Hello comrades, I’m looking for some guidance on understanding degrowth.
It seems very idealistic. Where they hope their work can convince people on an individual level, then on an organizational level, to influence policy which creates targets that will decrease environmental impact (that is the main contradiction) and subsequently profit-seeking.
I think some part acknowledges that quality of life with respect to material possessions is sufficient for people in the global north, and they can be content with their current conditions and improve things like community with a decreased emphasis on growth. There isn’t a base theory or mechanism to understand or explain how humans and societies work like historical materialism or dialectical materialism in ML. It does seem to rely on ecological thinking, e.g. carrying capacity. Maybe the idea is that there is a physical limit, we can acknowledge it and work around it for the best outcome for all people rather than butt heads against it after consequences emerge.
This doesn’t seem to operate at the level of human societies which I think is a bit confusing. You can take something from ecology but its application needs a robust set of auxiliary theories to explain how it operates at the level of human society. It also seems there is wishful thinking about how movements like this work historically and there are inherently groups (i.e. classes, but they don’t seem to indicate this in another form) which are the causes of this. Am I correct to assume this is a reactionary response to current political problems using some of the language of Marxism without any of the fundamental understanding?
I can’t shake the idea that believers of this think the solution will ‘magically’ emerge if enough people agree with it or are educated on it. Accepting that the bourgeois will not relinquish their control after understanding and that their lack of cooperation is a feature of their class interest and not ‘needing to be educated enough’ is just ignored?
Any commentary or analysis would be really appreciated, my thoughts are a bit jumbled.
Here’s a website for this someone shared with me recently: https://degrowth.info/en/degrowth
Degrowth is just a technical term for decoupling our goals from constant GDP growth, which is basically mathematically essential for dealing with the climate crisis in the global north. There is nothing in it that is inherently idealist or incompatible with Marxist-Leninism. It is a policy goal, not a theory of how to achieve the goal.
The current issue of Monthly Review is a double-issue on degrowth and there’s a lot there, I recommend you check it out.
I see degrowth less as an ideal to strive for and more as an inevitable outcome (we will be forced to do it, like it or not).
To do it humanely will require equitable distribution of resources and central planning. Then maybe we can get to a place where we have reasonable ecological footprints in the global north. Note this is NOT return to monke.
Of course if we continue to pursue the status quo of extractive capitalism, fossil fuel reliance etc, then we will be returning to monke, against our will.
I know this isn’t the analysis you asked for just my 2c
I think that the conversation on degrowth is evolving among marxists, but there is a kernel of malthusianism in some degrowth arguments that is fundamentally reactionary. https://www.liberationschool.org/degrowth-a-politics-for-which-class/
"The reality is that, in developed capitalist countries like U.S., there is an overabundance of material wealth and that scarcity is socially produced by the capitalist market and private ownership. Degrowth is correct on the point that if wealth were redistributed then there would indeed be abundance. However, even though proponents of degrowth are well intentioned and truly want to solve environmental crises, the political-economic methods and solutions that degrowth calls for actually work against creating the critical mass necessary to make a socialist revolution here in the U.S. I address each of these below by showing how 1) degrowth reproduces Malthusian ideas about so-called “natural limits;” 2) it’s anti-modern and anti-technological orientation lacks a class perspective; and 3) there are key practical issues with deploying degrowth ideas in the class struggle itself. "
yeah, it’s a nice superstructure they have incoherently imagined, but it cannot be built under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. They’re very naive to think that if they have any modicum of success they won’t just be murdered by the stochastic white terror of the aggrieved petit bourgeois.
I see the degrowth narrative very popular in Small Web circles and FOSS communities in general. I also saw lots of Anarchists being pro degrowth. I think it’s rather a individualist movement, but it did get some traction. So perhaps a ML rhetoric could get off the ground in some limited circles?
The backlash from certain so-called Marxists, to the idea of degrowth is wild to me. Capitalism’s inefficiency and crises of overproduction are core critiques. Something like degrowth has always been articulated with Marxism. We’ve just given a name to the need for more rational production not based on constant growth, as it relates to the material conditions of the climate crisis.
That’s fair. I think even in this thread some are amenable to some of the ideas in degrowth which aren’t really novel. I guess to me it feels like a distraction from a more general framework but it can certainly be used as a stepping stone for a more comprehensive understanding.
Do you think there’s a different way to talk about it in Marxist-Leninist spaces?
