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Downscaling of Economic System
The book under review is an ensemble of a variety of “keywords” that are deployed for constructing “counter-hegemonic narratives” of economic growth. These alternatives represent a corpus, deliberately termed as degrowth—instead of a-growth.1 Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era is more of an overview, it is less of an encyclopaedia, and certainly not a dictionary. It tries to explain and interrelate the concepts used in degrowth literature.
The central connecting thread in derowth literature holds economic growth responsible for stagnation, impoverishment, inequality, socioecological disaster, pollution and alienation from means of livelihood— or, in short, the econo-socio-ecological crisis faced by the humanity. One of its most prominent interpretations, from ecological economists, calls for downscaling the economic system.
Question of Economic Growth
The concept of economic growth has been debated in the past two and half centuries. The debate has not just been about economic aspects but has also covered social, ecological, environmental and political thought. Several questions have been asked. What is the purpose of economic growth? How to increase its rate? How to sustain it? Are there limits to it? Different strands of thought within degrowth, by definition, reject the very validity of these questions. They, instead, explore “radical and critical” alternatives to growth.
As Fabrice Flipo and François Schneider, founders and members of “Research and Degrowth” collective, put it in the Foreword of this volume “building a society based on the frugality, sharing and conviviality in the West has ‘economic degrowth’ as its fulcrum.” In the process, thinkers and practitioners alike, as the contributors in the book, challenge, contest and critique hegemony of economics as a discipline, policy science and even as a system of thought. This contest takes place at conceptual, methodical and theoretical levels.
For instance, in the very first sentence, the book declares that “[d]egrowth is a rejection of the illusion of growth and a call to repoliticise the public debate colonised by the idiom of economism.” Elsewhere, the neoclassical variety is critiqued for its “narrow vision.” The heterodox stream is also criticised for its long- held beliefs in demand stimulus or tax reforms. One can safely conclude that appropriateness, applicability or action vis-á-vis degrowth, or whichever name it be called, is restricted to the societies that do not face demand constraint. In fact, the editors restrict the controversial matter of applicability of degrowth in the Global South to just one paragraph.
The book is divided into four parts besides a meticulous introduction to degrowth and an epilogue. The first part, titled “Lines of Thought,” captures the various lines or schools of thought that have influenced degrowth traversing from conceptual and theoretical such as bio-economics and steady state economics to processes and practices like critique of development and anti-utilitarianism. The second part, titled “The Core,” deliberates on a variety of concepts and systems such as entropy and capitalism to processes and schools of thought such as depoliticisation and neo-Malthusians vis-à-vis various strands within the degrowth movement. Part three, titled “The Action,” deals with the diverse concepts, principles, slogans, and practices around which degrowth movement has thrived, such as disobedience, cooperatives, work-sharing, and post-normal science. The final part, titled “Alliances,” explores the possibilities of linking with other similar counter-hegemonic positions, practices, and movements around the world, such as feminist economics, economy of permanence, buen vivir (good living) and ubuntu.
The more than 50 contributors to this volume, besides the three editors, belong to different disciplines, schools of thought and walks of life, with more than one-fourth connected to the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Autonomous University of Barcelona. Except the very few from Global South and southern hemisphere, the contributors belong to the Global North, if not predominantly Europe.
What Is Degrowth?
Multiple interpretations of degrowth are spread across the length and breadth of the book, which the editors consider as a strength. Degrowth “expresses an aspiration” which cannot be captured in single sentence, like freedom of justice (p xxi); it is a “frame” for convergence of different lines of thought, practices, imaginations (p 4); it “signals a radical critique of society” (p xxv), a “revolutionary idea” (p xxv) and “a deliberatively subversive slogan” (p 5); it is a “desired direction where societies will use fewer natural resources apart from organising and living differently” (p 3); it imagines a society with a smaller and different metabolism to serve new functions (p 4); it “is an expression of Gandhian economic thought in the West […] from an Indian perspective” (p 207). There are several other explanations.
