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Quotes (Academic Theory)
Degrowth

AUTHOR

Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, (...)

SOURCE

The Future Is Degrowth: (...)

Criticism of economic growth is almost as old as the phenomenon of economic growth itself. But the term ‘degrowth’, as it is used today, can be traced to relatively recent beginnings. Let us take a short look at its history. Some traditions of growth criticism date back to the late eight- eenth century and ranged from Luddite riots against the machines of industrialization to romantic unease with modernity or anti-colonial dissections of European civilization. (...) the second half of the twen- tieth century, changed public perceptions of the finiteness of resources on this planet also led to a popular surge (...)
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Aspect: 01. Genealogy and motivation

AUTHOR

Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, (...)

SOURCE

The Future Is Degrowth: (...)

One aspect of current degrowth ideas has been, for example, articulated by US revolutionary intellectuals and civil rights activists James and Grace Lee Boggs, who argued in 1974 that ‘the revolution to be made in the United States will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things,’ because, they continue, these were ‘acquired at the expense of damning over one-third of the world into a state of underdevelopment, ignorance, disease and early death’.
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Aspect: 01. Genealogy and motivation

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

In this context, when Greta Thunberg denounced the ‘fairy tales of eternal growth’ in a speech, she made it explicit that the capitalist system that aims for infinite accumulation on a finite planet is the root cause of climate breakdown.
This represents a new historical situation, especially to Marxism that has been treated like ‘a dead dog’ after the collapse of actually existing socialism. As environmentalists learn to unequivocally problematize the irrationality of the current economic system, Marxism now has a chance of revival if it can contribute to enriching debates and social movements by providing not only a thorough (...)
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Aspect: 01. Genealogy and motivation

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

Thus, Foster concludes: ‘For Engels, as for Marx, the key to socialism was the rational regulation of the metabolism of humanity and nature, in such a way as to promote the fullest possible human potential, while safeguarding the needs of future generations’
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Aspect: 02. Nature

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

When Marx demanded that the metabolic exchange between humans and nature should be regulated more rationally by freely associated producers free from the pressure of capital accumulation, he did so precisely because he was aware of the fact that the universal metabolism of nature consists of various biophysical processes that cannot be socially transcended even in socialism. The persistent existence of natural scarcity demands a more conscious regulation of social and natural wealth, even in a post-capitalist society.
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Aspect: 03. Metabolism

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

In pre-capitalist societies, as Marx noted, humans retained their ‘unity’ with nature. Certainly, slaves and serfs were dominated and exploited by the master and the lord. They were unfree and even treated like things. In other words, they were reduced to a part in the objective conditions of production and reproduction next to cattle. However, this way of existence, in spite of an apparent lack of freedom, also prevented the formation of a chasm in their metabolism with nature. As the master does not let cattle starve to death, the satisfaction of the basic needs of slaves and serfs was (...)
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Aspect: 03. Metabolism

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

ecological aspects of Marx’s critique of political economy have become one of the central fields for revitalising the Marxian legacy in the Anthropocene. His concept of ‘metabolic rift’, in particular, has come to function as an indispensable conceptual tool for the ecological critique of contemporary capitalism (Foster, York and Clark 2010; Foster and Burkett 2016). This concept substantiates Marx’s critique of the destructive side of capitalist production by demonstrating that it can be applied to contemporary ecological issues such as global warming, soil erosion, aquaculture, the livestock business and the disruption of the nitrogen cycle
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Aspect: 03. Metabolism

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

According to Marx’s theory of metabolic rift, the ecological crisis significantly undermines the possibility of free ‘sustainable human development’ (Burkett 2005). He warned that capitalist production ‘destroys at the same time the physical health of the urban worker, and the intellectual life of the rural worker’. Humanism calls for the practical necessity of establishing a more sustainable form of production beyond capitalism before the latter collapses due to underproduction of nature. In this sense, Marx problematized the ecological crisis not from the standpoint of capital, but rather from the perspective of free and sustainable human development, which monism cannot do (...)
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Aspect: 03. Metabolism

