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/310/ Do You Want to De-Grow? (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-03 12:25:53
Edited:
2023-01-03 12:30:22
Imported:
2026-06
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On 'degrowth communism'.

[Patreon Exclusive]

Why the rage for degrowth now? With deindustrialisation, energy rationing and severe pressure on standards of living, it looks increasingly like degrowth is official policy.

Yet its advocates, drawing from the work of radicals like Mike Davis, John Bellamy Foster, Jason Hickel, and Kohei Saito, would argue that ecological Marxism or degrowth communism is wholly different from stagnant capitalism. How much continuity is there between much older generations of socialists and the contemporary left?

Readings:

The paradox of Degrowth Communism, Thomas Fazi, UnHerd

‘A new way of life’: the Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan, Justin McCurry, Guardian

The degrowth delusion, Leigh Phillips, openDemocracy

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Comments

Paul Brewer

I'm not interested in defending de-growth, so don't take my comment in that vein. However, the idea that the 15-minute city is some kind of novelty is misleading. When I first lived on my own in London, car-less in 1982, in effect I lived in a 15-minute city as just about everything I needed was around 15-minutes walk away. We had a doctor (who made a house call!), supermarkets, a Woolworth's for household sundries, butchers, fruit & veg, TV rental shop, etc. And this was imposed by coercion, too. The coercion was called 'money' and 'space'. People couldn't afford as many cars as they could just a decade later, and developers in the Victorian and inter-war era hadn't allowed for as many cars as was feasible to buy in 1982, let alone the 1990s. I could go on, but the point I'm making is that some kind of coercion is an inevitable part of a democratic society simply because resources have to be rationed somehow. My rule of thumb is that any significant initiative will feature 20 per cent of people being against it. They don't have a veto, so the minority are coerced. Phil seemed to be arguing that the planners of Canterbury don't have a democratic mandate, but one could equally say that, in the absence of any party taking up the cause of opposing the 15-minute city plan, that there seems to be a consensus in favour of it, probably subtracting that 20 per cent who include those people complaining. We'll only know with certainty once the politics of opposition is organised.

cap

Sort of disappointing that the hosts of a show which is about critiquing capitalist and presumably finding ways to go beyond it apparently lack any kind of imagination and are deeply invested in the status quo. Your argument against the 15 minute city is that people need to drive their kids to school and to activities. But kids all over the world, including in industrialized countries go to school and other activities on their own walking, cycling, or taking public transit. So you cant even envision a change to the urban fabric that would transform peoples' lives into something that is already a reality in many places. (And of course the argument that the 15 minute city is some kind of nefarious tool of authoritarianism is just disingenuous and paranoid, the idea is that everything is available within a 15 minute radius, not that you're not allowed to leave that radius. Also maybe the comment section of the paper of your Tory voting town is probably not the best source of information for someone who considers themselves of the left.) We already have all the technology and the resources needed to enable every single human being on the planet to live a materially rich life with running water, electricity, heating, not just adequate but good housing, more than enough, varied and healthy food, access to good public transport, access to culture, all the resources needed to start and maintain a family, crucially including time, so vacation and no overly long working hours. And we've had the means to do so for a very long time, discussions about wether we need to tech our way out of poverty are as old as socialism. We dont. Its not a problem of technological development but of political will. We need to radically redistribute and change life models. Providing a basic and good standard of living to everyone would not radically raise resource consumption or carbon emissions, because you would simultaneously shrink consumption in the global north. If you get rid of private property, the Elon Musks and Taylor Swifts of the world are gone, but so are the small town millionaires , and all the suburban single family home owners, and all the other bourgeois whose consumption habits constitute the top carbon emissions. Another world is possible, guys. That you cant even imagine a society where using cars is not necessary is really depressing. You mention that you are in favor of rational planing and lowering carbon emissions. Could you talk about what your alternative to degrowth and other environmental ideas you apparently think is ridiculous and even dangerous would be? What is your answer to the ecological disaster we are facing on so many fronts, global warming only being one? And dont just cop out by saying build nuclear power plants everywhere, despite what your lobbying guest and Leigh Philips claim, there are many many issues with them.

