Volume 4 (2026)

This paper reasserts the question of human needs as a pivotal yet under-theorized issue within the degrowth (DG) discourse. While DG scholarship often draws on human needs to critique the dominant growth paradigm, it does not systematically engage with the analysis of human needs as a research question. The paper offers a threefold contribution. First, it reviews how universal human needs theories—especially those of Doyal and Gough, Max-Neef, and Helne and Hirvilammi—have been deployed in the DG literature, revealing their shared aim of establishing objective criteria for well-being and distributive justice beyond utility maximization. Second, it critically examines the assumptions underlying these frameworks, including the dichotomies between needs and wants, basic and non-basic needs, and true and artificial needs; arguing that they neglect the historical specificity of capitalism as a system of needs. Third, drawing on Marxian theory, the paper reconstructs an alternative approach that situates human needs within the dynamics of capital accumulation and the law of value, showing how capitalism produces unmet and outlawed needs while legitimizing only those satisfiable through exchange. Building on this analysis, it outlines the contours of a degrowth post-capitalist society grounded in democratic social planning, where collective deliberation defines legitimate social needs, determines appropriate satisfiers, and expands collective modes of provisioning. By keeping the question of human needs open—both quantitatively and qualitatively—the paper positions degrowth as a political project of emancipation aimed at reorienting social reproduction toward collective flourishing and ecological balance.

In times of deepening planetary and societal polycrises, accompanied by global uncertainty and a growing sense of hopelessness, education may serve as one of few leverage points capable of enabling meaningful social and ecological transformation. If configured appropriately, it can help address the root causes of current crises, including the persistent belief that endless economic growth is compatible with human-nature flourishing. This paradoxical belief shapes our imaginary of what constitutes a good life, essentially blockading meaningful sustainability transformations. Degrowth radically challenges this narrative, offering a transformative vision of human-nature thriving. Yet how such transformation is supported pedagogically in real-world education remains largely underexplored. This thesis investigates how degrowth-informed pedagogical approaches are reflected, challenged, or refined within nonformal Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Using a qualitative case study of the Austrian initiative WeltTellerFeld, it draws on document analysis, field observations, and semi-structured interviews with educators. Guided by a theoretical framework grounded in critical pedagogy and transformative learning, the findings reveal strong alignment with degrowth-informed pedagogical principles such as problem-based learning, redefined educator-learner roles, and the politicisation of education. Yet the initiative’s educational practice also challenges and refines degrowth pedagogy, suggesting its expansion to include learning approaches that incorporate emotional engagement and utopian imagination. Ultimately, the thesis argues that small-scale, nonformal initiatives like WeltTellerFeld can function as ‘cracks in the system’, ‘real utopias’ in the here and now, where alternative ways of living and learning beyond growth are cultivated, offering hope and direction toward urgently needed socio-ecological change.