What is degrowth? And why we need it.
Climate change and overuse of the earth is ravaging our world and societies around us. People are increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo as not only are they seeing no benefit from the extravagant growth around us, but the wealthy are using the gains made by our labor against us. They are purchasing nursing homes and apartments through private equities and making those services worse while charging us. They wish to build ever more unsustainable energy sectors and pass those costs on to us while gaslighting the people that it is the consumer which is demanding the products. And of course, people “can’t help themselves” or whatever the propaganda point usually is.
I was just thinking about the last part the other day. If it is the consumer that is demanding the products we are asking for, then how is the system set up in the first place? While it is true that we have a problem with consumerism, and then we are chastised for even buying those products in the first place, and then saying we need consumerism, isn’t this a circular argument? It seems that we are creating a vicious cycle of buying, chastising, feeling bad, and then buying. We are told constantly that we need the latest gadget or fast fashion to satisfy our needs to fill the emptiness inside of us (a little more on this aspect later).
Those commodities I mention come at a great price, especially if demand is as high as it is. High demand calls for a lot of raw resources in which labor will transform said resources into commodities. Those commodities need to be cheap enough to buy them and labor can be quite expensive. One of the most glaring aspects of capitalism is that it needs constant growth, or it dies. One of the ways capitalisms grows is by keeping costs down. To keep costs down, we need a cheap source of labor which can build our commodities. So how do we do so? By going to places where labor and raw materials can be produced cheaply. A place this occurs in is what is known as the global south, or the third world.
The global south is known as it is because it is part of the globe which is south of the global north. There are a few very noticeable aspects which separate the global north and south such as poor infrastructure, high levels of poverty, lower standards of living, limited educational opportunities, and many other problems that come with those aspects as a result. One of those problems which we know well in America, is the drug cartels which come from third world countries like Colombia and Mexico. Why do these cartels arise in places of high poverty? Because there is little to no economic opportunity in these regions.
These regions are kept poor because it makes for cheap labor for industrialized countries in the global north. Through influencing politics and institutions like the IMF and the World Bank, they make loans to countries who they know will not be able to pay off and when said countries fail, they take resources from them which are vital to their development. Very often these countries are described as having what’s called the “resource curse” because control of raw commodities leads to less stable democracies. This analysis is very western-centric and ignores the long history of both political corruption in the form of unequal exchange and ignores neocolonialism. Also, there are some resource rich countries which have traditions of democracy in them. The poor labor which benefits the rich north goes significantly to the wealthiest where inequality is massive.
Capitalism has an inbuilt tendency towards infinite growth which is antithetical to a planet with finite resources. Capitalism cannot handle scarcity because otherwise a cataclysmic cycle of loss of investment and job loss occurs which can derail the entire system. Sure, the state can come in and alleviate the crisis but there is only so much the state can do before it succumbs to inability. Many solutions to this problem, like the Green New Deal, have many holes in their solutions. One of which is that it doesn’t address the problem of consumerism. Consumerism and capital go hand in hand with one another and capital will be needed to address the excessive consumer demands of the global north. If we do not address the problem of consumerism, it will likely result in something like green imperialism where precious resources like cobalt or lithium will have a high target for demand. However, demand can increase price and regions which have the most like Congo or Bolivia fear they will be high targets for neo-imperialism.
A common strategy for capitalists to address the issue of growth and its relationship to climate change is de-coupling which is where is de-couple climate emissions and capitalism. This is a rather short-sighted strategy because it doesn’t address the issue of consumption. Humanity right now is using nature 1.7 times faster than the earth can realistically recuperate. If everyone in the world lived like the United States, we would need about five earths to sustain life here [2]. Basically, our lifestyle is ecologically unsustainable. One of the other driving forces behind this unsustainable lifestyle is planned obsolescence. This is a process which shortens the lifespan of a commodity to get people to buy more, which is environmentally destructive. In essence, green economics and capitalism are incompatible with one another.
So, what is the alternative?
De-growth as a strategy
De-growth is a movement which argues that economic growth as a measure of monetary value is destructive to the environment and ecological framework of the earth. Because free-market capitalism’s focus on the maximization of exchange-value, rather than use-value, it ignores the world’s sustainability in terms of well-being for nature. A very common argument for capitalism is that with markets comes a rise in the living standards of humanity. This idea is post-hoc because capitalism’s current emphasis is on monetary value which in turn, asks for domination of nature. Domination of nature transcends from domination of man over man and capitalism is a system that is based on class domination and thus environmental destruction which affects man in turn.
