On August 18, 2022, MSN republished an article originally written by Brian Klein for the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The article highlights the devastating impacts of climate change and the need for governments to exercise its power to change the economic system. He says, “…the world can’t rely on personal restraint turning mainstream any time soon. Attempts by nations to impose a slower growth model and the loss of jobs that would entail would meet stiff political resistance…The overarching principle should be to use the power of economic incentives to dramatically alter the type of growth going forward rather than to force lower consumption overall”.

Editor’s Note: It is clear that Klein’s article was inspired by the World Economic Forum’s push for the resurgence of the degrowth movement. When MSN republished the article, it gave Klein an international voice, so that his ideas can be heard by the international community (the original article was locked behind a paywall).

At first glance, the proposals made by the article sound good – indeed, we as a society must learn to make better use of the earth’s resources.

Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that this article is inspired by the belief that not all humans have the capacity to make good decisions. It hails government leaders as the only source of correct decision-making. It also espouses the use of “economic incentives”, in other words, the use of rewards and punishments to control the behavior of citizens.

This article is clearly propaganda promoting the absolute control of governments over the lives of their citizens. It pushes for governments to ignore citizen opposition in order to implement “environmentally friendly” policies, all in the guise of climate change response [indeed, this is already what other governments are doing, see Netherlands move to shut down farms to meet climate goals, Canada, Ireland Issue Climate Restrictions Similar To The Netherlands].

Do we still not see where all of these are going? We hope that people have learned that governments, when afforded this kind of power, will use it to intrude into our private lives.

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