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(THREAD)—‘DEGROWTH’—its, definition, its history, Common misunderstandings & slanders, its compatibility with other schools, & a specific point about the nature of consumption, ‘services’, growth, capitalist metrics.
I’ve written a variation of this thread & my lawn thread 100 times, but I decided to degrow my threads a little bit, so I’m writing this one, both to clear up general misunderstandings but also to make one specific argument about a broad topic, the nature of use in growth
KEY POINTS:
1. Degrowth concerns the dependence of capitalism on growth, the importance of throughput & ecology, & the failure of capitalist metrics
2. Degrowth is both a general academic/analytic/scholarly project & a political movement, comprising several ideologies
1. Degrowth concerns the dependence of capitalism on growth, the importance of throughput & ecology, & the failure of capitalist metrics
2. Degrowth is both a general academic/analytic/scholarly project & a political movement, comprising several ideologies
3. Degrowth is not eco austerity, malthusianism, anti worker, anti Marxian, pro capitalist or any other nonsense.
4. Degrowth does not surrender to capitalist metrics but precisely argues for their abolition, which leads us to the main point here
4. Degrowth does not surrender to capitalist metrics but precisely argues for their abolition, which leads us to the main point here
5. Most of what we see as ‘good’ growth, which isn’t just ideological obfuscation, is probably better called something else, inherits capitalist categories, & is not forbidden by degrowth. Lawns, public green space & multi use leisure highlights this point.
— 1. THE MAIN POINTS OF DEGROWTH & ITS DEFINITION—
FIRST I WILL DO THE KEY TAKEAWAYS IN SHORT FORM, THEN THEIR ELABORATION, BUT THESE ARE THE MAIN POINTS TO TAKE AWAY IF YOU NEED A CLIFFNOTES:
CLIFFNOTES:
1. Degrowth is fundamentally about two substantive issues:
A. Abolition of Capitalist metrics of growth like GDP, & their replacement with use,quality & ecological ones
B. Reduction in throughput, land use, waste & ecosystem service use growth, NOT in use value growth
1. Degrowth is fundamentally about two substantive issues:
A. Abolition of Capitalist metrics of growth like GDP, & their replacement with use,quality & ecological ones
B. Reduction in throughput, land use, waste & ecosystem service use growth, NOT in use value growth
2. Degrowth challenges growthism, the idea that use of GDP —a capitalist metric of transactions—, & growth of throughput is necessary for all systems, & points out that capitalism & economics falsely conflate these
3. Use values, exchange values & throughput are not the same. Degrowth aims for maximal & equitable production & distribution of use values, the abolition of measurement by exchange values & the reduction in throughput
END CLIFFNOTES
MORE DETAILED SUMMARY
MORE DETAILED SUMMARY
A. First and foremost, the central claim of Degrowth is the need to abandon capitalist ideological categories like GDP, the neoclassical consumption of ecology as ‘externality’, & the conflation of use, consumption, production, & leisure. These reflect ‘growthism’.
B. Degrowth recognizes that growthism is an ideology inherent to capitalism that posits the necessity & dependence on growth, but onfuscates its nature & misleads us. The left, unfortunately, inherits this ideology.
C. One component of degrowth is the contention that past socialist & left movements inherited growthism to their detriment, & surreptitiously introduced capitalism & ideology through the back door. Capitalism uses conflations like GDP, growth & so on to naturalize itself.
D. Thus, we are accustomed to seeing ‘growth’ in well being, quality & services, the way capitalism does—as GDP, the adjusted monetary measurement of transactions of all market goods & services, when in reality this obfuscates both sides of the equation
E. On the consumption side, this leads us to equate utility, quality, labor, consumption, services, uses, exchanges & so on, but these are not the same. ‘Consumption’ of movies & barrels of oil are treated the same by GDP & growthism, even though they’re clearly different.
F. On the supply side, capitalism, growthism & GDP obfuscate the actual ‘growth’ that matters for degrowth—throughput, waste, ecosystem services, land, inputs & resources—NOT OUTPUTS, SERVICES, UTILITIES, MONEY, GOODS, USE VALUES or the rest
G. THROUGHPUT is the flow out of ecosystem stocks (resources, oil) & into ecosystem sinks (CO2, waste). LAND is the fundamental stock & the temporal claim on it. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES are all the uncounted aspects of the biosphere.
