It’s not that radical, we lived with less than this for tens of thousands of years before the industrial revolution.
This sounds nice for someone in a developed country who has all they need, and is only satisfying their wants. But for most of the world, economic development is a necessity and a lifesaver. Child mortality is reduced, life expectancy and education level increased, child labor decreased, as a country’s economy grows. This is not a fringe right-wing idea. This is the very real effect of economic growth in developing countries, i.e. most of the world.
Degrowthers often seem to forget that applying their ideas will literally kill millions in developing countries, by preventing the economic developments that would have saved them.
FWIW, I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism either but think that it is important to consider science in important matters like this and not just go with gut feeling. That applies to both fascism and degrowth.
I think a more fair take is that we need growth in underdeveloped places and degrowth in highly developed places. It’s less about changing the total economic output and more about changing how that output is distributed.
No, it’s about how much carbon we are putting I to the atmosphere. Pretty simple issue actually.
Which is a direct function of development. All of Africa produces less CO2 than Alabama, and Alabama is the least developed state in the developed world.
Degrowth addresses that, contrary to your opinion. Degrowth in the global north provides the space for the global south to properly develop, something that has been systematically denied to them in many places by western powers through unequal exchange and neocolonialism.
How does degrowth in the northern hemisphere give space to the southern hemisphere? Are we going to relocate the Amazon rainforest or something?
Lmao no but that’s a great mental image. Global north and south don’t exclusively refer to northern and southern hemisphere. Though, rewilding is a component of most degrowth strategies I’ve encountered. Obviously it’s much more complicated than just planting trees, entire ecosystems would need to be developed, but I guess sort of in a way it would be like moving the Amazon to the northern hemisphere, only that degrowth would advocate for redeveloping underdeveloped areas in the global south rather than further damaging wild ecosystems to develop more sprawl.
Edit: by space I meant in terms of emissions, development costs to land, etc. currently we’re already exploiting most of these countries resources, and destroying their ecosystems, through the aforementioned unequal exchange and neocolonialism, but under de growth, these regions would instead be able to exploit their own resources for their development, instead of being harangued into exporting raw goods by the global north for our oversized consumption habits.
I still do not fully understand it, but thank you for the response.
It seems like the choice is to die from the environmental issues or die from poor health care? There is no way anyone survives with the current state of things.
Its often includes with a more holistic approach to restructuring society. Degrowth is only a part of the puzzle a lot of radicals are advocating for in order to combat climate change. A lot of proponents of degrowth also call for a solarpunk style of city planning, decentralized/libertarian (real libertarian) politics and plenty more
The article is, in my opinion, purposely mischaracterizing the degrowth movement. I would say degrowth is more a natural reaction to the excesses of capitalism than movement about addressing climate change.
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Isn’t the former very naturally part of the latter though ? And doesn’t the article also raise that point as well? Fundamentally it’s an idea that often gets interpreted through both those lenses because it could help with both conflicts, which is also what by definition is it’s purposely trying to accomplish, the first explicitly and the second is implicit in
… within planetary boundaries.
This connection I think should be embraced because climate change is more attractive as a topic to most people than critiques of capitalism but obviously one leads naturally into the other. Saying that degrowth aims to address climate change is more just a description of partial content rather than a mischaracterization and the body of the article tries reasonably to explain other parts as well, less work and better well being are right there in the title, both not a dishonest description of other parts of the philosophy.
After all no one that accepts degrowth as a concept would answer the question “Should we degrow to combat climate change ?” with a “No” All answers would be “yes and …” or “yes but …”
At the end of the day Vice writing will never be perfect but nowadays for genpop media outlets it tries much harder than most to paint an honest picture of the world, and calling this article a mischaracterization seems to me a little harsh, if you’ve never heard of it the article certainly could honestly teach and spark interest for a this “new” way of thinking, and you need just one word to google to get more rigorous explanation if you wanted it.
How about we do two things
Like how about we work less and we immediately and totally nationalize energy and agriculture haha just a thought haha (fireflies are going extinct haha)
Way ahead of you, energy has already been nationalized here for a long time.
Where?
Multiple Canadian provinces.
That’s cool. Do they ignore climate change in their energy calculations? Because if they are nationalized and choose to burn Shale Oil for energy, then they are kind of missing the point.
