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http://mo nthlyreview.o rg/2011/01/01/capitalism-and-degro wth-an-impo ssibility-theo rem

Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem :: Monthly Review

A slightly dif f erent version of this article was published under the title Degrow or Die? in the December/January 2011 issue of the UK journal Red Pepper, f or which it was originally written. In the opening paragraph to his 2009 book, Storms of My Grandchildren, James Hansen, the worlds f oremost scientif ic authority on global warming, declared: Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril.T he startling conclusion is that continued exploitation of all f ossil f uels on Earth threatens not only the other millions of species on the planet but also the survival of humanity itself and the timetable is shorter than we thought.1 In making this declaration, however, Hansen was only speaking of a part of the global environmental crisis currently threatening the planet, namely, climate change. Recently, leading scientists (including Hansen) have proposed nine planetary boundaries, which mark the saf e operating space f or the planet. T hree of these boundaries (climate change, biodiversity, and the nitrogen cycle) have already been crossed, while others, such as f resh water use and ocean accidif ication, are emerging planetary rif ts. In ecological terms, the economy has now grown to a scale and intrusiveness that is both overshooting planetary boundaries and tearing apart the biogeochemical cycles of the planet.2 Hence, almost f our decades af ter the Club of Rome raised the issue of the limits to growth, the economic growth idol of modern society is once again f acing a f ormidable challenge.3 What is known as degrowth economics, associated with the work of Serge Latouche in particular, emerged as a major European intellectual movement in 2008 with the historic conf erence in Paris on Economic De-Growth f or Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, and has since inspired a revival of radical Green thought, as epitomized by the 2010 Degrowth Declaration in Barcelona. Ironically, the meteoric rise of degrowth (dcroissance in French) as a concept has coincided over the last three years with the reappearance of economic crisis and stagnation on a scale not seen since the 1930s. T he degrowth concept theref ore f orces us to conf ront the questions: Is degrowth f easible in a capitalist grow-ordie societyand if not, what does this say about the transition to a new society? According to the Web site of the European degrowth project, degrowth carries the idea of a voluntary reduction of the size of the economic system which implies a reduction of the GDP.4 Voluntary here points to the emphasis on voluntaristic solutionsthough not as individualistic and unplanned in the European conception as the voluntary simplicity movement in the United States, where individuals (usually well-to-do) simply choose to opt out of the high-consumption market model. For Latouche, the concept of degrowth signif ies a major social change: a radical shif t f rom growth as the main objective of the modern economy, toward its opposite (contraction, downshif ting). An underlying premise of this movement is that, in the f ace of a planetary ecological emergency, the promise of green technology has proven f alse. T his can be attributed to the Jevons Paradox, according to which greater ef f iciency in the use of energy and resources leads not to conservation but to greater economic growth, and hence more pressure on the environment.5 T he unavoidable conclusionassociated with a wide variety of political-economic and environmental thinkers, not just those connected directly to the European degrowth projectis that there needs to be a drastic alteration in the economic trends operative since the Industrial