H. Calls for ‘decoupling’—relative or absolute—and absolute is impossible in capitalism—are not rebuttals to degrowth, but *its exact demand*, namely the decoupling of use values from throughput growth & from capitalist allocation metrics.
This takes us to a brief history
This takes us to a brief history
2. A BRIEF HISTORY & THE AIMS OF DEGROWTH
A. Degrowth started in France & elsewhere in Europe, as a post-Soviet, new left alternative meant to balance historical reality, economic knowledge, cutting edge scholarship, equity, environmental justice & contemporary anti capitalism.
B. It was motivated by the apparent failures of state socialism & productivist formulations & the specific hegemonic appeal of capitalism & neoliberalism, & thus directly Targets its hegemony, as well as its ideological academic form in economics
C. While it started in the social sciences & economics by leftists, it was also tied to explicitly left wing social movements. As such, both within & outside the academy it is tied to many other schools—Marxism, anarchism, SocDem, DemSoc, progressivism, ‘greens’, socialism
D. While many of the earliest advocates & some of the current ones are still trapped in the categories of liberal democracy & capitalism—tho no more than most mainstream leftists like Jacobin etc & thus focus on ideas, elections, reform, etc—this is not by any means the norm
E. Degrowth has always been anti capitalist to its core, however, like leftism & environmentalism generally, this means it has reformist & revolutionary, communist & social democrat, state & grassroots, & other formulations. It is compatible across a wide range.
This takes us to what Degrowth is not, the common misunderstandings & slanders, before I get to my final & specific arguments
3. WHAT DEGROWTH IS NOT AND THE COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND SLANDERS OF IT
Main points:
1. An entire decentralized doubt industry exists to discredit green & ecological movements & degrowth is a main target. This is well traced & out in the open, but not a conspiracy
1. An entire decentralized doubt industry exists to discredit green & ecological movements & degrowth is a main target. This is well traced & out in the open, but not a conspiracy
2. Partly as a result of this, and as a result of longstanding anti ecological prejudices, misconceptions of degrowth abound
3. These include the idea that degrowth is Malthusian, Austerian, anti worker and the like, and these are all false, and indeed projection.
A. BERNIE SLANDERS** AND MISCONCEPTIONS
**this is a stupid non sequitur pun
**this is a stupid non sequitur pun
i. Degrowth is often called Eco-austerity, Malthusian/Neo Malthusian, ‘ecofascist’, anti-worker, non Marxian (lol), surrenders to capitalist growth, is for hippies, is unrealistic, wants poverty, hates the global south & other horseshit & slander.
ii. For the record, if your view is that absent capitalist growth, extractivism, fossil fuels, heavy technology & so on, & that appealing to global north worker consumption is more important than global sustainability, YOURE the Neo Malthusian who believes in sacrifice zones.
iii. It is alleged degrowthers want to impose austerity, undercut the working class, condemn the global south to poverty, and control population. All of this is false. This is what liberal hegemony wants & it is projecting it on degrowth.
iv. Contrary to what productivists tell you, Marx is fully agreeable with Degrowth and ecological politics. His critique of Malthus was precisely the Degrowth one, not that infinite growth is possible, but that capitalism relies on infinite growth. Socialism does not.
Thread of Sources on Marx & ecosocialism https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1233923734794309632?s=21
An older thread of sources on the same subject https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1150503569478627328?s=21
Rebuttal to stupidity https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1283285892409503746?s=21
Thread summarizing thoughts on Marx’s EcoSocialism the book—I will append more below this thread https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1233552827177414656?s=21
B. Without getting conspiratorial, would you believe it if I told you a vast moneyed network of media, academics & pundits is funded to discredit degrowth, among many other ecological ideas? I have threads where I can link the evidence.
B. Note, again, this isn’t a conspiracy, but a broad based decentralized network of funding, organizations, social ties & pundits. And degrowth is but ONE of its focuses, all the more stunning considering how marginal & impracticsl it is claimed to be.
