PART 5 —
Excerpts from an article titled “A (Friendly) Critique of the Degrowth Movement”…
_________________________
Given the situation we are in, the amount of degrowth needed is enormous, and this means the goal has to involve huge and radical reductions and simplifications in lifestyles and systems. This, in turn, means transitioning to radically different economic, political, settlement, and cultural arrangements.
So what does that mean for strategy?
Most degrowth pronouncements explicitly or implicitly assume that strategy must focus on getting the state to implement desired policies. It is about pleading with government to implement degrowth, or demanding that it do so, either soon or in the future. This assumes that the state is capable of implementing degrowth policies (which, I argue, it is not).
This focus on the state as savior is most evident within the Marxist/socialist strand of the degrowth movement. Marx’s analysis of capitalism and its contradictions, dynamics, and fate are of great importance, but his ideas on the revolutionary goal and the transition process are seriously mistaken, due primarily to the advent of the limits to growth. A satisfactory post-capitalist society must contradict the dominant socialist vision deriving from Marx. It cannot be capitalist, but nor can it be highly industrialized, or state-centred, or affluent, or have a high or growing GDP.
Degrowth is essentially a cultural problem, not primarily an economic or redistributive or power problem. It has to involve largely dismantling the existing industrial, trade, agricultural, financial, etc. systems and replacing them with smaller and radically different systems driven by citizens committed to new ideas and values.
This cannot be done by force; it can only be achieved by people who understand and willingly accept simpler lifestyles and systems. The state cannot give or enforce the worldview, values, or dispositions — without which such structural changes cannot be made. No amount of subsidies or information or secret police can make villagers cooperate enthusiastically and happily to plan and develop and run their thriving local economies.
_________________________
Part 6 will follow soon.
Full article is here -- https://medium.com/postgrowth/a-friendly-critique-of-the-degrowth-movement-f0bd2297072d
#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Degrowth
Bread and Circuses /
npub1a6…lmqgc
2024-05-09 15:00:08
in reply to nevent1q…khzm
Author Public Key
npub1a6chd0jfrl8wc47pmft2q5l2kds8tj4k7j08e73csev69cceau6q8lmqgcPublished at
2024-05-09 15:00:08Event JSON
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