Is degrowth possible under capitalism?

I agree, but for more basic reasons than the creation of value.

On an economic level, sure, capitalism valorizes wealth creation. More importantly, though, capitalism doesn't prevent wealth creation. Degrowth means choosing not to use up some of the Earth's resources to create wealth. It means using fewer resources than we otherwise would. And under capitalism, if "we" don't use the resources, someone else will, because they can make money off it and nobody's stopping them. Degrowth isn't possible under capitalism, because under capitalism there's no way to stop people from using every available resource to maximize profit and therefore increase growth.

On a personal level, which is even more important, fear is the core of capitalism. People under capitalism learn everyone is selfish. Everyone tries to maximize their own profit at the expense of everyone else. Capitalism says you have to secure and protect the resources you need to live because no one will help you and other people will take whatever they can from you. So accumulating resources under capitalism is not merely greed - it's the only way to protect yourself after you lose the ability to accumulate resources from sickness and unemployment and old age.

So anyone whose worldview is based on capitalism will hear degrowth = I will have fewer resources = my family and I will be less safe. And that's the kind of barrier only re-education over generations can fix.

prefigurative politics – degrowth can happen within capitalism, but I see it as “in spite of” rather than “because of”

Nope. Capitalism is the antithesis of de-growth, it follows the goal of infinite growth.

I don't thinks it's impossible. There is some evidence suggesting that happiness and prosperity stops at a certain level of growth, and a continuation of growth yields diminishing returns.

GDP based economy is both a really strange way of measuring value and even it's inventor spoke out against using it as a measurement.

There are some nations that are trying alternative models of measurement, such as the BLI model.

First of all it depends on how you define degrowth. Japan for example has a lower real gdp today, then in 1995. So a shrinking economy is certainly possible in a real world fairly capitalist system. Obviously nobody has a purely capitalist system. There are always government companies, coops, foundations and so forth which are not inherently capitalist. Other then that Japan does fine.

However nobody is going to choose to shrink the economy for the sole reason of shrinking the economy. After all the economy does provide a living for the population and less money, means some people have to suffer. This is were the problem with the word "value" comes up. If you just use value = money, then that has to stop. Obviously capitalism is not going to do it by itself, but we have enviromental legislation and other laws and systems reducing work time using public pensions and workers rights. There are ways outside of states as well, but they are less common today.

If capitalism really rules everything, it is basicly impossible to do, other then as a disaster, if you count that as degrowth. However we can set limits to capitalism and have done so in the past using governments, unions and so forth. However it would be simpler without capitalism.

My big thing about degrowth is that it is terrible branding, not as bad as "defund the police", but it's pretty bad. I'm all for degrowth, but the more subtle and harder-to-fit-in-a-soundbite point is that economic degrowth can result in a general improvement of the actual lived experience of a huge number of human beings.

We all know that the 'good news everyone!' of economic news doesn't reach into the lives of most ordinary people. However, 'degrowth' is an academic term that is accurate - according to the dominant paradigm of economic growth - but lands on deaf ears outside of wonky circles. I am a wonk, but I know from painful experience that wonks don't rule the world.

I personally prefer 'regrowth' because regrowth will occur if we just stop doing the stuff that interferes with natural regeneration. Something akin to not stepping on the little daisy struggling to grow in a crack in the concrete. Symbolism matters!

Any thoughts on this or other reframing of the idea that might reach further into the public consciousness?

To respond to the post directly, yes it is possible, but we have to fight the capitalists to make degrowth happen under capitalism. It is a fight of words and ideas, most of the time.

Its possible, theoretically. We've seen deflation before historically, but it makes businesses lose their minds.

How dare the value of a dollar go up!

I'm pretty sure the destruction of value is inconsequential in a capitalist model until you destroy means of production. In fact, I'm pretty sure destroying things would be beneficial to capitalism, because then it would be able to produce useful things again rather than trying to invent new useless shit all the time.

Is it compatible with degrowth though? Well, I'm pretty sure we are already living it. The growth is mostly virtual imo, but the actual riches is decreasing for most people in the west. The growth benefit is going more and more to the privileged, and the poor get their public services slowly decaying because the growth doesn't go into it.

Which is why I hate this concept of degrowth. Growth as a concept only serve one purpose : it's an illusion so people can believe capitalism will benefit everyone. But the core problem of capitalism is the asymmetry of power between the capitalists and the workers. And degrowth does nothing against this asymmetry, so a de growing world would only make the life of workers even worse.

Degrowth is perfectly possible IMO withing capitalism. Wars and crisis are mostly about that.

Finally, the biggest problem for ecology is not actually capitalism, it's consumerism. Consumerism is a consequence of capitalism, but not a necessity of it. What you usually want to solve with degrowth is consumerism.