The editors put the most idealist pronouncement:
In a degrowth society everything will be different: different activities, different forms and uses of energy, different relations, different gender roles, different allocations of time between paid and non-paid work, different relations with the non-human world (p 4).
Keywords
The justifiably lengthy introduction links degrowth with the other “keywords.” Most of the entries in the first two parts also make an attempt to link the “keyword” in question with degrowth. Some do it remarkably, like bioeconomics, critiques of development, currents of environmentalism, societal metabolism, political ecology, capitalism, care, dépense, depoliticisation, gross domestic product (GDP), happiness, decolonisation of imaginary, Jevon’s paradox, neo-Malthusians, simplicity, and social limits of growth. Some others fail on this count, like environmental justice, steady state economics, autonomy. Some like anti-utilitarianism, commodification, commodity frontiers, commons, conviviality, dematerialisation, entropy and emergy establish a stronger relation with growth, instead of degrowth. Some like pedagogy of disaster and peak oil do neither.
The introduction traces the history of degrowth as a term, from 1972, the year of much debated Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome report (Meadows et al 1972). In contrast to the focus on resource limits during its first phase in the 1970s, the second phase from 2001 concentrated on critiquing the myths of win-win solutions offered by “sustainable development.” Five elements of degrowth literature are discussed at length. The first, The Limits to Growth, captures not just the biophysical elements, but also the unjust elements of growth vis-á-vis gender and indigenous peoples, apart from its inability in generating happiness.
The next section, “Degrowth and Autonomy,” emphasises the importance of tools that are “understandable, manageable and controllable” by their users apart from collective self-limitations. The third section, “Degrowth as Repoliticisation,” addresses the damage that the myth of sustainable development has created by reducing the “core contemporary dilemma” to just a search for technocratic solutions.
Though the volume does emphasise that degrowth “signifies a transition beyond capitalism” (p 11) and rejects a “greening” growth or green capitalism, the entries on “anti-utilitarianism and capitalism” rightly represent the unease that degrowth protagonists face on “whether expansion is a necessary or contingent (hence modifiable) feature of capitalism” (p 60).
The book’s final section, “The Degrowth Transition” provides a commentary on various grass-roots practices (back-to-the-landers), “welfare institutions” (job guarantee, work sharing), alternative institutions for money and credit (community currencies, cooperatives). It also discusses the debate over the politics and political strategies in degrowth literature on bringing about the alternative institutions instilled with “values of degrowth,” which are expected to replace the “current institutions of capitalism” (p 14). This is rather strange, given the tense relationship between degrowth and capitalism. Replacement of institutions that represent capitalism calls for replacing capitalism itself—it is a historically specific mode of economic and social organisation that drives on the logic of accumulation or expanded reproduction. Pitching degrowth, in its present state and form, as a replacement, is premature, if not overtly ambitious. Perhaps the editors are aware of the limitation, and place the “Degrowth Vocabulary” as the “raw material” for “new imaginaries.”
The entries in this well-designed collection are not meant to be encyclopaedic. Indeed, most of them are not even introductory. Some provide a “deeper” take—in particular, those on care, capitalism, conviviality, critiques of development, depoliticisation, decolonisation of imaginary, political ecology, societal metabolism, and social limits of growth. The editors’ brief to the authors was to write “as simply as possible” (p xxi) so that lack of knowledge on the previous debate and terminology does not stop anyone from reading an entry. But the editors also asked the authors to write without compromising on rigour. The end result is mixed: some of the entries are not only exhaustive yet concise enough to capture the essential elements within the limited space, while some others lack depth, imagination, if not correct understanding of the terms of reference. Entries on anti-utilitarianism, bioeconomics, commodity frontiers, commons, conviviality, dematerialisation, dépense, entropy, emergy, GDP, neo-Malthusians, peak oil, and simplicity—besides those mentioned earlier in this paragraph—are explained in a comprehensive manner. But the volume is out of depth on environmental justice, currents of environmentalism, steady state economics, autonomy, happiness and Jevon’s paradox.
