The article is, in my opinion, purposely mischaracterizing the degrowth movement. I would say degrowth is more a natural reaction to the excesses of capitalism than movement about addressing climate change.
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Isn’t the former very naturally part of the latter though ? And doesn’t the article also raise that point as well? Fundamentally it’s an idea that often gets interpreted through both those lenses because it could help with both conflicts, which is also what by definition is it’s purposely trying to accomplish, the first explicitly and the second is implicit in
… within planetary boundaries.
This connection I think should be embraced because climate change is more attractive as a topic to most people than critiques of capitalism but obviously one leads naturally into the other. Saying that degrowth aims to address climate change is more just a description of partial content rather than a mischaracterization and the body of the article tries reasonably to explain other parts as well, less work and better well being are right there in the title, both not a dishonest description of other parts of the philosophy.
After all no one that accepts degrowth as a concept would answer the question “Should we degrow to combat climate change ?” with a “No” All answers would be “yes and …” or “yes but …”
At the end of the day Vice writing will never be perfect but nowadays for genpop media outlets it tries much harder than most to paint an honest picture of the world, and calling this article a mischaracterization seems to me a little harsh, if you’ve never heard of it the article certainly could honestly teach and spark interest for a this “new” way of thinking, and you need just one word to google to get more rigorous explanation if you wanted it.
Protip: if you want your movement to gain any political traction, don’t call it the degrowth movement
What would you call it? Its kinda like the “defund police” thing. If they called it “reallocate police resources” opposition to the movement would just use the stronger “defund police” language as a cudgel to smear it. It’s best to own it and educate
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why? it’s exactly what it is.
Because the average person is too dumb
Do tells us what smooth PR term to use.
Economic resilience
I always used ‘durable economy’
For political reasons.
One Shrinky Dinky movement coming up just for you 😘
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Hell yes it’s a great way to live.
If we implement government policies that incentivize simple living, and tax wasteful living exponentially, it’s going to benefit individuals.
Wealthy people will be better off from having most of their wealth taxed because they’ll have a more enjoyable simple lifestyle.
For real. It’s the same with food.
Not that I eat healthy… Because I’m practically underweight so I’ll generally eat anything. But after eating organic for awhile in the past I definitely favor fresh healthy over junk food. Regular Americanized food just tastes fake to me.
Same with my room/home… It’s so much easier when you only have less to take care of.
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In order to slow the economy down and not wreak havoc, he said, we have to reconfigure our ideas about the entire economic system.
This is how degrowthers envision the process: After a reduction in material and energy consumption, which will constrict the economy, there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth, and a transition from a materialistic society to one in which the values are based on simpler lifestyles and unpaid work and activities.
Sounds good to me. It is a fair point that the basic operation of our society depends on continual growth, but redistribution seems like it would be an effective way of mitigating those problems degrowth might cause. We have more than enough resources to keep everyone alive, we just have to use them.
I’d rather just do the full communism now path, where once every man, woman and child has all their needs and many of their wants met, there isn’t a desire to chase the next fashion craze, or buy the next iphone or “keep up with the jones’” as it were because the Jones’ have the same stuff you do, but maybe they spend their ample leisure time exercising, you spend your time gardening.
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Laws will be written with loopholes. Just nationalize industry run them for the public rather the for profit and fire the CEOs/Lobbyists and PMC’s that keep Capitalism operating.
Also I’ll take a Stalin for the initial break from Capitalism. After 10ish years, we can go to a more democratic government.
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the politicians, you know, the guys with money
There is overlap, but ultimately it’s not a monolith. Anyone can be a politician and politicians succeed or fail on people voting for them. What are the rich gonna do with ownership of all the land and all the companies and all the resources anyway? Effectively enslave everybody? Wait for us to starve so they can keep playing number-go-up in secure enclaves while the world burns around them?
You mention universal income in another comment. If you do it right, that’s redistribution. You give people the means to keep living, every other problem gets less intense. I think there’s a good chance that when things get bad enough, even hardcore capitalists will go for it because it’s a way for capitalism to continue existing in a form that isn’t a dead useless husk. IMO a much better option than pulling for a civil war hoping the result will be a socialist utopia and not just evil warlords doing evil warlord stuff.
there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth
there should also be unicorns farting rainbows.
