The growth-independent welfare state

Keeping high-income societies within their biophysical limits likely means an end to their economic growth. Welfare states, in turn, appear ‘growth-dependent’, or unable to serve their welfare provisioning and democratic legitimation functions without growth. In this chapter, we describe the growth dependence problem and offer reform options towards growth independence, a necessary condition of the eco-social polity. We discuss how welfare states have through history been justified in relation to growth and productivity and break down growth dependence into three interrelated economic categories: unemployment, low welfare state revenues and pension fund underperformance. Growth independence requires new types of economic institutions, social policies and policy doctrines for welfare provisioning and its justification. Together, these might constitute a new welfare state paradigm that departs from prior thinking.