The Canadian state is just 3 oligarchs a trenchcoat. It’s no different than if it was privatized.
It’s all renewable here.
nationalize … agriculture
🚨LAND REFORM ALERT🚨
🚨LAND REFORM ALERT🚨
🚨LAND REFORM ALERT🚨
Do not worry, the CIA is contracting death squads to secure democracy in your country as we speak.
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cronyism
This is like saying feudalism would be fine if you could get rid of the nepotism.
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This will go the same way the “Green New Deal” did. It will scare the ruling class, the ruling class will send its media minions to demonize it, and nothing will change.
no actually, you forgot the final step of “loudly and blindly double down”
You mean like destroying new light bulbs and rolling coal to trigger the wokes?
also funding the police
But, muh IPhone 32 ?
But the phone is 5% lighter this time!
… and will be replaced in a year
If the phone were 5% lighter that would be an actual improvement. Instead phones get heavier and thinner and bigger. So overall the experience diminishes as they try to be tablets.
Even if it was 5% lighter throwing the damn thing away every year is so much e-waste.
No disagreement there. But a problem with modern consumer electronics is that they AREN’T ACTUALLY BETTER then last year’s model. Sure you can talk about pixel density etc, but that was actually a solved problem almost 10 years ago. Apple called it a “retna” display. They idea is that at a certain pixel density and screen size, there is no benefit to adding more . But capitalism always requires more, so since you can’t add pixels, you have to add screen space. But the iphone was already designed to be used one handed. People’s hands haven’t grown in the past 10 years, so why are they making the phones bigger which makes it a worse user experience?
Anyway, I dont’ want to derail into phone chat. but I’ll say that if they did actually start making lighter phones with the same battery life, I wouldn’t consider that an actual improvement to that space, but that isn’t what is happening :/
Protip: if you want your movement to gain any political traction, don’t call it the degrowth movement
What would you call it? Its kinda like the “defund police” thing. If they called it “reallocate police resources” opposition to the movement would just use the stronger “defund police” language as a cudgel to smear it. It’s best to own it and educate
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Pro tip: any one telling you the problem with your movement is the optics, doesn’t actually care about the objectives of thst movement
I care very much for this objective, I just think you’ll never convince the dumber people with a name they’d immediately perceive as very negative
I’d figure you’d convince people by… I dunno… talking to them about it instead of worrying about what they might think about a particular word.
This has extremely strong “defund the police is not a good slogan” energy.
Also i don’t view people who share my position yet are not yet aware or educated yet on why they should stand in solidarity with the rest of their class as “the dumber people.”
That kind of language and outlook isn’t something i view favorably. Its ar best borderline ableist, and conveys a sense that you veiw yourself as superior to those you should be in solidarity with.
If you do care about these issues then i suggest a little self crit on this
I’m sorry I’m hurting feelings all over the fediverse. I just care so much that I’m not afraid to say out loud that it’s a dumb slogan and those that picked it are dumb because of it
It’s not my feelings you’re hurting. You’re hurting yourself if you’re viewing other people as inferior.
My point about the slogan thing is more about the disingenuous statements from liberal pundits and specifically Obama’s comments on “defund the police”, as opposed to a criticism of you, so sorry if my critique came off as too harsh toward you on that.
If you think its a bad slogan that’s fair, but that line has been used by disingenuous people to try and derail things and thats what got me aggro.
Defund Wall St.
why? it’s exactly what it is.
Because the average person is too dumb
Do tells us what smooth PR term to use.
Economic resilience
I always used ‘durable economy’
For political reasons.
In order to slow the economy down and not wreak havoc, he said, we have to reconfigure our ideas about the entire economic system.
This is how degrowthers envision the process: After a reduction in material and energy consumption, which will constrict the economy, there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth, and a transition from a materialistic society to one in which the values are based on simpler lifestyles and unpaid work and activities.
Sounds good to me. It is a fair point that the basic operation of our society depends on continual growth, but redistribution seems like it would be an effective way of mitigating those problems degrowth might cause. We have more than enough resources to keep everyone alive, we just have to use them.
