The following series summarizes my journey to a formal understanding of degrowth, as I am taking part time the following masters . Here I will write the key ideas that summarize my notes taken during the classes, and also the points that require, to my view, further discussion.
I am really excited to be part of that community with the teachers that have writen the books I read for the last six years. These notes are for people interested in degrowth but have no time or do not want to go as deep as I do. For the person willing to see the source reads and detailed notes, please go here.
In the first week we cover two topics:
- The origins of capitalism and the links to coloniasm and imperialism
- Definition of degrowth: what it is and what are their sources
I will cover first each one separately and will finalize the blog linking them together
Appropriation in the colonial world economy
In the first section we take a historic perspective of the origins and required changes to explain the expansion and dominance of capitalism. Despite the difficulties to think now of an alternative viable system (that where the next section is about), capitalism is a recent phenomenon, that worsened exponentially the moderate impacts that humans used to have on Earth, to the unprecedented damage and risks we see now from human induced global warming.
History should be understood not as a series of updates of failing systems of organization, like the feudalistic and capitalistic system, but the permanent social class struggle and views of the world and life that emerge in parallel to the implementation of such systems.
Contrary to what it is told, capitalism is not how we get rid of feudalism, but more as an evolution of an elitist systems that moves from abusive rents for superfluous consumption to surplus accumulation for production expansion.
The collapse of feudalism and devastating black plague, was an opportunity for a global system of small scale cooperative peasant economy. This harmonic system with the commons was directly attacked by the elites that used tremendous violence and force peasants to be part of the proletariat and join the industrial revolution. As a result of that, the overall production expanded, but the conservation of the commons and the conditions of the peasants deteriorate massively.
Together with that, the expasion of the capitalist system cannot be fully understood without an analysis of coloniasm, the expropiation for free of the necessary inputs : wood, sugar, silver, cotton ...were essential for the success of large scale industrialization and specialization from an agrarian to an industrial economy.
Labor was slaved in the colonies, and economically forced in the imperial countries via artificial scarcity. The autonomy and capacity to provide their own goods was violently erased, so the old peasants became consumers of the industrial age. The threat of hunger if one rejects to work in factories was the key to force long hours of work, for both adults and children.
That system proved to be very productive, not only in consuming inputs and increasing the metabolism of our economic system, but also creating goods and services. It achieved that by seeking cheaper and cheaper ways to create such goods and services.
One way to make something cheap is to make its inputs cheaper, the first one "natural resources" which has been raped from the commons at no real cost, and latter labor, through artificial scarcity.
The highest expression of cheap labor is the usages of slaves, supported by racism claims and the patriarcat, where female work was less or not paid at all, particularly care work.
To support the misstreatment of the commons and its cheapness, nature was treated as a separate from us, something chaotic, that needs to be dominated.
Colonianism imports cheap labor, raw materials, food to power the fast industrialization of europe. It is therefore a requirement of capitalism to stablish unequal economic relationships with other countries, such as the colonies, to ensure huge surplues are accumulated by the elite of empire nations.
The progressive elimination of the colonial powers was transformed into plans for development and the hegemony of a single view of prosperoty, where the countries of the South are forced to grow. The expansion of undemocratic public debt, the never ending competition for an even greater market share, keep the mandate for growth alive. A group of activist in multiple locations start questioning the dominant economic model and the hegemony of growth.
Degrowth became a slogan, a political missile that tries to break with the violently impossed dominance of capitalism. By breaking the cycle of accumulation, growth and commoditization of the commons and humans, degrowth provides an open space for democratically defined prosperity, organize society and change reductionist visions of science and the meaning of life. In the next section we will explore its origins, definitions, resources and gaps.
What is Degrowth? From an Activist Slogan to a Social Movement
Degrowth raises as a slogan to break with the false consensus that the pursue of growth is the only path towards sustainable development.
Instead of trying to formalize all dimensions of life and prosperity in economics terms, degrowth deconomizes life by being a system of ideas and values. It claims that the capitalistic system and the pursue of growth are at the root cause of the climate and social crisis we face, and we should implement alternatives democratically.
