I’d like to share a book here which I’ve recently read that helped me development a new world view for myself. The book, written by the economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, is called:
“Less is More - How Degrowth Will Save The World”
Although the subtitle only mentions Degrowth, it’s much more than that. In the first half of the book, Hickel mostly talks about the history of Capitalism, its character and why it fails in regards to true sustainability and equality. The book may focus on climate change and how we should combat it with Degrowth but the author also takes on other issues, such as the global North-South divide.
In the second half, he presents his solution which is called “Degrowth”. Degrowth is fundamentally about getting rid of excessive economic growth and the profit-driven mindset of Capitalism for a more sustainable and just world.
The book is very well written, down-to-earth and easy to understand with fleshed out, rational arguments and explanations.
So, if any of you have some time to read and are interested in the topic then I highly recommend giving this book a try!
Thanks for the review. Have it on my shelf but haven’t read it yet, will probably do so this winter.
An economist here. I skimmed through a few sources for this movement and on the surface it looks like economic breatherianism.
I’m not gonna roast it here too much but if you like degrowth, the most productive way for you to get what you want is to learn about and advocate for… communism. It has a lot of overlapping ideas with degrowth and is much more flashed out socially, politically and economically.
P.s. I’m not a tankie and have a lot of unanswered questions about (neo)communism but if pressed to choose between degrowth and the red flag, I’d go with the latter one.
on the surface it looks like economic breatherianism
I guess you’re trying to say that dialling back economic growth is harmful? Degrowth doesn’t necessarily mean to remove all growth and progress but rather to only seek economic growth out of necessity and then continue with a sort of steady-state economy once the needed progress is achieved.
And IMO, Degrowth already is pretty much ecosocialist and can go hand in hand with communism. The only major difference is that it condemns infinite economic growth which doesn’t benefit society past a certain point. This is because such growth actively harms the planet by exploiting it to the fullest in the name of growth and profit.
tbh, I don’t really want to go into nitty gritty of this discussion because it’s only a matter of moments before It will be necessary to write thousands of words and cite the most fundamental ancient literature to illustrate basic economic facts.
Please don’t take it as derogatory, it’s simply difficult to have a serious discussion about social (and economic by the extend) concepts over the internet with people of very diverse background.
I can succinctly answer your questions but if you believe that mainstream economics is somehow “wrong”, I cannot make you spend years crunching numbers to see another perspective.
Also, on the personal and ideological level I like what degrowth movement is doing and I wish it all the best — i.e. I really don’t want to be overly negative but the economics of this movement simply hasn’t been flashed out as a serious alternative.
To give some context here: Communism has been in an oven for hundreds of years and it still not up to par to rotten neoliberal economic model of present day.
I wish I’d have an entertaining read for you to check out which would land well on degrowth theory but at the moment I don’t really know where to start. I guess the most fair response would be to link what other economists say about degrowth.
welp, here’s what my 2 min googling session resulted in: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025941#_i12
Highlights:
- There is no empirical evidence of absolute decoupling of throughput from economic growth; sufficient decoupling to stay within environmental limits is logically possible, but physically unlikely.
- Planned degrowth is politically unlikely, given established interests and power relations.
- An authoritarian and more unequal variant of capitalism is likely to emerge after a period of stagnation, unless social forces organize politically to produce more democratic alternatives.
- Capitalism as we know it is incompatible with degrowth.
(!) But there’s hope
- Human history offers myriad examples of noncapitalist societies, and of community economies not based on capitalist relations, that have lived well without growth.
So, in my opinion rather than building new economic model from scratch, better to strap elements of degrowth on communist ideas (as its additional selling points).
tbh, I don’t really want to go into nitty gritty of this discussion because it’s only a matter of moments before It will be necessary to write thousands of words
Yeah, I understand that and I agree. However, there is one thing I would like to elaborate on regarding the selected highlights.
For one thing, Degrowth is fundamentally anticapitalist and ultimately believes in more democratization (which it has in common with Socialism and Communism). And Communism is also arguably just as politically unlikely regarding established interests and power relations.
Also from the same article:
Economies can be stabilized without growth if basic monetary, fiscal, labor, and welfare institutions are transformed
However in the end, I do agree with you that combining Degrowth with Socialism and Communism is best since they can complement each other in lacking areas while also bringing multiple communities together. (e.g. Degrowth focussing on the environmental aspects and Marxism on the social and economic aspects)