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

Capitalism is a dangerous and inherently destructive system: on the whole, it is unsustainable precisely because of the conflict between profit and the well-being of the labouring population and the exploitation of the environment in order to hide real costs of production and discharge social responsibilities.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

In contrast to Adam Smith’s narrative about the formation of the capitalist economy having been initiated by industrious capitalists who saved money and carefully invested it to increase it, Marx argued that primitive accumulation of capital was a violent and bloody process of separation forcefully ‘divorcing the producer from the means of production’
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

Poverty in the South is the outcome of the exploitation of its natural and human resources at low cost by the North. Degrowth in the North will reduce the demand for, and the prices of, natural resources and industrial goods, making them more accessible to the developing South.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation also shows that capitalism is ultimately a social system that constantly increases scarcity rather than creating an abundance of wealth through its incessant increase of productive forces.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

Technocratic visions, despite their bold claims of emancipation, reproduce the non-democratic and consumerist relations of domination and subjugation that exist under capitalism. Furthermore, capitalist development does not guarantee the transcendence of the contradictory character of the capitalist mode of production because ‘productive forces of capital’ as an art of robbery severely deform the human metabolic relationship with nature, without providing a material foundation for the future society.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

The exploration of the earth and the invention of new technologies cannot repair the rift. The rift remains ‘irreparable’ in capitalism. This is because capital attempts to overcome rifts without recognizing its own absolute limits, which it cannot do.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

According to Marx, metabolic rift appears in three different levels and forms. First and most fundamentally, metabolic rift is the material disruption of cyclical processes in natural metabolism under the regime of capital. Marx’s favourite example is the exhaustion of the soil by modern agriculture. Modern large-scale, industrial agriculture makes plants absorb soil nutrition as much as and as fast as possible so that they can be sold to customers in large cities even beyond national borders. (...) The second dimension of metabolic rift is the spatial rift. Marx highly valued Liebig in Capital because his Agricultural Chemistry provided a (...)
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Ines Cosme, Rui Santos, (...)

SOURCE

Assessing the degrowth discourse: (...)

In parallel to the ecological debate on limits to growth, there has also been a parallel debate about social limits to growth. While economic growth after World War II was a key factor in reducing inequalities, this path is now leading to an increase in inequality, as half of the wealth in the world is estimated to belong to a scarce 1% of the population (Oxfam, 2014; Piketty, 2014). More inequality in societies tends to increase the importance of social status, leading to a decrease in social cohesion and sense of community (Pickett and Wilkinson, 2011). In addition to these (...)
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Donella H. Meadows, Dennis (...)

SOURCE

Limits to Growth: A (...)

The basic behavior mode of the world system is exponential growth of population and capital, followed by collapse.
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

No matter how devastating actually existing socialism was to the environment, its collapse and the triumph of capitalism has only contributed to further ecological degradation under neoliberal globalization in the last few decades. The ineffectiveness of conventional market-based solutions to ecological issues resulted in a renewed interest in more heterodox approaches including Marxian economics. At the same time, the collapse of the USSR and the declining influence of the past dogmas of orthodox Marxism ‘open up an intellectual horizon and a field of reflection, where theoretical and conceptual issues could be discussed without being foreclosed by party-line polemics or divisive (...)
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Aspect: 04. Contradictions of capitalism , predation, rifts and catastrophy

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

Degrowth has multiple interpretations. Different people arrive at it from different angles. Some, because they see that there are limits to growth. Others, because they believe we are entering a period of economic stagnation and we should find ways to maintain prosperity without growth. Yet others because they believe that a truly egalitarian society can only be one that liberates itself from capitalism and its insatiable pursuit of expansion, one that learns to collectively limit itself and work without the calculus of self-interested utility. And yet others, simply because “degrowth” sounds pretty much like the way they choose to live.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Saito Kohei

SOURCE

Marx in the Anthropocene: (...)

