A controversial —strong, but weakly held— opinion:
The established discourse that for centuries presented economic growth as a panacea (and, thus, ruled the world by that principle), has spurred a counter-movement that is becoming its exact reflection. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/degrowth-new-roots-economy/
Degrowth presents economic growth as a stand-in for all evils (capitalism, neoliberalism, inequality, authoritarianism, ecological degradation, etc.) and, consequently, proposes an arguably idealist, unclear and implausible program of “degrowth” as a new panacea.
Idealist?
Becuase, arguably, it relies almost exclusively in an appeal to ideals and voluntary actions rather than a theory of change that takes into account how those voluntary actions are enabled and constrained by material conditions and mechanisms.
Unclear? Because:
1. Economic contraction is neither, in itself, a policy goal nor a theoretical necessity but rather an empirically expected secondary outcome.
2. Such contraction would not apply equally to all regions, all socio-economic classes, or all industries/activities.
So there is, potentially, as much “growth” as there is “degrowth” in the degrowth program, but a question remains: Who decides?
Implausible? Because the whole program depends on an as yet undertheorized large-scale, radical and fast cultural transformation of people’s values and “common sense”.
Source: Kallis et al, ‘Degrowth and the State’.
A transformation that, by the way, may be seen just as “utopian” as degrowth’s next best enemy—namely, “techno-fixes” — only in a socio-cultural form.
I realize that this rant is like a pseudo-theoretical #leeroyjenkins (and probably not a lot of people will care) but as I said these are “strong opinions, weakly held” so I’m open and actively looking for counter-arguments.
/END
You can follow @j_camachor.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: