In this episode of Post Growth Australia Podcast, we welcome special guest Matt Orsagh, from the Arketa Institute for Post Growth Finance, and author of the blog ‘Degrowth is The Answer’. Matt and his colleagues at Arketa have been working to align to financial sector with environmental and wellbeing needs, culminating in the 2025 research paper: “By Disaster or Design: How finance can evolve to avoid the worst of the ecological challenges we face and enable the transition to a better economic mode.” The paper proposes many degrowth solutions to the finance sector, to which Matt explores further in this interview.

We also explore Matt’s own written work at his Substack blog, 'Degrowth is the Answer'. Big themes include wealth inequality, the loneliness epidemic, and collapse. These articles exemplify Matt’s storytelling skills. While describing our current predicaments with unflinching realism, Matt reminds us that the future remains hopeful if our global society transitions toward practical, planned Degrowth solutions.

This episode of PGAP is dedicated to the memory of Tristan Sykes, co-founder of Just Collapse, who recently passed away

Change the World through Changing Economics with Marcus Champ: The premiere episode of season 8 is a great companion episode, as it similarly explores economics and finance.

Planning for a Just Collapse with Kate Booth: Our interview with ‘Just Collapse’ co-founder remains one of our most listened to episodes.

We also encourage you to read the PGAP blog article To populate or not to populate? How we can come together around the eternal debate of everyone’s favourite vexed issue.

This interview explores the following three articles from Matt’s Substack Blog ‘Degrowth Is The Answer’:

Americans Don’t Know How Good They Don’t Have It
Collapse: Don’t Look Down
Everyone I Know is Lonely

You can find the Arketa institute publications HERE, where you may read the report ‘By Disaster or By Design.’

_Enjoyed this episode? Please feel welcome to show your support for PGAP by sharing this and other episodes with your friends, family and networks. Leave a review for us on Apple Podcast or your favourite podcast platform. Contact us anytime with your thoughts and suggestions. _

Time stamp

Introduction:

Start – 00:04:19

Interview Part 1:

00:04:19 – 00:32:06

Intermission:

00:32:06 – 00:34:27

Interview Part 1:

00:34:27 - End

Special Guest: Matt Orsagh.

Welcome to 2026 and a brand-new season of Post Growth Australia Podcast!

With co-host Mark Allen on travel leave, host Michael Bayliss (with his degrowth cap on) opens the episode with some mixed feelings in welcoming the new year. Since 2025, humanity has breached planetary boundaries, shifted more of our collective wealth into the hands of oligarchs and added 70 million to the population. Each new year brings a new appreciation of the magnitude to the scale of the human enterprise, which makes turning things around that more difficult (we keep trying, however!)

Our first special guest to open Season 8 of PGAP is Marcus Champ. With a professional background in psychology, Marcus is studying at the one-of-a-kind Masters of Economics of Sustainability degree through Torrens University. Along with fellow students, Marcus has started an economics advocacy group called “Public Money. Public Good.”

Marcus was also a presenter at the 2025 New Economy Network Australia (NENA) conference. His presentation was titled: “Pathways through a crisis: wartime experience and lessons for the coming climate catastrophe.”

In this episode, Marcus draws from his presentation to compare Australia’s economy during World War II to that of our economic system today. In his words: “It’s amazing how much our understanding of economics and finance has changed in the last 50 years or so.”

With panache and passion, Marcus shares a new economic vision for Australia. Informed from the achievements of the past, it eschews the current neoliberal paradigm to create a future where social and environmental wellbeing is prioritised over GDP, profits for the few and endless growth on a finite planet.

Post Growth Australia Podcast (PGAP) is made possible with the support of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). All opinions and legacy of PGAP guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of PGAP or SPA.

Enjoyed this episode? Please feel welcome to show your support for PGAP by sharing this and other episodes with your friends, family and networks. Leave a review for us on Apple Podcast or your favourite podcast platform. Contact us anytime with your thoughts and suggestions. Want to explore more episodes on this theme? Links below:

Finding The Money with Maren Poitras
PGAP live at the NENA conference: Life After Capitalism
MMT for Activism with Gabrielle Bond
Ecological Economies and MMT with Steve Williams

Time stamp:

Intro - 00:06:20
Interview part 1 - 00:06:20 - 00:27:20
Intermission - 00:27:20 - 00:29:05
Interview part 2 - 00:29:05 - 01:00:55

Special Guest: Marcus Champ.

Topics discussed with Timothée in this episode include:

• Reflections on the Degrowth movement within Europe, with particular focus on the 2023 Beyond Growth conference held at the EU parliament.

• Why “green growth” and economic decoupling are fallacies that are not backed by scientific evidence.

• Why demography is not an economic problem and why tinkering with demography won’t provide economic solutions.

• Timothée’s personal vision for a post-growth world (involving much more social equity and much less advertising).

We think you will agree that Timothée is a fantastic speaker on these issues, whose colourful use of metaphor and imagery makes for an engaging conversation.

We encourage you to read his article: “A response to The Economist: Shut up and let me grow”. This was an assertive response The Economist who wrote a critique of the 2023 Beyond Growth Conference, titled “Meet the lefty Europeans who want to deliberately shrink the economy.” Indeed.

There are many great YouTube videos highlighting Timothée’s impressive public speaking legacy. This Tedx Talk (which has attracted nearly 130 000 views) is in French, but if you don’t speak the language, you have the option of English subtitles. We also recommend his talk at the Beyond Growth conference: “How to finance welfare without growth?” He has also been interviewed on the Steady Stater Podcast. Otherwise, check out Timothée Parrique’s website here.

PGAP has been delighted and humbled by the fantastic listener support that we received for our last episode with First Nations cultural educator Larry Blight. Thank you to everyone who took the time share your kind words with us. In keeping with Degrowth values, PGAP does not use advertising and so depends on a supportive and generous community to get the word out. Please help us spread the good word by sharing this and other episodes of PGAP with your friends, family and networks. We encourage you to review and rate PGAP on Apple Podcast or your favourite platform. You are welcome to contact us anytime with your thoughts, feedback and suggestions.

All views and perspectives of PGAP guests, including all past or present legacies, remain independent of the perspectives and legacies of PGAP and Sustainable Population Australia, who support this podcast. For a more in-depth look into some of the issues around discussing population, which were touched on during the outro of this episode, please read our blog post: “To populate or not to populate? How we can come together around the eternal debate of everyone’s favourite vexed issue.”

Until next time, until then!

Special Guest: Timothée Parrique.