I’d rather just do the full communism now path, where once every man, woman and child has all their needs and many of their wants met, there isn’t a desire to chase the next fashion craze, or buy the next iphone or “keep up with the jones’” as it were because the Jones’ have the same stuff you do, but maybe they spend their ample leisure time exercising, you spend your time gardening.
The only way that will work is if you have a violent dictatorship. Welcome Stalin back basically.
I see more future in putting laws in place that severely limits what companies can do. Companies cannot grow beyond 1000 people. Tax any wealth thing heavily. Tax negatively for the poor, tax a little for those with a little and more for those that are better off. Taxes go up and up once you are richer and Once your income and or networth reaches a certain level, tax 100%.
Institute 3-4 work day weeks
Institute universal income
Out extreme limits on advertising and marketing. Those two are the real evils of mankind.
Require news outlets be paid for by the government and be required to be neutral and factual
With changes like that we can remain a (serverely limited) capitalist system that pays for the very nice social system below that doesn’t focus in money anymore
Laws will be written with loopholes. Just nationalize industry run them for the public rather the for profit and fire the CEOs/Lobbyists and PMC’s that keep Capitalism operating.
Also I’ll take a Stalin for the initial break from Capitalism. After 10ish years, we can go to a more democratic government.
there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth
there should also be unicorns farting rainbows.
expropriate their purse or their person. It’s their choice.
Yeah, good luck with that. Won’t happen. Do you really believe that the 1% will give up it’s riches? Do you really believe that the politicians, you know, the guys with money, will decide on redistribution?
Good luck.
the politicians, you know, the guys with money
There is overlap, but ultimately it’s not a monolith. Anyone can be a politician and politicians succeed or fail on people voting for them. What are the rich gonna do with ownership of all the land and all the companies and all the resources anyway? Effectively enslave everybody? Wait for us to starve so they can keep playing number-go-up in secure enclaves while the world burns around them?
You mention universal income in another comment. If you do it right, that’s redistribution. You give people the means to keep living, every other problem gets less intense. I think there’s a good chance that when things get bad enough, even hardcore capitalists will go for it because it’s a way for capitalism to continue existing in a form that isn’t a dead useless husk. IMO a much better option than pulling for a civil war hoping the result will be a socialist utopia and not just evil warlords doing evil warlord stuff.
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Hell yes it’s a great way to live.
If we implement government policies that incentivize simple living, and tax wasteful living exponentially, it’s going to benefit individuals.
Wealthy people will be better off from having most of their wealth taxed because they’ll have a more enjoyable simple lifestyle.
For real. It’s the same with food.
Not that I eat healthy… Because I’m practically underweight so I’ll generally eat anything. But after eating organic for awhile in the past I definitely favor fresh healthy over junk food. Regular Americanized food just tastes fake to me.
Same with my room/home… It’s so much easier when you only have less to take care of.
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Degrowth is such a fucking stupid idea. What we need is socialism. The demonic oligarchs that run the world are never going to prioritize reducing climate change. They’ve made that clear over the last century. There’s too much profit to be made.
Worker owned means of production is the only solution. Only then can we direct the productive forces toward solving the most immediate problems that humanity faces. We’ve created so much productivity, but we need to guide it in the direction of sustainability instead of the profit motive.
You’re conflating two very different things. You can have an equitable system of worker owned coops that still has a growth mindset and destroys the ecosystem. You don’t magically become sustainable when socialism becomes a thing. Growth itself when we’re bound by the resources of a single planet a problem, period.
China seems to be achieving this just fine and without the worker coop part even.
Degrowth could definitely only be accomplished under a socialist model where we aren’t price gouged for food and housing. A life with less work and less disposable crap sounds really fucking good though.
Agreed, but that’s not what’s being advocated for here.
Degrowth in absense of socialism is nonsense but it is necessary. Lazy socialism is the way.
I agree. Once we have socialism, we can have degrowth. But none of these articles that come out about it are advocating for that. They’re advocating that the working class take the hit for climate change via increased unemployment, poverty, and ultimately death.
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“Turn on, tune in, drop out” 2.0
Yes, we’ll save ourselves by resetting the clock and never undoing the conditions that led to where we are
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I’m doing my part.
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I’m all about it. I’ve got my Corvette and just had the clutch replaced so I’m all about *downsizing for others now!
I’ll downsize as well once I get my Bugatti and a private race track. Or two.