Contrary to the idea of green growth, or the reconciliation of growth with planetary boundaries, degrowth question the utility and benefit of growth, and is in line with the scientific consensus that absolute decoupling between growth and environmental impacts are not back up by data, and even if that would be the case, challenges the necessity of further grow in the North.
The human is not a self interested animal, nor behaves like a utlity maximizing consumer. Humans are citizens, that are fullfilled with relations of gift and reciprocity, not by competition and accumulation of wealth or consumption.
The reduction in our consumption and our economic metabolism is not driven by planetary boundaries or external limits, but rather but the desired to liberate ourselves from the constant frustation of status seeking, and the innate slavering that imposes rising levels of consumption.
Degrowth challenges the mandate of the South to "catch up" with the North, as well as the paternalistic development programs. Every policy and national pursue, whether is economic, technologic or other, should be supported by democratic process and social consensus.
As pointed in the first section of this post, degrowth critizes the unequal exchange relationship implemented in the current global trade, with capitalism as its supporting system, where cheap labor and the expropiation of the commons needs to be stoped and the damage have to be repaired to the countries who were subject to colonialistic regimes.
Degrowth does not follow a single book or a limited community of thinkers, it represents a pluriverse of ideas and positions of the amount of reform required in our institutions and system, the development of technology and the role of specialization... Its disagreements are not a bug but rather a feature of an ongoing debate that unites against the hegemony of growth and development, demanding more democracy to decide economic and social goals.
Its expansion as a movement is limited, and the reasons for it varies, but defintely one to consider is the captivation of our imaginary, where we live in a growth society that see degrowth as a recession. It is therefore important to understand that degrowth does not focus on the reduction of GDP, it simply ignore it as it is a poor index of anything worth of being measured, and proposes different ways to organize the economic and social life to be in harmony with our life support systems and ensure abudance and meritocracy for all.
Discussion
Talking about crises stops making sense when every year we are in a crisis : financial crisis, pandemic crisis, energy crisis ... capitalism is exhausted, as our planet, and even us, we are tired of growth, and less and less people believe on it as a valuable goal. But what comes next?
History is a great teacher, that there is not such a thing as a natural social and economic system. Capitalism, like feudalism, was impossed by a minority, for the minority. It is despite capitalism and not thanks to it that we have seen improvement in the life of the working class in the last 400 years. Is the social movements, the activism, and the brave rebellion of the unfair treatment of colonies, slaves, races, gender, sexual orientation, religion... that we are better in almost any social indicator as we were in the Feudalism time.
Capitalism is very good and producing a lot, cheaply. But at what cost for the environment and for us? To which extend is all surplus the result of meritocracy, hard work, and equal relationships between workers and the owners of the means of production? How much can we produce and need to produce given a fair return to the workers and commons?
Social equality and environmental stability are necessary conditions that should accept a reduction of the levels of output and therefore degrowth on the aggregate. How much of it the democratic process should say.
Degrowth opens the door of our imaginery, to see a future without a mandate for growth. It it less clear how to best implement degrowth in our communities in the context of geopolitics, arm races and the expansion of artificial intelligence. Degrowth should achieve its goals of social justice, environmental sustainability and life abundance, while being very aware of the risks that capitalistic empires are putting into that new way of organising. If we succeed as a degrowth community, how do we ensure we do not have the same fate as the indigeneous communities, Tibet, and other regions who live for millenia in harmony socially and environmentally? How does degrowth thrive the aggressions of global markets, the imperial dominance of State Capitalism and State Communism? Those remains questions to be answer.
All in all, degrowth is the most welcoming, wise and exciting community I found to work towards a future that is safe, exciting and beautiful. I can wait to progress is such a jorney, that it started some years ago with a book, a call, and coffee... big things started one day with a small change. Each movement started with a initiator, which only require a follower to be creared. I am part of the degrowth movement now, and can't wait to have you too with open arms and diligent ears to listened to you.
PD: to write this post I read around 4 papers and chapters from three books. If you like to see the sources, please take a look at my repo notes
Thank you! Very thorough and helpful.
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