founded just six months ago, the group recently relocated from SoCal to the Bay Area, where Baron completed an MA in international studies focusing on sustainable development and environmental justice.

He’s on a mission to nab speaking engagements and volunteers to spread the good word; In early December, the co-founder presented at Stanford through TEDxWoodside to garner support after a stint in Europe touring degrowth chapters abroad. “Put simply, from our perspective degrowth has to occur in order to avoid ecological collapse and exacerbating social challenges,” Baron says.

The group’s ideology is disarmingly simple once understood, and degrowth as a movement has loyal fans in Spain and South American countries including Chile. There are three basic tenets: to actually cut back on physical resources and abandon the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) model for economic success, abandoning what is called “growthism” or the belief that infinite scaling is sustainable, and the vision these efforts and policies brings about — healthy, cared-for communities and ecologies.

Baron became enamored with the movement while in school, finishing his thesis “Degrowth and Catholic social thought: rethinking socio-economics for a planet in crisis” in June 2022. Since then the Virginia-born-and-raised service worker has taught surfing in Chile while making connections with international advocates for the beginning of his Degrowth California initiative. He says that through working in a degrowth approach communities and areas could achieve what they, specifically, need to thrive, rather than top-down and often neoliberal values and systems. “Each community should determine democratically how to best structure a socio-economic model,” Baron says, “that is both sustainable and facilitates individual and collective wellbeing.”

The group is still in its infancy, but he’s got co-founders and volunteers already. The group is already going about creating green spaces, designing bikable solutions in the city, and investing in public support through mutual aid. They oppose the spirit and goals of the the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) that recently took over San Francisco’s downtown. He wants to connect with activists in the Bay Area “The economy is a tool, a tool designed by humans and we have the capacity to tweak it to better suit our circumstances and our needs,” Baron says.