{"id":10913,"date":"2023-08-16T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=10913"},"modified":"2023-08-23T23:03:04","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T03:03:04","slug":"the-politics-of-degrowth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/08\/the-politics-of-degrowth\/","title":{"rendered":"The politics of degrowth"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/span>egrowth has contributed to Marxism\u2019s environmental awakening over the last couple of decades. But unlike some degrowthers who see economic growth as the product of psychological or cultural factors, or of untheorized industrialization, Marxism can\u2014and should\u2014theorize the growth paradigm as a core ideology of<\/a> capitalist society, a complex myth that lends democratic clothing to the accumulation drive. Tempest member Paul Fleckenstein<\/strong> interviews Gareth Dale<\/strong> on the politics of degrowth and the critique of the ideology of growth in capitalist society.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Paul Fleckenstein:<\/span> Gareth, can you introduce yourself?<\/p>\n

Gareth Dale:<\/span> I teach politics at a university in London. My research is mainly on environmental politics and the ideology of economic growth. I\u2019m active in my union, in several campaigns, and in a small socialist group<\/a>, though the lack of resonance of radical socialist ideas is bringing me some sleepless nights. How can I put it? It\u2019s interesting to be alive at this conjuncture in which, if capitalism juggernauts on and on, there\u2019s a gathering risk of multiple tipping points being tripped en route to the extermination of millions of species, including possibly even our own. Alternatively, of course, radical movements could build and gain critical mass, pull the emergency brake, and look toward a different social system, one based on solidarity and planning, not compulsive accumulation.<\/p>\n

PF:<\/span> You have jumped right to the heart of the dangerous moment we are in and the strategic question of how we can come to grips with the challenge and respond. Decades of business-as-usual has failed to do anything but increase the scale of destruction, despite green rhetoric from elites.<\/p>\n

GD:<\/span> I would add: Business-as-usual has impacted climate science and the discourse around it. Those who predicted the terrifying scale of destruction were marginalized. In the early 2000s, when I began reading systematically about these topics, the sharpest minds were often making the darkest predictions. They could see how the gravity of capital, states, and fossil-fuel interests distorts the climatological lens, pulling predictions toward the complacent end of the scale in a bid to justify only slow and mild reform. Their predictions, sometimes belittled as \u201ccatastrophism,\u201d took account of that pressure\u2014and rightly so, as we can now see against a skyline of burning hillsides. Even today, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are accelerating: Not only are they growing growing, but their growth is accelerating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PF:<\/span> Right. And all this is the background for alternatives proposed, and in some adopted by, movements, such as \u201cgreen growth,\u201d climate justice, the Green New Deal, eco-socialism, and, the main topic for this interview, \u201cdegrowth.\u201d Degrowth is better known in Europe than in the United States. Can you explain the concept for those who are not familiar with it?<\/p>\n

GD:<\/span> Each of these alternatives cover broad sets of positions, with many overlaps. But whereas the Green New Deal is at heart social-democratic, degrowth is closer to traditions of utopian socialism, anarchism, and populism (in the Russian Narodnik<\/a> sense). Degrowth is an eco-political stance attached to a rather diffuse movement. It began to take shape in the early 2000s in France\u2014and that\u2019s one reason why it\u2019s better known in Europe than the United States.<\/p>\n

Other reasons include the more militantly capitalist culture of the United States that makes degrowth a tougher hill to climb. With its high rates of flying, meat eating, and car dependency, as well as warming and cooling those big, detached suburban houses, U.S. per capita greenhouse emissions are double the European level. But if I described the degrowth movement as diffuse, I should add that it is gaining a profile, and its socialist wing is very prominent and gaining converts in the United States, too, most recently the Marxist journal Monthly Review<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

PF:<\/span> We can return to movement questions later, but I\u2019m wondering first if you would be able to explain what maybe you think are the strong basic points of degrowth in relation to economic growth versus the planet?<\/p>\n

GD:<\/span> First, degrowth identifies growth as fundamental to the capitalist system and develops a critique of that. Growth tends to enrich property owners and the wealthy, leaving the rest behind. And the environmental consequences of continuous growth are disastrous. Degrowthers are alert to the \u201cdestructive forces\u201d that spring from what Marxists call the productive forces.<\/p>\n

Second, its critique of growth is based firmly on leftist positions: the deepening of democracy, feminism, and anti-racism. Inasmuch as reducing aggregate consumption is its goal, the focus is on the rich and the rich world.<\/p>\n

Third, its critique of capitalism is not restricted to property relations (private versus nationalized property) but extends to the nature and purposes of technology and of consumption. Degrowthers don\u2019t assume that needs and desires are god-given. They have a critical take on the \u201cmanufacture of needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, degrowthers recognize that the most fundamental human need is for a habitable planet. They are more sober, more clear-eyed than most on the Left in recognizing that facing up to the multiple environmental crises will require much more than nationalization of the energy sector and investments in renewable energy and\u00a0 electric vehicles (EVs). It requires an extreme reduction in energy use and material throughput, at least in the rich world, a reduction that, while focused on the highest energy users, will affect working people, too, above all in consumption of such goods as flights and beef. Their pitch is that a world of \u201cpublic luxury and private sufficiency,\u201d with greater equality and democracy, less hierarchy, and much more free time, would enable the quality of life for the masses to improve immeasurably, even if some consumer goods disappear from the menu.<\/p>\n