As the economy grows, the need for resources grows accordingly. The more the economy becomes more efficient, the need for resources grows rather than shrinks which in economics is called the Jevon’s paradox [3]. Non-renewable resources are gone once they are used, and even renewable resources can go bad if they are overused. With the current consumption rate going on as mentioned above, it would be unrealistic to expect a de-coupling of current consumption. The economy should instead be shrunk instead of growing to meet humanity’s goal of reducing carbon emissions.
The name “de-growth” is the most common criticism of the de-growth movement. This is because growth is associated with the advancement of mankind. The biggest reason for this is because neoliberal thinking has come to dominate the mindset of humanity in almost Orwellian ways. “De-growth” is a purposely named movement because it is much harder to be co-opted by bad faith actors like the name socialism has been. De-growth has nothing to do with austerity even though the name is potentially associated with less spending even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.
In our current capitalist structure, we have a top-down economy that puts the employer as a dictator of the employees. As a result, they have all the decisions in an enterprise such as how much to produce, when, how to do so, and what to do with the surplus-value generated by the workers who work the means of production. That surplus value is the result of both the production and sale of commodities. The capitalist is said to earn what they do because well, they are just that much more productive than the worker. They sit at board meetings, do press conferences, address stockholders, all sorts of business type stuff. Therefore, they earn the money they make and that’s why they are rich.
It’s not as black and white as them just earning money off their labor. Rich people don’t earn their money, they borrow it. They leverage their stocks and whatever monetary value they currently have to banks who will then loan them low-interest credit. They pit the banks against one another and make them work with the companies they own stock in, and then use the credit to invest in private equities like apartments, rentable houses (Air BNB and companies like Blackstone) and nursing homes (this why they are so expensive and less productive). Berkshire Hathaway, which is run by Warren Buffet, got wealthy off this sort of thing. Finally, they use the credit to fund their rich lifestyles like private jets and huge mansions with giant TVs and needless gadgets that contribute no value.
The wealthy, also known as the “1%” are currently responsible for 15% of climate emissions and if we include the top 10% of Americans, the number is around 40% [4]. Basically, we are funding their wealthy lifestyles while they not only don’t contribute any real value to the economy, but they are also destroying the earth at our expense!
One thing De-growth wishes to trim the unnecessary fat off the bureaucratic structure of the capitalist economy. Capitalism has an inbuilt tendency to reproducing itself and it must in order to survive. This growth is often based on short term gains over long term stability. This means the buildup of private equity even though it doesn’t do anything but produce exchange-value.
Shrinking the economy
The second thing De-growth wishes to do is shrink the economy while also increasing public services. It’ll do so in a few ways. Did you know that we can shrink our productive workweek down to fifteen hours and still maintain economic productivity, and our societal needs in tandem? We don’t need to be working 40 hour workweeks at all. Our society is now so productive technologically that we can maintain a lifestyle that would result in more leisure and less pollution [5]. The problem is that consumer society, and thus capitalism, leads to an incredibly dominant society which makes for lots of unnecessary consumption for the sake of it. Profit lines need to be maintained. But must it follow that we are meeting our needs? No. It’s just wants that we often regret ever purchasing. We don’t need to produce all this stuff to meet needs, just like we don’t need to be working so damn much.
The third thing we wish to do is get rid of all the unnecessary energy production. Oil and coal are being produced to meet excessive, bloated demands which is in part, driven by consumer demand. The commodities I mentioned are some of the biggest drivers of climate change along side capitalism using the world as a dumping ground. I agree with Tom Wetzel (in his critique of “the future is degrowth”) that capitalist enterprises are the biggest cause of carbon emissions, but even if we were to overcome capitalism, it doesn’t imply that we overcome consumerism which is a big part of climate change [6]. Consumerism can thrive even under workers self-management (which I will talk about later). The social phenomenon is likely bound to keep oil, coal alive and the global south poor.
Workers self management.
It’s time for the biggest solution that de-growth wishes to do and that is workers self-management. Or often known as “socialism”. I have already talked about socialism in a previous paper which you can read here:
https://medium.com/@derekhudley/what-is-socialism-07faca88bd0c
Under capitalism, we are subject to bosses that dictate every decision in an enterprise and if that decision is wrong, they are not the ones who pay for it. Socialism wishes to address the wrongs of capitalism and turn the system upside down on its head.
As mentioned earlier, De-Growth wants to trim all the unnecessary bloat in capitalism that is not doing any good except for financiers. Growth for growth’s sake is the name of the game. But you never hear the question of how big should the economy be? Under socialism, we can democratize the economy and discuss how big it should be. Slow and steady wins the race as the snail mentions above. Do you really think if the workers were in charge that they would fund the unnecessary costs of work?