Conclusions
Much to its credit, this volume introduces a host of non-English literature (and authors) to English-speaking audience. While the translation is not always perfect, the amount of labour involved is quite apparent. Kudos to the painstaking work of translators and editors, both on the publication and the academic fronts.
One may bring two matters to the attention of the editors. First, a growing movement which aspires to be counter-hegemonic may deliberate scrupulously before considering anything connected with Brahminism even at the conceptual level as the entry on anti-utilitarianism does. Second, the entry on GDP mentions that in 1991 gross national product was “quietly replaced” by GDP—one wonders by whom, why and how.
To conclude, this volume has brought together a valuable collection of entries against the most important “keywords,” knowledge of which is essential to understand degrowth. This is especially so because degrowth is sweeping a large number of European countries and making its presence felt in Latin America. In India, like in many other locations, degrowth is still a “missile word.” Quite obviously the debate is yet to pick up in academic arena, leave alone the policy space. The only event in India so far has been a symposium, “Growth, Green Growth or Degrowth? New Critical Directions for India’s Sustainability” organised by the Indian Society for Ecological Economics, National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies and TERI University in September 2014 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The organisers are bringing the papers together through an edited volume (Gerber and Raina forthcoming). Hope it can provide the necessary impetus to an Indian variant to degrowth. One can hardly disagree with the authors of the Foreword that one may “[l]ike or hate the term degrowth, [but] […] can’t deny that it opens up all sorts of debates that were previously closed.”
23 Comments on "Downscaling of Economic System"
Davy on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 6:35 pm
This post contains many good topics that society needs to be engaged in. Unfortunately these topics are out of reach of many due to the specialization of this field. Nonetheless we need these topics out being digested across the board. Those who can understand should translate and educate those who can’t.
Degrowth implies control with a plan B. We have neither at the top. It requires scale of place and time. In that respect at the local and personal it has validity.
We have reached a systematic break point range. This position is not balanced in regards to consumption or population. It is all inclusive with the spheres of the human and nature.
If you want to talk about economic and social reforms fine but discuss them within this macro predicament of an ongoing process of collapse together with an approaching break point.
We have very little time. Decisions good or bad at this point have amplified significance. We are close to something that is not status quo. It will almost certainly be ugly and painful. We can make it worse or better at all levels. You can make a difference personally and locally. I am afraid fate will decide the top.
makati1 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 8:22 pm
How many book sales pitches are we expected to actually read here? Why buy a book about some other persons dream if you are not totally prepped for the future? I have a few books in my library that were obsolete the day they went to print.
No more such books were added when I realized that it was a waste of my limited resources. Instead, I buy books that will help my extended family and friends to gain skills, stay healthy and keep educated over the generations to come. And, I buy second hand when I can.
Plus a nice SF novel library for my entertainment and less mobile years, of course. All true SF authors like Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, Niven, etc. and a bit of Tolkien, Delany and McCaffrey for variety. Not today’s fluffy crap.
ghung on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:21 pm
“Downscaling”, “de-growth”, “contraction” or “collapse”, whatever you call it, it’s a game of musical chairs with a growing number of players; fewer chairs.
apneaman on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:42 pm
The Search for the Crash of 2015
“Taken by itself, this could be called business as usual. But there are many other red warning lights flashing and klaxons sounding that tell us things in the markets are far from “usual.”
The pace of mergers and acquisitions, an emergency substitute for actual profits and growth, is frenzied — the fastest since Just Before the Last Recession in 2007 (hereafter JBLR).
Similarly, stock buybacks –an artificial means of raising or maintaining dividends in hard times — are bigger and more frequent than JBLR.
Declines in corporate sales and earnings are worse, and have been for longer, than JBLR.
Junk bonds are crashing now, just like they did JBLR.
Corporate debt defaults have increased to a level not seen since JBLR, on debt that has doubled since then.
Money velocity — the rate at which dollars change hands in the economy — is the lowest ever recorded, including at the depths of the last recession.
Manufacturing in the US is contracting faster than JBLR.
Unsold goods are piling up in stores and warehouses at a rate not seen since JBLR.