Revolution. As Marxist economist Paul Sweezy put it more than two decades ago: Since there is no way to increase the capacity of the environment to bear the [economic and population] burdens placed on it, it f ollows that the adjustment must come entirely f rom the other side of the equation. And since the disequilibrium has already reached dangerous proportions, it also f ollows that what is essential f or success is a reversal, not merely a slowing down, of the underlying trends of the last f ew centuries.6 Given that wealthy countries are already characterized by ecological overshoot, it is becoming more and more apparent that there is indeed no alternative, as Sweezy emphasized, but a reversal in the demands placed on the environment by the economy. T his is consistent with the argument of ecological economist Herman Daly, who has long insisted on the need f or a steady-state economy. Daly traces this perspective to John Stuart Mills f amous discussion of the stationary state in his Principles of Political Economy, which argued that if economic expansion was to level of f (as the classical economists expected), the economic goal of society could then shif t to the qualitative aspects of existence, rather than mere quantitative expansion. A century af ter Mill, Lewis Mumf ord insisted in his Condition of Man, f irst published in 1944, that not only was a stationary state in Mills sense ecologically necessary, but that it should also be linked to a concept of basic communism[that] applies to the whole community the standards of the household, distributing benef its according to need (a view that drew upon Marx). Today this recognition of the need to bring economic growth in overdeveloped economies to a halt, and even to shrink these economies, is seen as rooted theoretically in Nicholas Georgescu-Roegens The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which established the basis of modern ecological economics.7 Degrowth as such is not viewed, even by its proponents, as a stable solution, but one aimed at reducing the size of the economy to a level of output that can be maintained perpetually at a steady-state. T his might mean shrinking the rich economies by as much as a third f rom todays levels by a process that would amount to negative investment (since not only would new net investment cease but also only some, not all, worn-out capital stock would be replaced). A steady-state economy, in contrast, would carry out replacement investment but would stop short of new net investment. As Daly def ines it, a steady-state economy is an economy with constant stocks of people and artif acts, maintained at some desired, suf f icient levels by low rates of maintenance throughput, that is, by the lowest f easible f lows of matter and energy.8 Needless to say, none of this would come easily, given todays capitalist economy. In particular, Latouches work, which can be viewed as exemplary of the European degrowth project, is beset with contradictions, resulting not f rom the concept of degrowth per se, but f rom his attempt to skirt the question of capitalism. T his can be seen in his 2006 article, T he Globe Downshif ted, where he argues in convoluted f orm: For some on the f ar lef t, the stock answer is that capitalism is the problem, leaving us stuck in a rut and powerless to move towards a better society. Is economic contraction compatible with capitalism? T his is a key question, but one that it is important to answer without resort to dogma, if the real obstacles are to be understood. Eco-compatible capitalism is conceivable in theory, but unrealistic in practice. Capitalism would require a high level of regulation to bring about the reduction of our ecological f ootprint. T he market system, dominated by huge multinational corporations, will never set of f down the virtuous path of eco-capitalism of its own accord. Mechanisms f or countering power with power, as existed under the Keynes-Fordist regulations of the SocialDemocratic era, are conceivable and desirable. But the class struggle seems to have broken down. T he problem is: capital won. A society based on economic contraction cannot exist under capitalism. But capitalism is a deceptively simple word f or a long, complex history. Getting rid of the capitalists and banning wage labour, currency and private

ownership of the means of production would plunge society into chaos. It would bring large-scale terrorism.We need to f ind another way out of development, economism (a belief in the primacy of economic causes and f actors) and growth: one that does not mean f orsaking the social institutions that have been annexed by the economy (currency, markets, even wages) but ref rames them according to dif f erent principles.9 In this seemingly pragmatic, non-dogmatic f ashion, Latouche tries to draw a distinction between the degrowth project and the socialist critique of capitalism by: (1) declaring that eco-compatible capitalism is conceivable at least in theory; (2) suggesting that Keynesian and so-called Fordist approaches to regulation, associated with social democracy, couldif still f easibletame capitalism, pushing it down the virtuous path of ecocapitalism; and (3) insisting that degrowth is not aimed at breaking the dialectic of capital-wage labor or interf ering with private ownership of the means of production. In other writings, Latouche makes it clear that he sees the degrowth project as compatible with continued valorization (i.e., augmentation of capitalist value relations) and that anything approaching substantive equality is considered beyond reach.10 What Latouche advocates most explicitly in relation to the environmental problem is the adoption of what he ref ers to as ref ormist measures, whose principles [of welf are economics] were outlined in the early 20th century by the liberal economist Arthur Cecil Pigou [and] would bring about a revolution by internalizing the environmental externalities of the capitalist economy.11 Ironically, this stance is identical with that of neoclassical environmental economicswhile distinguished f rom the more radical critique of ten promoted by ecological economics, where the notion that environmental costs can simply be internalized within the presentday capitalist economy is sharply attacked.12 T he ecological crisis itself is mentioned in the current degrowth project, as Greek philosopher Takis Fotopoulos has critically observed, in terms of a common problem that humanity f aces because of the degradation of the environment, with no mention at all of the dif f erentiated class implications of this crisis, i.e., of the f act that the economic and social implications of the ecological crisis are primarily paid in terms of the destruction of lives and livelihood of the lower social groupseither in Bangladesh or in New Orleansand much less in terms of those of the elites and the middle classes.13 Given that it makes the abstract concept of economic growth its target, rather than the concrete reality of capital accumulation, degrowth theoryin the inf luential f orm articulated by Latouche and othersnaturally f aces dif f iculty conf ronting todays reality of economic crisis/stagnation, which has produced unemployment levels and economic devastation greater than at any time since the 1930s. Latouche himself wrote in 2003 that there would be nothing worse than a growth economy without growth.14 But, f aced with a capitalist economy caught in a deep structural crisis, European degrowth analysts have little to say. T he Barcelona Degrowth Declaration simply pronounced: [S]o-called anti-crisis measures that seek to boost economic growth will worsen inequalities and environmental conditions in the long-run.15 Neither wishing to advocate growth, nor to break with the institutions of capitalnor, indeed, to align themselves with workers, whose greatest need at present is employmentleading degrowth theorists remain strangely silent in the f ace of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. To be sure, when f aced with actual degrowth in the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the need f or a transition to sustainable degrowth, noted ecological economist Joan Martinez-Alier, who has recently taken up the degrowth banner, of f ered the palliative of a short-run Green Keynesianism or a Green New Deal. T he goal, he said, was to promote economic growth and contain the rise in unemployment through public investment in green technology and inf rastructure. T his was viewed as consistent with the degrowth project, as long as such Green Keynesianism did not become a doctrine of continuous economic growth.16 Yet how working people were to f it into this largely technological strategy (predicated on ideas of energy ef f iciency that degrowth analysts generally reject) was lef t uncertain. Indeed, rather than dealing with the unemployment problem directlythrough a radical program that would give people jobs aimed at the creation of genuine use values in ways compatible with a more sustainable society