f oregan

I read a great retweet from the immortal Aimee Terese some years ago, and to paraphrase “ have you  noticed that the left want to change everything except the environment” Is that even possible?. Some thoughts, there is in politics a strain of thought that wants politics to end, its on all sides but much stronger on the left and liberal centre.  De-growth has elements of a plan to end politics for all time, a steady state economy and a steady state society. During lockdown I watch dozens and dozens of YouTube De-growth academic lectures, zoom meetings and one issue they barely touched on is how you allocate resources in this society. Ok we know it’s some sort of communism but how?  Is the value of an item or resource using service solely based on some ESG like score for every single item in existence? How is this calculated and by who, this Central Committee would become the ultimate power and have the ultimate power to control every aspect of society.  How do you calculate the social benefit compared to environmental impact?  Does the state allow the prayer mat, the ballet slippers or the surfboard?  Is it more valuable to allow the subject to go to a concert or attend the party meeting?   The filling of one sandwich over another? Combine that with Central Bank digital currencies and the Rights biggest fears look possible. It’s important to note that once you have an ESG for every item then that score becomes the currency. You may earn money, but you can’t spend it if your allocated ESC total is exceeded, so is your currency the currency?   I watched lectures where it was even suggested that any innovation would have to assessed by the state before it could go ahead.  This brought up memories of that story about the man who invented unbreakable glass in the Roman Empire and brought it to emperor expecting to be praised but was executed instead. The emperor said it would put the glass blowers out of work, so he had to die, a frozen state. In another lecture they spoke again about the issue of what would be kept of the old economy, and they all decided the internet was essential.   Being young academics, they couldn’t remember a world working well without it. I coughed up my tea laughing, do they have any idea what that means, that one demand probably needs the services and materials from how much of the existing manufacturing and resource extraction operations 20, 50, 90%?  This folly is amplified as they also expect countries to only trade in their bioregions what if your bio region has exceeded it allocated extraction total for the rare earth used in equipment at the De Growth data centre? Its not impossible to imaging this ESG score being automated by some AI but also all old goods would have to evaluated catalogued and tracked as well. Once new consumer goods become rarer then old goods gain in value, and so we have the problem of who has the most old stuff, people secretly manufacturing old looking items and so a massive black market is born, on top of this we have the problem that the Global South is still growing and I assume making goods, which means there will be smuggling on an enormous scale.  So, we now have smuggling and organized crime. The calculation of this ESG for every item and Resource Using Action taken by hundreds of millions of individuals makes the idea calculating prices by the Soviet Command Economy look rational and a great idea, Cybernetic De-Growth would have to be the plan. Again, never mentioned is the problem of borders, they seem to assume open borders but that won’t be possible.  Due to smuggling you will need all those guards and police and lots of checks.  Then we come to the classic question from the Right “What going to happen to immigration?”  DE-Growth has a fixed national economy, the pie is fixed. Each newcomer would mean a reduction in each citizen’s slice, ok at first. At the start of De Growth these economies are still rich so millions will come ultimately leading to a real drop in living standards on top of De Growth.  At some later point the De-Growth state will have the problem of emigration as all the lure of the Global South beckons. Each citizen leaving increased the worlds ESG impact and so logically must be stopped.  They will have to close the borders. Again, rarely mentioned is the problem of Geopolitics how does Poland degrowth if Russian doesn’t, can you De-Growth and have a big army and industry dedicated to its existence?  Is De-Growth in one state possible? Only a Totalitarian state could make this happen

Ervin Kondakciu

I didn’t know much about degrowth before listening to this episode and I feel like still know as much as I did before listening to it now that I’ve listened to it. It felt that the episode had no structure. It felt like you were bombarding us with content but had not really processed it before recording the episode. Some structure would have been much appreciated.

jkjkjkj

The problem regarding Phil’s theory of degrowth as a geopolitical tool is that in the case of Nordstream nobody has argued the nordstream attack along lines of environmentalism. In fact, whoever the perpetrator is has not yet even stepped up ajd identified themselves. Also, the idea that the push for American manufacturing at the expense of european manufacturing’s collapse due to the Ukraine war is degrowth is counterintuitive: if Europe’s industrial growth is declining then by necessity America’s is growing at Europe’s expense, there is no degrowth, just a shift in who is growing and who isn’t

Ghost Runner

Is not the question about what type of growth? Capitalist growth is chaos and all about extracting surplus value. Degrow under capitalism is ultimately a capitalist class politics but rational growth under a different mode of production could (I hope) be more ecologically sound and less alienating.