All of which goes to show that the US stock market is charging along, not like a bull on a tear, but like Wile E. Coyote just off the edge of a cliff: his legs are still churning, but there’s nothing under them, and as soon as he looks down it will be all over but the splat.
In the larger world, the precursors that ushered us into the financial firestorm of 2007-08 and 09 are looming large again:
The crash of the stock markets in China and 26 other major countries means that virtually every trade and financial partner we have in the world is in trouble.
Global trade is freezing up. The movement of cargo by ship is at historic lows. Imports landing at America’s three busiest seaports during the height of the shipping season — September and October — were down by 10 per cent. Orders for new ships, rail cars and long-haul trucks are tanking everywhere.
Commodity prices as tracked by the Bloomberg Index are at a 16-year low, reflecting both the implosion of China’s overheated economy and the impoverishment of formerly middle-class consumers worldwide.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2015/12/07/the-search-for-the-crash-of-2015/
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 11:40 pm
Degrowth. Unretarded. Dethaw. Who thinks up this shit? Reminds me of the old saying ‘rearranging deck chairs on the titanic’. I’m sure all the migrant masses on foot to Europe and the victims of crisis cult ISIS are really digging the degrowth going on in Syria. Let’s go visit Detroit auto workers and see if degrowth is a mesmerizing experience.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 11:48 pm
And further more, I seriously doubt this book will open up any debates in the Retarded States of America. Most Folks in the RSofA can’t/don’t read and even if they did/could they’d probably read something stupid. This is the country that seems poised to elect Trump as President! Expecting them to embrace degrowth is the most non-unretarded idea imaginable. They’ll rip each other apart with their concealed carry before they learn a new word.
Davy on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 7:59 am
Welcome to the Crash…sorry I meant Christmas season. Happy Holidays
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-08/chain-store-sales-collapse-following-already-disappointing-black-friday
bug on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:08 am
Truth,as you explained, the retards will never “degrowth”, the mob will seeth at having less of the faux good life. Clubs, concealed, and bricks will all be the result.
Dredd on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:25 am
Struggles against doublespeak are worthwhile endeavors (The International Language: Doublespeak.gov).
penury on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 9:00 am
Waste of time. repeat after me. People have no money. The nations are bankrupt. Factories cannot manufacture what people cannot afford. It is not degrowth, it is a contraction of the entire society
Outcast_Searcher on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 11:30 am
Ah Davy. The voice of the short term economic doom distortion field.
From the zerohedge article you cite:
”
The Retail Economist-Goldman Sachs Chain Store Sales Index was down 6.3% week-over-week for the period ending December 5.
It appears that shoppers were sated after the hefty promotions offered in the prior week associated with Black Friday. There may also have been a drop off in brick-and-motor shopping activity while many on-line retailers were offering deals for Cyber Monday.”
So once you get beyond the headline, it’s a one week measurement, slanted to ignore the trend toward internet shopping, and away from the less efficient and less convenient chains.
So sure, let’s all run around in circles and panic, while we ignore things like the job growth numbers.
Davy on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 11:45 am
No panic here with Davy. Thanks for your concern.
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 12:58 pm
Outcast_Searcher, feel free to address the list of evidence of economic turmoil I posted earlier in this thread. Let me refresh your memory.
The Search for the Crash of 2015
“Taken by itself, this could be called business as usual. But there are many other red warning lights flashing and klaxons sounding that tell us things in the markets are far from “usual.”
The pace of mergers and acquisitions, an emergency substitute for actual profits and growth, is frenzied — the fastest since Just Before the Last Recession in 2007 (hereafter JBLR).
Similarly, stock buybacks –an artificial means of raising or maintaining dividends in hard times — are bigger and more frequent than JBLR.
Declines in corporate sales and earnings are worse, and have been for longer, than JBLR.
Junk bonds are crashing now, just like they did JBLR.
Corporate debt defaults have increased to a level not seen since JBLR, on debt that has doubled since then.
Money velocity — the rate at which dollars change hands in the economy — is the lowest ever recorded, including at the depths of the last recession.