degrowth theorists pref er to emphasize shorter working hours, and separate the right to receive remuneration f rom the f act of being employed (by means of the promotion of a universal basic income). Such changes are supposed to allow the economic system to shrink and, at the same time, guarantee income to f amiliesall the while keeping the underlying structure of capital accumulation and markets intact. Yet, looked at f rom a more critical standpoint, it is hard to see the viability of shorter work hours and basic income guarantees on the scale suggested other than as elements in a transition to a post-capitalist (indeed socialist) society. As Marx said, the rule f or capital is: Accumulate, accumulate! T hat is Moses and the prophets!17 To break with capitalisms institutional basis of the law of value, or to question the structure underpinning the exploitation of labor (both of which would be threatened by a sharp reduction of working hours and substantial income guarantees) is to raise larger questions of system changeones that leading degrowth theorists seem unwilling to acknowledge at present. Moreover, a meaningf ul approach to the creation of a new society would have to provide not merely income and leisure, but would also need to address the human need f or usef ul, creative, non-alienated work. Even more problematic is the attitude of much of current degrowth theory toward the global South. Degrowth, Latouche writes, must apply to the South as much as to the North if there is to be any chance to stop Southern societies f rom rushing up the blind alley of growth economics. Where there is still time, they should aim not f or development but f or disentanglementremoving the obstacles that prevent them f rom developing dif f erently.Southern countries need to escape their economic and cultural dependence on the North and rediscover their own historiesinterrupted by colonialism, development and globalizationto establish distinct indigenous cultural identities.Insisting on growth in the South, as though it were the only way out of the misery that growth created, can only lead to f urther westernization.18 Lacking an adequate theory of imperialism, and f ailing to address the vast chasm of inequality separating the richest f rom the poorest nations, Latouche thus reduces the whole immense problem of underdevelopment to one of cultural autonomy and subjection to a Westernized growth f etish. T his can be compared to the much more reasoned response of Herman Daly, who writes, It is absolutely a waste of time as well as morally backward to preach steady-state doctrines to underdeveloped countries bef ore the overdeveloped countries have taken any measure to reduce either their own population growth or the growth of their per-capita resource consumption. T heref ore, the steady-state paradigm must f irst be applied in the overdeveloped countries.One of the major f orces necessary to push the overdeveloped countries toward asteady-state paradigm must be T hird World outrage at their overconsumption.T he starting point in development economics should be the impossibility theoremthat a U.S.-style high mass consumption economy f or a world of 4 billion people is impossible, and even if by some miracle it could be achieved, it would certainly be short-lived.19 T he notion that degrowth as a concept can be applied in essentially the same way both to the wealthy countries of the center and the poor countries of the periphery represents a category mistake resulting f rom the crude imposition of an abstraction (degrowth) on a context in which it is essentially meaningless, e.g., Haiti, Mali, or even, in many ways, India. T he real problem in the global periphery is overcoming imperial linkages, transf orming the existing mode of production, and creating sustainable-egalitarian productive possibilities. It is clear that many countries in the South with very low per capita incomes cannot af f ord degrowth but could use a kind of sustainable development, directed at real needs such as access to water, f ood, health care, education, etc. T his requires a radical shif t in social structure away f rom the relations of production of capitalism/imperialism. It is telling that in Latouches widely circulated articles there is virtually no mention of those countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, where concrete struggles are being waged to shif t social priorities f rom prof it to social needs. Cuba, as the Living Planet Report has indicated, is the only country on Earth with high human development and a sustainable ecological f ootprint.20

