Let’s put some life into this sub. I don’t think degrowth is possible under capitalism because the imperative to degrow contradicts the capitalist drive for the creation of value (valorization) which must always grow under capitalism’
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I agree, but for more basic reasons than the creation of value.
On an economic level, sure, capitalism valorizes wealth creation. More importantly, though, capitalism doesn’t prevent wealth creation. Degrowth means choosing not to use up some of the Earth’s resources to create wealth. It means using fewer resources than we otherwise would. And under capitalism, if “we” don’t use the resources, someone else will, because they can make money off it and nobody’s stopping them. Degrowth isn’t possible under capitalism, because under capitalism there’s no way to stop people from using every available resource to maximize profit and therefore increase growth.
On a personal level, which is even more important, fear is the core of capitalism. People under capitalism learn everyone is selfish. Everyone tries to maximize their own profit at the expense of everyone else. Capitalism says you have to secure and protect the resources you need to live because no one will help you and other people will take whatever they can from you. So accumulating resources under capitalism is not merely greed - it’s the only way to protect yourself after you lose the ability to accumulate resources from sickness and unemployment and old age.
So anyone whose worldview is based on capitalism will hear degrowth = I will have fewer resources = my family and I will be less safe. And that’s the kind of barrier only re-education over generations can fix.
prefigurative politics – degrowth can happen within capitalism, but I see it as “in spite of” rather than “because of”
Love it. Now I have a word for it!
I like prefigurative politics, but how prefigurative politics exists today is at the margins of economics and politics. Degrowth is a whole-society paradigm, not something that can be built as dual power or as alternative projects within capitalism. Of course, I will continue to support and practice prefigurative politics, but prefiguration alone cannot affect the billionaires and fossil capital.
Nope. Capitalism is the antithesis of de-growth, it follows the goal of infinite growth.
I don’t thinks it’s impossible. There is some evidence suggesting that happiness and prosperity stops at a certain level of growth, and a continuation of growth yields diminishing returns.
GDP based economy is both a really strange way of measuring value and even it’s inventor spoke out against using it as a measurement.
There are some nations that are trying alternative models of measurement, such as the BLI model.
First of all it depends on how you define degrowth. Japan for example has a lower real gdp today, then in 1995. So a shrinking economy is certainly possible in a real world fairly capitalist system. Obviously nobody has a purely capitalist system. There are always government companies, coops, foundations and so forth which are not inherently capitalist. Other then that Japan does fine.
However nobody is going to choose to shrink the economy for the sole reason of shrinking the economy. After all the economy does provide a living for the population and less money, means some people have to suffer. This is were the problem with the word “value” comes up. If you just use value = money, then that has to stop. Obviously capitalism is not going to do it by itself, but we have enviromental legislation and other laws and systems reducing work time using public pensions and workers rights. There are ways outside of states as well, but they are less common today.
If capitalism really rules everything, it is basicly impossible to do, other then as a disaster, if you count that as degrowth. However we can set limits to capitalism and have done so in the past using governments, unions and so forth. However it would be simpler without capitalism.
Obviously nobody has a purely capitalist system. There are always government companies, coops, foundations and so forth which are not inherently capitalist.
I’d have to disagree on this point. All these things are capitalist because they employ wage-labor. Socialism isn’t non-profits, governments, or coops, but a fundamentally different way of life outside the bounds of valorization, money, etc.
Government is not capitalist if it’s under the workers authority. This is the big question : who controls the government? Public services for example employ wage-workers, but they do so for the benefit of everyone rather than the one capitalist who possess the thing.
Capitalism is about who controls the means of production. It is actually irrelevant to the form of government you have. And it is irrelevant to the use of money to organize the work or the society.
That reminds me that the Chinese communist journal Chuang 1 suggests that wage-labor under Mao-era China wasn’t capitalist because it wasn’t in service of capital accumulation or valorization. An interesting thesis, something I think about but have trouble fully agreeing. But the thing is that they agree that it isn’t socialist either because it still had the existence of wages and a proletarian class.
