I have already noted that a central component of Piketty’s answer to the current crisis is more of the same – that is, more growth, the proceeds of which can then be ‘redistributed’. The harsh truth, however, may well be, at the level of public policy debate and democratic discussion, that growth is in practice an alternative to egalitarian redistribution, an alternative to any serious effort to create a more equal society. The promise of growth is a replacement for the need to share. That is how growthism has ‘superseded’ socialism: ‘left-wing’ politicians join right-wing politicians in the mantra that everyone benefits from a growing pie, which can then allegedly be divided such as to yield larger shares for all, despite the fact that, in a country like the UK, we are now seeing growth of which none of the benefits are ‘trickling down’ to the 99 per cent. (Total GDP is in the UK now above its 2007 level, but most people in the country are worse off than they were in 2007, partly due to population increase, meaning that GDP per head reveals an average decline; but also simply because inequality has continued to increase.) A post-growth society would be forced to face the question which growthist ideology – with its promise of an ever-growing pie – allows one endlessly to evade: how shall we share what together we have. So Piketty’s claim that a ‘stalling’ of growth is bad for the majority may well be exactly wrong, and not just because the capture of virtually all the proceeds of growth by the elite is happening right now. In fact, a ‘stalling’ of growth and a willingness to see that we simply can’t keep growing the pie now that the ingredients are running out may finally be what force the majority to take back some of the wealth currently being hoarded by the rich. The true condition for redistribution may well now be recognition that we can’t rely any longer on growth.