The non-austere "Free stuff for you! Vote for me!" political strategy has worked pretty well while technology improvements has made stuff faster than politicians can give it away. But it's a precondition. If technology ever stops improving at this rate, we're going to have a hard time, and no amount of words will change that fact.
To be for free stuff and at the same time be for degrowth, decel, limit resource use, etc.... seems naive to say the least.
Also, politicians can get more and more creative at excessive spending, at some point even outspending any kind of economic growth. And even if they don't outspend, at some point inflation comes along and kicks things over the edge.
To be for free stuff and at the same time be for degrowth, decel, limit resource use, etc.... seems naive to say the least.