Holding Actions and Social Mobilisation
Pathways to Degrowth (1 of 4)
How might degrowth be realised? This was the inquiry I took to the 2019 Degrowth and Environmental Justice Summer School. The first week of the course, which took place at The Autonomous University of Barcelona, was dedicated to exploring the theoretical foundations of degrowth and environmental justice. This academic orientation was complemented with visits to several projects and initiatives based on degrowth principles. The second part of the programme involved a week-long stay at Can Decreix, a project in Cerbère putting degrowth into practice in everyday life.
The Summer School proved to be an incredibly valuable augmentation to the desk-based research undertaken during my dissertation period. The opportunity to personally engage with some of the leading academics in the degrowth field, as well as a lived experience of a degrowth lifestyle, provided an extremely rich environment to begin formulating a personal theory of change for how a degrowth transition might be realised.
In developing this theory, I draw on Macy & Johnstone’s (2012) three dimensions of large-scale societal transformation. These include holding actions, structural changes (which are also referred to as life-sustaining systems and practices by Macy & Johnstone) and shifts in consciousness. This model is displayed in figure 1 below. Action across all these fronts is necessary to achieve what Macy and Johnstone (2012) term the Great Turning — “the transition from an industrial society committed to economic growth to a life-sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world”.
I draw on these three dimensions, whilst adding a fourth, political framing, to hypothesise over how a degrowth transition might begin. I see these four dimensions as equally necessary and mutually reinforcing engines of change for the political realisation of degrowth. The remaining articles in this series will be dedicated to exploring each of these dimensions of change, whilst also hopefully illuminating how they have engaged my own sense of active hope in the feasibility of social and ecological transition. A transition which, like Macy & Johnstone, I believe to be already under way.
Holding Actions & Social Mobilisation
The first dimension of change identified by Macy & Johnstone (2012) is holding actions. I reclassify this dimension as holding actions and social mobilisation. Resistance and alternatives are the twin strands of holding actions and social mobilisation. The aim is to not only slow down and resist the damage being wrought by the extractive growth economy, but to also demand and raise awareness of alternatives to this ‘business as usual’ approach (Macy & Johnstone 2012). Actions can range from protest rallies, petitions, direct activist actions and boycotts to legal campaigns, community organising and public discussion forums.
The prospective degrowth policy package outlined in the previous article directly clashes with reigning economic orthodoxy, threatening the interests and profits of a capitalist class which hold disproportionate control over the electoral process and the media. It is consequently difficult to envisage the changes embodied in a degrowth transition taking place voluntarily within contemporary capitalist societies. In other words, it is unrealistic to simply expect the capitalist class to forgo their entrenched interests for the broader common good.
If these power differentials are to be overcome and a transition towards degrowth is to begin, there must be a broad, social base coalescing behind such demands. In other words, we need to actively build people’s power — through community organising, popular mobilisation and social movements — to counteract the vested interests and power of political and corporate elites. The 2019 Summer School revealed that there is a strong activist base within the degrowth movement. But beyond the immediate realms of the degrowth movement itself, who might collectively mobilise for the political realisation of degrowth?
We can draw insights into this question by exploring how the current Green New Deal (GND) framework has rapidly catapulted into mainstream political discourse. The current iteration of the GND was thrust onto the national stage on the back of the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement, both of which are social movement phenomena. Crucially, both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement put social justice at the centre of their GND proposals.
In linking climate change with issues of class, race, gender and economic justice, the GND avoids falling into the trap of pitting the concerns of environmental activists against the concerns of labour unions, lower-income households and other social movements. This strategy has been central to building a broad base of support behind the GND, moving it from a ‘niche’ environmental issue to an organising principle for wider social and ecological policy (Klein 2019). There is a clear synergy here between the GND and degrowth, in that both their visions of sustainable transition are anchored in social justice.
Degrowth is a diverse interdisciplinary frame where different imaginaries, lines of thought, concerns and courses of action come together. As was illustrated in article 5, economic growth is predicated on the exploitation of humans and the natural world. In providing a slogan that can mobilise and connect all those disenfranchised by growth without being their only, or principal horizon, degrowth has potential to act as a unifying banner, weaving solidarities across dispersed social movements and allying progressives within a narrative of social justice beyond growth (Kallis et al. 2012). The supporting base for a transition in the direction of degrowth could therefore come from the common struggle of all those who have been expelled or dispossessed from their means of subsistence, production and reproduction. The potential network of alliances within what Hawken (2008) terms “the largest social movement in history” is vast.