C. Much of this is standard fare,
i. Oreskes ‘Merchants of Doubt’ documents the massive funded ‘doubt’ industry,
ii. Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’ &
iii. Potter’s ‘Green is the New Red’ covers rhe broader movement
i. Oreskes ‘Merchants of Doubt’ documents the massive funded ‘doubt’ industry,
ii. Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’ &
iii. Potter’s ‘Green is the New Red’ covers rhe broader movement
iv. Magdoff & Bellamy Fosters ‘What every environmentalist’ covers this for capitalism generally
v. The history of the ‘4th IR’, green new deal, econodernism, green capitalism, & so on, intersects heavily here covered various ways by Malcom Harris, Jasper Bernes Or Jeff Gibbs
v. The history of the ‘4th IR’, green new deal, econodernism, green capitalism, & so on, intersects heavily here covered various ways by Malcom Harris, Jasper Bernes Or Jeff Gibbs
vi. Mirowski’s history of the Neoliberal Thought Collective is instructive and important here
Scroll up from here for updateD NTC links https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1279528763844411393?s=21
This thread is already way too long, so afterward I hope to write a genuinely short and abridged version, using this as source material, so holdup on that, but now to my final specific argument
4. Conflations of use value, exchange value & throughput, consumption & services & so on
4. MY MAIN ARGUMENT ABOUT CONSUMPTION, HOW IT TIES IT TOGETHER, ITS RELEVANCE TO LAWNS & OPEN SPACE SPECIFICALLY AND SOME FURTHER SOURCES
Here’s the central point to lawns, but it ties up much of the above.
If I produce one movie, production has only risen by the original act & the copies I made. Throughput rises by whatever I put into those.
If I produce one movie, production has only risen by the original act & the copies I made. Throughput rises by whatever I put into those.
If I screen the movie and one person pays for it GDP counts that as one unit. If 100 people pay for it, there has been consumption & transaction ‘growth’, even tho throughput, production & so on are the same.
If i let 1 person see it for free, GDP doesn’t rise additionally at all but utility does by one unit. If 100 people see it, GDP still doesn’t rise, but there’s been 100x the use values.
Clearly then,
1. production, distribution & consumption,
2. use & exchange values,
3. GDP, consumption & throughput growth
Are all different & distinct.
1. production, distribution & consumption,
2. use & exchange values,
3. GDP, consumption & throughput growth
Are all different & distinct.
Now, consider oil. Whether or not i monetize or use it, throughput rises w 1 or 100 barrels. If Monetized GDP grows even if unused. What’s more, unlike a movie, it’s rival & excludable—it can only be used one way, altho its externalities & waste are borne collectively.
Clearly then these are basically polar opposites—oil is privately used, publicly costly, & increases throughput no matter what, & GDP even if it isn’t used. Films are publicly used, privately cheap, throughput constant, & GDP only increases the extent to which it is monetized.
The issue isn’t just rivalry, excludability, externalities, privacy, & property—although this does cross cut a lot of these issues—but obtains in general for the asymmetry between different processes:
1. Extraction
2. Production
3. Distribution
4. Consumption
5. Reproduction
6. Use
7. Services
8. Exchange
Which are all clearly different, even where specific examples overlap.
2. Production
3. Distribution
4. Consumption
5. Reproduction
6. Use
7. Services
8. Exchange
Which are all clearly different, even where specific examples overlap.
Depending how strictly one defines use, consumption, & so on, then, by definition, all use values/use, consumption & utility implies extraction, production & distribution
. But:
1. not all distribution implies use & consumption.
2. Not all production implies distribution, use & consumption &
3. Not all extraction implies production, distribution, use & consumption
1. not all distribution implies use & consumption.
2. Not all production implies distribution, use & consumption &
3. Not all extraction implies production, distribution, use & consumption
Now, I’d actually argue that indirect benefits like ecological services or hearing a musical, or even directly foraged berries in common land don’t really count as ‘production, extraction, distribution’. But this is immaterial to the argument here,
because the point is that extraction is the most general, production the second most, distribution the third most, and use/consumption the least. What’s more, whether or not it is exchanged for money & thus counted in GDP is totally independent of all of the above.
It clearly follows 1 can have:
1. Falling throughput growth
2. Falling GDP
3. Rising use values/consumption
Indeed, if throughput land efficiency grosth >= labor efficiency growth >= output*consumption*population growth, then one can have the 3 conditions above continuously.