Benjamin famously wrote:
Marx says that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps it is quite otherwise. Perhaps revolutions are an attempt by passengers on this train – namely, the human race – to activate the emergency brake. (Benjamin 2003: 402)
The metaphor of the ‘emergency brake’ is more important than ever today. In the face of ecological disasters, environmentalism starts to demand radical systemic change by ending limitless economic growth in order to terminate the ceaseless exploitation of humanity and the robbery of nature. In short, today’s emergency brake implies a call for degrowth.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

A degrowth transition is not a sustained trajectory of descent, but a transition to convivial societies who live simply, in common and with less.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Ines Cosme, Rui Santos, (...)

SOURCE

Assessing the degrowth discourse: (...)

degrowth may be understood as a process where material and energy consumption are reduced, and where incentives are created to encourage more local production. Exchange in a degrowth so- ciety would be facilitated by local currencies and non-monetary systems, with strong powers given to the state to redistribute in- come and wealth, and provide public services. People living in a degrowth society would work fewer hours in paid employment, share jobs in many cases, and lead more frugal lifestyles overall. Although economic activity would be more localised in a degrowth society, the state would have an important role both to (...)
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, (...)

SOURCE

The Future Is Degrowth: (...)

degrowth can be defined as the democratic transition to a society that – in order to enable global ecological justice – is based on a much smaller throughput of energy and resources, that deepens deamocracy and guarantees a good life and social justice for all, and that does not depend on continuous expansion
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Ines Cosme, Rui Santos, (...)

SOURCE

Assessing the degrowth discourse: (...)

A total of 128 peer-reviewed articles focused on degrowth were reviewed, and 54 that include proposals for action were analysed. The proposals identified align with three broad goals: (1) Reduce the environmental impact of human activities; (2) Redistribute income and wealth both within and between countries; and (3) Promote the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and partici- patory society. The findings indicate that the majority of degrowth proposals are national top-down approaches, focusing on government as a major driver of change, rather than local bottom-up ap- proaches, as advocated by many degrowth proponents. The most emphasised aspects in (...)
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Ines Cosme, Rui Santos, (...)

SOURCE

Assessing the degrowth discourse: (...)

The main findings of this research [about overall proposal of degrowth movement] are that: (1) although degrowth is often described as a bottom-up local process, the proposals are largely top-down with a national focus; (2) social equity is at least as important in the degrowth proposals as envi- ronmental sustainability; (3) there are some degrowth proposals that would benefit from additional clarification and specification; and (4) the implications of degrowth for developing nations, and the issue of population growth, are neglected in the degrowth discourse and should be explored further.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

François Schneidera, Giorgos Kallisa, (...)

SOURCE

Crisis or opportunity? Economic (...)

[Degrowth] is defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level, in the short and long term.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Filka Sekulova, Giorgos Kallis, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: from theory to (...)

Degrowth can generally be defined as a collective and deliberative process aimed at the equitable downscaling of the overall capacity to produce and consume and of the role of markets and commercial exchanges as a central organising principle of human lives
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Ines Cosme, Rui Santos, (...)

SOURCE

Assessing the degrowth discourse: (...)

According to Martínez-Alier et al. (2010), the degrowth movement has three main pillars: theoretical, activist, and political.
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

degrowth calls for the politicization of science and technology, against the increasing technocratization of politics. A neat distinction between science and politics is impossible to sustain when dealing with questions about the global economy or climate change, where ‘wars of truth’ are waged and values shape the knowledge claims that different actors stake. New models of democratized knowledge production are necessary. Post-normal science proposes the extension of the peer-review community that ensures the quality of scientific inputs into decision-making to include all those with a stake, including not least lay people. Post-normal science calls for a shift of decisions from (...)
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Aspect: 06. Definition

AUTHOR

Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, (...)

SOURCE

Degrowth: A vocabulary for (...)

Degrowth signifies, first and foremost, a critique of growth. It calls for the decolonization of public debate from the idiom of economism and for the abolishment of economic growth as a social objective. Beyond that, degrowth signifies also a desired direction, one in which societies will use fewer natural resources and will organize and live differently than today. ‘Sharing’, ‘simplicity’, ‘conviviality’, ‘care’ and the ‘commons’ are primary significations of what this society might look like.
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Aspect: 07. Criticism, hostility and Fear