Promising links exist between the degrowth vision outlined in this dissertation and the anti-colonialist and anti-racist movements (Kallis 2018), ecofeminism (D’Alisa & Cattaneo 2013), the under and unemployed, indigenous groups and landless peasants (Harvey 2010), local communities fighting for ecological justice in commodity frontiers (Martinez-Allier 2012; Akbulu et al. 2019), the pluriverse of post-development imaginaries emerging throughout the Global South (Escobar 2015), as well as disproportionately affected individuals and communities who have lost access to affordable housing, transport, public spaces, public healthcare or childcare (Kallis 2018).
By centering climate solutions in the social and economic justice of frontline and vulnerable communities and the working class a movement for degrowth also opens a door for workers and labour unions to form part of its coalition. A job guarantee, UBI, minimum income and expansion of universal social services are proposals that can provide economic security to workers from extractive industries, as well as to communities whose economies remain dependent on the fossil fuel industry, as these sectors are phased out in favour of green jobs and industry. There is also scope for the concepts and ideas of degrowth to aid social movements such as Extinction Rebellion, 350.org and the Student Climate Strikes movement in their articulation of counter-hegemonic narratives to the business as usual approach they are protesting against. In this sense, the various ideas and vision of degrowth could provide social movements with a ‘yes’, something to argue for, in addition to a ‘no’. Through its challenge of the hegemony of the growth narrative, degrowth also holds value in opening up space for social movements to express alternative imaginaries, discourses and visions.
As Klein (2019) observes, we have been trained to separate our issues into individual silos rather than seeing them as systemic and interconnected. But inequality, poverty and other issues of social and economic justice cannot be divorced from issues of ecological sustainability, they are intimately connected. All these movements are different manifestations of a common struggle. While ‘degrowth’ might not be their principal rallying point, their acts of resistance are working towards a common vision. It is the task of degrowth scholars, activists and practitioners to highlight and tease out this common political philosophy if a cohesive movement is to be mobilised that has the strength to demand change in the direction of degrowth. As Monbiot (2017) observes, without such a unifying and stabilising narrative, these social movements are likely to remain isolated and precarious.
Duncan (2007) argues that the mass mobilisation of human energy on a scale equivalent to the original New Deal or war-time social activity is the base requirement for creating conditions of structural change that the State or other powers cannot ignore. Currently, there is clearly no such movement making demands for degrowth. However, I hope to have illustrated the potential for such a base to emerge, provided the seemingly disparate social movements campaigning for social and ecological justice throughout the world are able to continue occupying different roles whilst simultaneously locating themselves within a broader ecosystem of movements advocating for a prosperous future beyond growth. The organising and movement building might only be in its early stages, but the necessary ingredients are there.
However, as vital as they are, holding actions and social mobilisation are not a viable strategy for advancing a degrowth agenda on their own. To catalyse transformative social change different strategies and actions must come together. Holding actions and social mobilisation must therefore be accompanied by the development of alternative structures.
References used for this article:
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Blauwhof, B. F. (2012) ‘Overcoming accumulation: Is a capitalist steady-state economy possible?’. Ecological Economics, 84, pp. 254–261.
D’Alisa, G. & Cattaneo, C. (2013) ‘Household work and energy consumption: a degrowth perspective. Catalonia’s case study’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 38, pp. 71–79.
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Duncan, C. (2007) The Practical Equivalent of War?. Available at: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/GreenGovernance/papers/Rapid%20Climate%20Change.pdf (Accessed May 25 2019).
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Kempf, H. (2008) How the Rich are Destroying the Earth. Hartford, Chelsea Green Publishing.
Klein, N. (2019) The Green New Deal Is Changing the Calculus of the Possible: Interview by Jon Wiener. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/naomi-klein-green-new-deal- climate-change/ (Accessed 19 May 2019).
Macy, J. & Johnstone, C. (2012) Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy. California, New World Library.
Martinez-Alier, J. (2012) ‘Environmental justice and economic degrowth: an alliance between two movements’. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23 (1), pp. 51–73.
Monbiot, G. (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. London, Verso.