That begs the question, what is worker’s authority and is it socialist? I would say that it isn’t socialist yet but has the potential to move towards socialism if it actually moves to progressively abolish class distinctions like wages.
I feel like you’re leaning toward anarchism rather than socialism here. Hierarchy and authority are not necessarily bad things.
I see where you come from with wages I think though. There is a difference between the pay you get for a work, and a pay you would get to work. One would be a transaction while the other would be a societal agreement or something like that. I don’t remember the details of this theory and I don’t have the words to talk about it in English unfortunately.
Same goes for socialist, I feel the meaning you’re using it for here is very specific.
I haven’t even begun to get into the question of hierarchy and authority. But this is the meaning of socialism that was accepted by the first, second, and third international before the second and third international descended into chauvinism and Stalinism respectively. It’s only relatively recently with the degeneration of social democracy into neoliberalism and Marxism to Stalinism that the meaning has become perverted and vulgarized.
The key difference between socialism and capitalism is who owns the means of production. For capitalism it is private ownership, whereas for socialism it is social ownership of some sort. Wages can be paid in socialism too and are not necessarily a part of capitalism(slavery).
“Capitalism” and “socialism” refer to entire modes of production, not the specific details of who owns what under a capitalist mode of production. A mode of production is the sum aggregate of all social relations in a given society, not merely individual or collective ownerships in a given society. Social ownership isn’t socialism, but socialism does mean the generalization of social ownership. It is vulgarism to say a mode of production is “mixed” between capitalist and socialist ownerships. Capitalist economies have always been mixed economies since the very genesis of capitalism. “Socialism” is not determined by government or worker ownership. Neither is socialism is when the government does stuff. A state corporation still operates under the logic of the capitalist mode of production, as do worker co-ops. Worker co-ops can be “socialist” in the sense that their tendency is socialist, not that their mode of production is socialist. Socialism cannot be built in one workplace, much less one country—it is a whole transformation of society moving away from profit, wages, valorization, and accumulation altogether. This means socialism has never existed, not in the Soviet Union, not in the People’s Republic of China. What these countries were or are is “socialist” in the sense that their tendency is “socialist” (even if a vulgarized form of socialism), not that their productive capacities were socialist in content. These countries were “socialist” in the sense they proclaimed themselves socialist and the American empire proclaimed them socialist, but these are ideological and propagandistic categories, not material realities.
Capitalism is not merely private ownership because there have been societies where collective and state ownerships fulfilled the same social roles as individual capitalist owners. That is to say, under these societies, social relations of production remained on the level of wages, profit, valorization, and accumulation, even if the ownership was on the basis of state or cooperative ownership. This was the case in the Soviet Union and in the People’s Republic of China before the neoliberalization of these countries.
tl;dr, capitalism and socialism are not determined by ownership, but by the aggregate social relations in a given society and the social functions between those social relations.
In other words "socialism " can not exist in the real world as not everybody can be treated fairly and everything else is “capitalism”. That is a very conveniant definition of “socialism” to just be able to deflect of every failure of a system by claiming it was not socialist in the first place. At the same time it is obviously daming “socalism” to academia as no real world experince can be gained, as with even a bit of “capitalism” these real world experiments would not be “socailist”.
Anyway talking about the only economic system in the real world “capitalism”. It can absolutly do degrowth according to your definition. The problem with degrwoth is the definition of value and the deeply “capitalist” coops and somewhat democratic governments, as well as foundations have shown to be able to define that differently. Anyway I know why avoid “socialism”
Just because socialism has failed doesn’t mean it is impossible or not worth doing. Much of degrowth will necessarily be socialist in content and tendency. Don’t misunderstand me, I am for degrowth and for socialism and I believe these things are worth doing and are possible. We will fight for degrowth, but degrowth cannot and will not be won under the current mode of production. A revolutionary rupture will be needed and this is what degrowth will have to work towards.
I believe it is extremly important why socialism has failed until now. The key part of this is imho the structure of the Communist parties, which tried to push these systems throu. By being to down hierachical systems striving for power, they were and are easy to corrupt by power hungry individuals, which turns them into full blown dictatroships after they have won the revolution.