Before anyone says it, most de-growth advocates are libertarian socialists like Vlad Bunea and some democratic socialists as well like Jason Hickel. De-growth is all about trimming unnecessary spending and development and authoritarianism needs a well-funded superstate not only to maintain the statist regime, but also to throw bread circuses at the masses like the Romans did. The Soviets would do very similar things as well. Authoritarian socialism and de-growth are incompatible because the former needs growth which if the Soviet Union was anything to go off it, it was unsustainable. Does De-growth imply statism? No. Because de-growth would be democratically decided upon. If you want a better idea of what libertarian socialism is, you can read this paper here:
-https://medium.com/@derekhudley/what-is-libertarian-socialism-c52c4a650b59
Addressing certain criticisms
De-growth has a lot of criticisms to it. Some of which are necessary and fair, others that are bad faith and frankly untrue. This is also an address to a paper by Ted Trainer and his “Simpler Way” [7].
A criticism of his that I agree with is that it will be hard to de-program people from the idea that growth is needed at all costs. If you have paid much attention to politicians and economists, you will see that they constantly advocate for growth in order to expand the economy to everyone. It has become Orwellian to even question the idea of growth. Where I disagree with however is that we don’t have time to do so, or the idea that it is impossible to make people see. Right now, the American economy is growing at the fastest pace in years, but people are questioning this because they are seeing none of the gains. In fact, many are beginning to see that there is a lot of unnecessary growth happening and growth going to the wrong places (particularly private equities when I describe them). I have managed to get people to understand that De-growth is necessary. Also of Australia’s housing problem is anything like America’s, then maybe de-growth is necessary. I also agree with Trainer that green liberals are very misguided when they advocate this strategy.
Another criticism I partly agree with is strategy. It’s true that De-Growth hasn’t always had a particular strategy, but this doesn’t imply that this strategy is infeasible. The belief that what currently exists, must necessarily exist, is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking. Bigger doesn’t imply better which I’m sure Ted agrees with. It is true that this strategy will need to be implemented quickly, but even if it’s down the road, it’s never too late. Better late than never. We will have to couple this with energy conservation campaigns and expansion of public services like public transit and recycling. But the cool part is that we would be redistributing (which is a necessity in this strategy) wealth from the top who didn’t even earn it in the first place.
It is not impossible for this strategy to happen because polls are beginning to show a dissatisfaction with today’s growth economy. It is not hard to get people, unless they are trained business administration majors, to see that growth is not necessary for a good standard of living. But that requires that leftists go outside and talk with people face to face.
Another common criticism you see time to time is the idea that this regression is not necessary. With the right technology you can make this standard of living more abundant to everyone. It is usually accelerationists and the older left tendencies who tend to make these kind of arguments. But is that technology available right now? And is there any evidence to suggest that renewables will come to dominate? You know as mentioned earlier, renewables can perish if you use them too much and the current energy demand will certainly outpace the rate which the earth can regenerate. The reason they are against this strategy is because it betrays their promethean promises of 19th century philosophy, enlightenment philosophers like John Locke, and contradicts Hegel when he said we must humanize nature. Domination of nature transcends from domination of man and demand is one way which domination to meet resource needs. I have already done a paper criticizing this idea which you can read here:
https://medium.com/@derekhudley/critiques-of-past-and-present-socialism-ed2dc7de9666
Conclusion
We can do better than free market, growth based capitalism. In fact, we can do better than growth economics in general. De-growth advocates for a simpler, sustainable lifestyle in which everyone can live their best lives. First nature (meaning all those which dwell the earth including humans) and second nature (the technologies and institutions we come up with) should merge together rather than us be practical servants to it. In fact, we are already beginning to see a revolution of first nature vs second. Climate change and environmental degradation is not voluntary and we are already seeing the consequences of both. Exxon Mobil knew since the 70s that climate change was happening and lied because it would have hurt their bottom line [8].
We need de-growth much more than just about climate change. We need to address the environmental crisis and the Green New Deal doesn’t really do this. De-growth is not a utopian idea at all and is seeing increasing support. Join us and together we can make a better world for everyone!
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Sources:
[1] de-growth — Search Images (bing.com)
[2] How many Earths? How many countries? — Earth Overshoot Day (footprintnetwork.org)
[3] Jevons paradox — Wikipedia
[4] How the rich are driving climate change (bbc.com)
[5] https://davidsuzuki.org/story/should-we-be-working-15-hour-weeks/
[6] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tom-wetzel-the-future-is-degrowth
[7] https://medium.com/postgrowth/a-friendly-critique-of-the-degrowth-movement-f0bd2297072d
[8] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/#:~:text=“What%20we%20found%20is%20that,denying%20that%20very%20climate%20science.”