“Turn on, tune in, drop out” 2.0
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From the narrowly focused aspect of clothing, what can we do? Repair. Repair your clothes. Don’t throw away a ripped shirt, don’t replace it with a flimsy new shirt made by underpaid workers. Sew it. Patch it. Check your library for books about mending, go to YouTube and seek out basic repair videos. A packet of needles, a thimble, a spool of black thread, and a spool of white thread will take care of the majority of repairs. What you can’t do yourself can be handled by your neighborhood laundry or dry cleaner.
Practice radical repairing. Mend your way to a better world.
Yes, we’ll save ourselves by resetting the clock and never undoing the conditions that led to where we are
I’m all about it. I’ve got my Corvette and just had the clutch replaced so I’m all about *downsizing for others now!
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I’m doing my part.
How would business work? Currently a business’s purpose by law is to make money. How would you enforce a different goal without going full centralized economy?
And how is trying to add less value more effective than internalizing externalized costs? For example, co2 is an externalized cost, one companies don’t need to pay for right now, it’s external to them. If we made them pay for it to fund carbon capture at 1 ton removed for every 1 ton emitted, they would decrease their emissions and the rest would be removed. You could do something similar for other ecological issues as well. What’s the benefit of degroth over internalizing costs?
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I was confusing an obligation to shareholders with an obligation to profit. So if a share holder majority want maximized profit, I think the company needs to do it.
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But the shareholders can replace members who are not acting what they perceive to be their best interest, right? It seems like eventually the company will conform to what the share holders want.
It seems like if a CEO publicly said they were shrinking the company to benefit the environment, they’d be replaced by the shareholders pretty quickly.
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Easy, just get society to treat those people for what they are… Greedy selfish inhumane criminals. I mean they usually share the same tactics as criminals so it’s not even a joke. Treat em for what they are… Life rapists.
Treat em like they got rabies.
It’s our duty as human beings.
"In 2014, the United States Supreme Court voiced its position in no uncertain terms. In Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., the Supreme Court stated that “Modern corporate law does not require for profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else”.
https://legislate.ai/blog/does-the-law-require-public-companies-to-maximise-shareholder-value
@Chetzemoka @inasaba @JohnDClay
The issue isn’t law. It’s base greed.
Hmm interesting. Thank you!
They do have an obligation to what their share holders want though don’t they?
Maybe part of degrowth would be fewer public companies beholden to shareholders.
Private companies are still beholden to their owners. Would the alternative be government ownership?
Co-op structures could work too.
In co-ops the employees have a controlling interest, right? So a majority of them would still need to want to shrink the company. That might be easier to convince them than investors though.
True, it would still need to be based off the cooperative ideas. There was an awesome forestry co-op in the 70-90’s called the Hoedad’s that had an interesting model and had each section ran as separate crews with even different pay structures and even philosophical structures. They did tree replanting and brush cutting and many other activities but each sub group bid contacts independently but we’re part of the workers cooperative collectively.
If the shareholders want the corporation to blatantly violate the law, they don’t do that. They don’t have to do everything that shareholders want. Shareholders are perfectly free to sell their shares, if they don’t like what a company is doing, or to vote out members of the board, if they don’t like the way the company is being managed. The idea that corporations have no other choice is a myth perpetuated to maintain the status quo
That also means massive unemployment
Look around you. Are there things to be done? Parks to be cleaned? Old houses to be renovated? Run down areas of town? Are there any hungry children in nearby schools? If you answered yes to any of those, then there is work to be done.
Why, if there is work to be done, is it not getting done? What type of society undervalues such critical work such that you would look at the state of the work and think that there is not enough work for everyone to contribute.
There are plenty of jobs, there is infinite work, but the current value system doesn’t incentivise this work that would improve everyone’s life.
So two questions.
- Why doesn’t the current system value this work?
- What would the world look like of that type of work was valued?
That in mind, given that you assume mass unemployment, which is questionable at best, reconsider why that would be. Who, or what, would be the cause?
There are a lot of BS jobs that don’t create any value (real estate agents, advertising, …) and a lot of work that is not getting done because nobody would pay for it, for example cleaning up the environment, worker shortage in hospitals and elder care.
That’s actually a good thing, assuming that employment wasn’t tied to surviving nor thriving.
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Rich people missing out on more profits is not the same thing as poverty.
But the people controlling the company would rather cut the people at the bottom than their own salaries. If a company shrinks, it’s usually the people at the bottom who feel it the most.
If there was less profit in general from reduced consumption then billionaires would suffer anyway. Degrowth doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s part of a broader movement to combat climate change and increase equity. This is very much a left wing concept that has plenty of criticisms about, and solutions to the problems you’re raising
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