That is also true for a lot of democratic revolutions of dictators. They overthrow them, but lack the social system in the back to support a proper democracy. So you end up with a coup after the first problems of the new government.
To me the logical solution is to set up alternative systems of the kind I want to see, within the current system. This gives two big advantgaes. First of all it is able to test the ideas. If it fails to work with people, who actually activly want to be part of it, it is extremly likely to not work with millions of people after a revolution. Secondly it creates an organization, which can be used as a blue print after the revolution by either being scaled up or copied. There are a lot of systems or parts of systems, which are actually working pretty well today. We do have a lot of really well working prefiguration, which can be used to show people how things work.
Basicly I do not care about a system being pure socialism or capitalism or whatever. I have no problem with mixing parts of different politcal philosophies together to create a better working system. In fact I believe it is neceassary as the world has different regions and cultures requiring and pushing for different solutions for local problems. Obviously learning from each other is a good idea. So I do not have a problem with just replacing parts of the current system more slowly or taking smaller victories. We have a lot of solutions to lower growth to push for other values then money. Things like workers protection, unions, enviromental laws, carbon taxes and so forth all will slow down growth. If enough of them are brought together they will even shrink the economy. That might end up with a system very much like socialism and parts of it are going to need revolutions or at least violence against the current system to be brought throu.
In other words I do not believe the world is black and white, but grey. What I want is a better world and I will take it, even if it is not perfect.
Socialism isn’t about creating a purist socialist system, but by creating an entirely new way of doing life outside the bounds of classes, the state, money, etc. It seems that you’re arguing for prefiguritve politics, in building the new world in the shell of the old. This is admirable and prefigurative politics will always have its place in the socialist tradition with prominent projects like the Zapatistas and Rojava as prefiguring socialism. But we cannot mystify or veil projects as “socialism.” Yes they are socialist in tendency and are building toward socialism, but while capitalism exists, its logic encapsulates everything. A new mode of production can emerge from prefigurative seeds. Capitalism itself emerged from and was prefigured by early commodity systems in the ancient and medieval world. It’s quite possible that socialism itself can emerge and be prefigured by seeds today like with mutual aid, but we cannot confuse these seeds as the socialist mode of production itself.
Wars and crisis are degrowth that happens constantly and they are definitely not socialists. Unless sharing the loss and pain is the socialist part I guess?
Degrowth isn’t the same as a shrinking of economy due to war and crisis. It is the intentional slowdown of the economy towards very specific ends: less work, less consumption, more welfare, etc.
“Degrowth theory argues to abandon economic growth in GDP as a policy objective and instead focus on economic and social metrics such as life expectancy, health, education, housing, and access to work as indicators of human well-being, as well as take environmental degradation into account when measuring economic development.” [emphasis added]
The wikipedia entry has a big fat This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. due to the term degrowth being badly defined especially in English. So you get ideas like deliberatly shrinking the economy until in planetary boundaries to be part of degrowth. For example here it is used insuch a context:
My big thing about degrowth is that it is terrible branding, not as bad as “defund the police”, but it’s pretty bad. I’m all for degrowth, but the more subtle and harder-to-fit-in-a-soundbite point is that economic degrowth can result in a general improvement of the actual lived experience of a huge number of human beings.
We all know that the ‘good news everyone!’ of economic news doesn’t reach into the lives of most ordinary people. However, ‘degrowth’ is an academic term that is accurate - according to the dominant paradigm of economic growth - but lands on deaf ears outside of wonky circles. I am a wonk, but I know from painful experience that wonks don’t rule the world.
I personally prefer ‘regrowth’ because regrowth will occur if we just stop doing the stuff that interferes with natural regeneration. Something akin to not stepping on the little daisy struggling to grow in a crack in the concrete. Symbolism matters!
Any thoughts on this or other reframing of the idea that might reach further into the public consciousness?
To respond to the post directly, yes it is possible, but we have to fight the capitalists to make degrowth happen under capitalism. It is a fight of words and ideas, most of the time.
To respond to the post directly, yes it is possible, but we have to fight the capitalists to make degrowth happen under capitalism. It is a fight of words and ideas, most of the time.
I highly doubt that a capitalist can be convinced to degrow. The very existence of a capitalist and the desire for infinite growth is incompatible with a degrowth paradigm. Nothing less than a revolution can initiate degrowth. Either we will hit the end of growth like a wall of bricks, or a revolution in society implements degrowth.
Its possible, theoretically. We’ve seen deflation before historically, but it makes businesses lose their minds.
How dare the value of a dollar go up!
Recession is not degrowth. Austerity is not degrowth.
What is degrowth then?
Degrowth is the intentional slowdown of the economy towards very specific ends: less work, less consumption, more welfare, etc. It is not the same as the end of growth, nor austerity nor recession.
I’m pretty sure the destruction of value is inconsequential in a capitalist model until you destroy means of production. In fact, I’m pretty sure destroying things would be beneficial to capitalism, because then it would be able to produce useful things again rather than trying to invent new useless shit all the time.
Is it compatible with degrowth though? Well, I’m pretty sure we are already living it. The growth is mostly virtual imo, but the actual riches is decreasing for most people in the west. The growth benefit is going more and more to the privileged, and the poor get their public services slowly decaying because the growth doesn’t go into it.
Which is why I hate this concept of degrowth. Growth as a concept only serve one purpose : it’s an illusion so people can believe capitalism will benefit everyone. But the core problem of capitalism is the asymmetry of power between the capitalists and the workers. And degrowth does nothing against this asymmetry, so a de growing world would only make the life of workers even worse.
Degrowth is perfectly possible IMO withing capitalism. Wars and crisis are mostly about that.
Finally, the biggest problem for ecology is not actually capitalism, it’s consumerism. Consumerism is a consequence of capitalism, but not a necessity of it. What you usually want to solve with degrowth is consumerism.
Wow. First, degrowth isn’t austerity or recession, it’s about focusing on improving human welfare instead of profits. This innately challenges the asymmetry of the workers and owners. Degrowth is also about decreasing work, something inherently challenging to the capitalist mode of production.
Finally, of course capitalism is the problem. Consumerism is a symptom of capitalism, not the root cause of the ecological crisis.
Then it is the worst possible word chosen for this philosophy. You don’t need degrowth to decrease work. And the lack of growth always meant and still means for most people that life is getting shitty, so you will never convince anyone that degrowth is good thing.
“De” in Latin and similar languages means away rather then against, that would be anti. Like in delivery, deliberate, deescaltion and so forth.
I know a few people who choose to work less hours and get paid less, as they value their free time more or took jobs with lower pay, which are more fun to them. It happens all the time in the real world, but intresstingly our political and economic system has a lot of problems with that. Obviously that is a very different situation then having a lot of free time due to being fired. That is basicly the difference between degrowth and a recession. One is exchanging GDP for something of value, the other is a problem in the system.
Well, maybe it’s an English thing. In French décroissance is the opposite of croissance. But I’m not sure it’s well perceived either in English countries.
That’s the problem I’m talking about: only privileged people can see degrowth as a good thing, because they’re already swimming in more than they can live with. Most people, even in rich countries, are poor. They don’t want to hear about decreasing their way of life because they’re already on the floor and on the verge of poverty, if they’re not outright into it.
The very concept of degrowth needs to die and be replaced by a new one. Because it’s a concept that’s only useful for the bourgeoisie right now. It’s a concept for privileged people who want to feel better about it and do something. It is very much part of the liberal mindset of the privigeled people of these countries. The very idea that the change comes from the people behaviours rather than the system itself.
Hey.
Most degrowth advocates I’ve seen or read in France are not talking about lifestyle changes for individuals - or at least, not without radical changes in the organization of society.
I agree that blaming poor people for driving shitty cars and living in poorly insulated buildings is stupid and counter-productive. But that’s how ecology is concieved by the ruling political class, not degrowth advocates.