It is undeniable today that economic growth is the main driver of planetary ecological degradation. But to pin ones whole analysis on overturning an abstract growth society is to lose all historical perspective and discard centuries of social science. As valuable as the degrowth concept is in an ecological sense, it can only take on genuine meaning as part of a critique of capital accumulation and part of the transition to a sustainable, egalitarian, communal order; one in which the associated producers govern the metabolic relation between nature and society in the interest of successive generations and the earth itself (socialism/communism as Marx def ined it).21 What is needed is a co-revolutionary movement, to adopt David Harveys pregnant term, that will bring together the traditional working-class critique of capital, the critique of imperialism, the critiques of patriarchy and racism, and the critique of ecologically destructive growth (along with their respective mass movements).22 In the generalized crisis of our times, such an overarching, co-revolutionary movement is conceivable. Here, the object would be the creation of a new order in which the valorization of capital would no longer govern society. Socialism is usef ul, E.F. Schumacher wrote in Small is Beautiful, precisely because of the possibility it creates f or the overcoming of the religion of economics, that is, the modern trend towards total quantif ication at the expense of the appreciation of qualitative dif f erences.23 In a sustainable order, people in the wealthier economies (especially those in the upper income strata) would have to learn to live on less in commodity terms in order to lower per capita demands on the environment. At the same time, the satisf action of genuine human needs and the requirements of ecological sustainability could become the constitutive principles of a new, more communal order aimed at human reciprocity, allowing f or qualitative improvement, even plenitude.24 Such a strategynot dominated by blind productivismis consistent with providing people with worthwhile work. T he ecological struggle, understood in these terms, must aim not merely f or degrowth in the abstract but more concretely f or deaccumulationa transition away f rom a system geared to the accumulation of capital without end. In its place we need to construct a new corevolutionary society, dedicated to the common needs of humanity and the earth. Notes 1. James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), ix. 2. See Johan Rckstrom, et al., A Saf e Operating Space f or Humanity, Nature 461 (September 2009): 472-75; John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, The Ecological Rift (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 13-19. 3. Donella Meadows, Dennis H. Meadows, Jrgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Romes Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972). 4. What is Degrowth? http://degrowth.eu. 5. See John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, Capitalism and the Curse of Energy Ef f iciency, Monthly Review 62, no. 6 (November 2010): 1-12. 6. Paul M. Sweezy, Capitalism and the Environment, Monthly Review 41, no. 2 (June 1989): 6. 7. Herman E. Daly, Beyond Growth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 3-4; John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1904), 452-55; Lewis Mumf ord, The Condition of Man (New York: Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich, 1973), 411-12; Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971). 8. Herman E. Daly, Steady-State Economics (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991), 17. 9. Serge Latouche, T he Globe Downshif ted, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), January 13, 2006, http:mondediplo.com.

10. Serge Latouche, Would the West Actually be Happier with Less?: T he World Downscales, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), December 12, 2003, http://mondediplo.com and Can Democracy Solve All Problems? International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 1, no. 3 (May 2005): 5, http://inclusivedemocracy.org. 11. Latouche, T he Globe Downshif ted. 12. See, f or example, Martin OConnor, T he Misadventures of Capitalist Nature, in Martin OConnor, ed., Is Capitalism Sustainable? (New York: Guilf ord Press, 1994), 126-33. 13. Takis Fotopoulos, Is Degrowth Compatible with a Market Economy? The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy 3, no. 1 (January 2007), http://inclusivedemocracy.org. 14. Latouche, Would the West Actually be Happier with Less? 15. Degrowth Declaration Barcelona 2010, Second International Conf erence on Economic Degrowth f or Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, March 28-29, 2010, Barcelona, http://degrowth.eu. 16. Joan Martinez-Alier, Herman Daly Festschrif t: Socially Sustainable Economic Degrowth, October 9, 2009, http://eoearth.org. 17. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1976), 742. 18. Serge Latouche, Degrowth Economics, Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition), November 2004, http://mondediplo.com. 19. Daly, Steady-State Economics, 148-49. 20. World Wildlif e Fund, Living Planet Report, 2006, http://panda.org. 21. See John Bellamy Foster, Marxs Ecology (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 163-70. 22. David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital (New York: Oxf ord University Press, 2010), 228-35. 23. E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 254-55. 24. On the concept of plenitude, see Juliet Schor, Plenitude (New York: Penguin, 2010); Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift, 397-99.