1. Falling throughput growth
2. Falling GDP
3. Rising use values/consumption
Indeed, if throughput land efficiency grosth >= labor efficiency growth >= output*consumption*population growth, then one can have the 3 conditions above continuously.
It’s an empirical question if this is feasible in practice, and we can more or less prove it is impossible within capitalism in general—it can hold locally for relative decoupling, but not general relative decoupling or absolute decoupling.
It also can only hold for some time in state socialism, but eventually the needs of the state & planning will put a very harsh lower floor under it. This can be seen by the necessary labor & energy needed for states & the necessary reductions needed.
Capitalist ideology has us think the extraction of a barrel of oil, ownibg an empty lot, foraging of berries on common land, & a public screening of a film are the same kind of consumption/use, that their ‘growth’ is of the same kind, & that what matters is if they are monetized.
Degrowth challenges this ideology at its core, in both its formal/analytic/methodological framework & its substantive empirics. It rejects GDPs usefulness. It refuses to equate throughput & use value. & it wishes to reduce the former but increase & equally distribute the latter.
An admirable thread by our Cartilliginous comrade, on many of the same issues. One point i want to emphasize, however, is that the issue is production, not consumption. https://twitter.com/somestingray/status/1283308935177539584?s=21
This is what I emphasize here, and it is the main point to which I am trying to get. And I hope its relevance to lawns & parks is straightforward but if not, I will explain. https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1283311848612397056?s=21
If a lawn or private park or lot is taken out of the economy, for public use for multi functional purposes like food, leisure, etc, something curious happens.
GDP growth falls—economic activities & transactions are taken out of the market & potentially the state. Thus GDP falls.
GDP growth falls—economic activities & transactions are taken out of the market & potentially the state. Thus GDP falls.
From the perspective of throughput, growth is also lower. Less resources are used, stocks & sinks are depleted less, there is less intensive land use & more multi functional extensive land use. Ecosystem services are restored. Waste is reduced.
But from the perspective of use values, consumption, leisure, reproduction, luxuries, services, quality, & goods, there has been ‘growth’ & a more equitable distribution!
We have known since Ricardo that distribution & growth cannot be analytically separated. Marx, Keynes, George, Sraffa, ecological economics, the Physiocrats, & in their own twisted way, Malthus & Mandeville, all attested to this point.
In addition, we find that the notions of ‘consumption’—which used to mean commodities destroyed by reproduction, luxury or labor—have been extended to services, experiences, leisure, and so on.
Graeber discusses that here: https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/1100872164398501912?s=21
For a similar point on how ecomodernists obfuscate the debate so as to present their position as opposed to degrowth, even though it is just degrowth rephrased coupled with unstated assumptions & false empirics, look here.
https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/We-Are-All-Degrowthers_We-Are-All-Ecomodernists_Carson.pdf
https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/We-Are-All-Degrowthers_We-Are-All-Ecomodernists_Carson.pdf
And that about ties it up, because I link to the fuller perspectives. This is much longer than I wanted it to be, but it may just be my definitive thread on the issue
I intend to write a shorter summary, but alas, feel free to link to this whenever anyone spouts BS about degrowth.
To recap:
1. Degrowth is an academic & social movement meant to challenge capitalist & growthist ideology
2. It criticizes the use of metrics like GDP, advocates alternate ones, and aims to reduce throughput while increasing equity & use values
1. Degrowth is an academic & social movement meant to challenge capitalist & growthist ideology
2. It criticizes the use of metrics like GDP, advocates alternate ones, and aims to reduce throughput while increasing equity & use values
3. It has a history in modern socialism, is compatible with a wide range of ideologies, and is not the liberal or capitalist psy op people claim it is
4. Degrowth is not ecoausterity, malthusianism, anti worker or anti global south, but the exact opposite of those things. Meanwhile most of its critics are projecting their own beliefs on it.
5. As part of a broader decentralized but commonly funded & overlapping organization & pundit network, there are constant attempts to discredit Degrowth specifically & broader ecological thought generally
6. Analyzing extraction, production, consumption, reproduction, use, distribution, exchange, & property rights allows us to distinguish these & see why we can reduce throughput & exchange value while still increasing use values.