The richest 10% are responsible for about half of global emissions. That also works for energy, income and most other things in that area. Globally we have a bit over 18% low carbon primary energy. Since emissions and energy are closely related, that pretty much means that you can lower global emissions by 2/3 or so by bringing down the global top 10% emitters to a bit over global average. To be in the top 10% of incomes your income needs to be above $35,000 per year. That is above the median income of Norway, Luxembourg or the US. So even in the richest countries most of the population does not have to cut back.
How would you envision capitalism without consumerism ? I fail to see how capitalism would work without mass consumption.
If I may enter the discussion. I think it’s very very hard but may be possible. Let’s say people only buy new things when it’s something they need and the things itself should work for a long time, like generations. It reduces consumerism, things would only be replaced if something greatly superior appeared. Some things would still be bought so there is still some capitalism but wouldnt be focused on mindless spending in junk. Things would be more expensive but overall we’d have better things.
You are describing market economy, not capitalism.
Fair enough. Degrowth from capitalism to market economy is more of an obtainable goal
Maybe if everyone had access to roughly the same wealth, market economy could be a good method of balancing economy ?
Yes but it’s tough to imagine a path to that.
True. But there has been experiments, especially around melting currencies (is that the correct English name ?).
A recent example (in French, but I guess automatic translators are good enough now ?) : https://monnaie-libre.fr/
Capitalism is the question of whom possess the means of production. Consumerism is a lot more than that, it is an ideal for people to find happiness in the accumulation of goods.
Capitalism is a organisation of society. Consumerism is the purpose of this society. You have a different purpose. The fascist purpose is different for example, although not incompatible with consumerism.
Consumerism is particular with capitalism though because it happens naturally. Capitalism doesn’t hold any purpose by itself, but the people who established it were driven by greed. The accumulation of wealth was their ideology. And capitalism is a very good way for that. Which is why it is easy to see them intertwined. But they are both independent IMO.
Not sure I agree with everything, let me rephrase this.
The way I see it, capitalism is a way of organizing an economic system that is based on accumulation of wealth (capital). Instead of sitting idle, capital is injected back into the economy through investment, with the promise of a juicy return on investment (and also, it gives power to those who own capital for they decide who gets investment).
For this juicy ROI to be possible, economic growth is a necessity - you can’t give back more to your lenders if what you did with the investment didn’t generate more value than the investment itself. So economic growth is at the very heart of capitalism.
When the market comes to a saturation point, growth starts to slow down. So you have two options:
- open new markets, expanding the economic sphere (either geographically or in new segments of life)
- make disposable products, through engineering (planned obsolescence) or advertisement (you need the new iPhone, believe me)
In the end, I don’t see consumerism as an ideal for a society, but rather the logical consequence of an economic system reified as an ideal. It doesn’t mean something similar couldn’t exist in another economic model, but I don’t think it can be separated from capitalism.
Ok, here a clearer explanation : a saturated market is a good example of capitalism without actual growth. Let’s say you have 3 capitalists on a saturated market. The market will not grow, because it’s saturated, so they will, in turn, increase their share of the market at the expanse of the other. That’s what happens for example with graphic cards.
Capitalism doesn’t need growth, as long as someone can lose wealth, someone else can benefit from the loss. Growth merely helps to have less losers if the growth is shared (which doesn’t happens naturally). That’s why I was describing growth as an illusion for people to believe in capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t need growth, growth only allow less losers. But growth doesn’t fix anything about capitalism, and you need consumerism to fuel it, which in turns destroy the planet.
I see what you mean, but I think it’s true up to a certain point. Without growth, wealth concentration converges to a point where one actor owns everything. This is the perfect recipe for political instability and systemic failure.
It is to some extent. Unrest or even revolutions don’t necessarily end capitalism. It rarely does actually.
IMO capitalism is inherently unstable. Capitalism cannot gracefully adapt to unexpected shocks (it will cause economic troubles, many people will have their lives ruined and many will profit from thee chaos), and it causes it’s own crisis on a regular basis. I once saw a paper that was arguing that crisis were normal capitalist regime, because since the 19th century there were more periods of crisis than periods of stable growth.