Manufacturing in the US is contracting faster than JBLR.
Unsold goods are piling up in stores and warehouses at a rate not seen since JBLR.
All of which goes to show that the US stock market is charging along, not like a bull on a tear, but like Wile E. Coyote just off the edge of a cliff: his legs are still churning, but there’s nothing under them, and as soon as he looks down it will be all over but the splat.
In the larger world, the precursors that ushered us into the financial firestorm of 2007-08 and 09 are looming large again:
The crash of the stock markets in China and 26 other major countries means that virtually every trade and financial partner we have in the world is in trouble.
Global trade is freezing up. The movement of cargo by ship is at historic lows. Imports landing at America’s three busiest seaports during the height of the shipping season —
September and October — were down by 10 per cent. Orders for new ships, rail cars and long-haul trucks are tanking everywhere.
Commodity prices as tracked by the Bloomberg Index are at a 16-year low, reflecting both the implosion of China’s overheated economy and the impoverishment of formerly middle-class consumers worldwide.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2015/12/07/the-search-for-the-crash-of-2015/
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 1:02 pm
Outcast_Searcher, why not talk about the stats the no economist, nor the government wants anything to do with. I think they are a pretty good indicator of the lack of economic opportunities for non 1%ers.
White, Middle-Age Suicide In America Skyrockets
White, middle-age suicide spiked 40% in the last 10 years. Why?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201305/white-middle-age-suicide-in-america-skyrockets
Suicide rate in Alberta leaps 30% in wake of mass oilpatch layoffs
‘It says something really about the horrible human impact of what’s happening in the economy,’ counsellor says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suicide-rate-alberta-increase-layoffs-1.3353662
twocats on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 3:20 pm
I mean, we still have a tremendous amount of resources (as a planet) and technological know-how. We would, even as a non-panic “wouldn’t that be fun” start a half-dozen “transition towns”, basically put in the capital to have a VARIETY of experimental arrangements, set up houses, factories, farming, recycling, renewable energy, some limited industrial and even mining of the local area. How close to local could a town become with even a semblance of our modern ammenities? 30%? 60%? I mean, does anyone even know? I guess power generation would be the key, if they are not supplying all their own power then that means somewhere a war is being fought to sustain them.
twocats on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 3:21 pm
*I said “we would” I meant “we could”.
Davy on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 4:03 pm
Two Cats, a good place to start is the Amish. You really have to center the activity around food production and build from there. There are many different variants so the model would very by what type of food is grown. We could even include food prep operations, brewery towns for example. The key is the common denominator of food then the towns would evolve out from that core activity.
claman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 4:13 pm
Twocats, I guess you are european. Your optimistic attitude sounds like you are scandinavian.
A lot of the guys here are deeply desillusional old hippies that don’t believe in in anything good coming from society at all, and they may be right from an american point of view.
They just don’t know that northwestern europe is about to change in a very significant way.
We won’t have people here that don’t like us. If people don’t like our society, they will be asked to go.
Twocats, That’s the way we will have to go
ghung on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 5:09 pm
claman said; “A lot of the guys here are deeply desillusional old hippies that don’t believe in in anything good coming from society at all….”
Yeah. That would be me; “desillusional”. Not sure about the “hippy” part though. Trying to figure out who here fits that bill.
As for “…don’t believe in in anything good coming from society at all…”, seems like an absolutist statement to me. The problem some of you have is you’ve lived fairly sheltered lives; essentially been nowhere, done nothing much. Some of us have seen first hand what goes down in many seemingly functional societies when things go to shit. I could give you a list, but I don’t see the point. Won’t change anything.
Suffice it to say that people who’ve lived relatively well for generations don’t react well when that lifestyle gets threatened or snatched away. Maybe some of you can point to the many societies that underwent a severe contraction in a managed and orderly way; came together to the benefit of all. I’ll be interested in listening to that history.
makati1 on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 8:25 pm
claman, Europe is going to be deeply involved in a war with Russia soon, if you keep kissing the American ass. Then all your preps will not matter as there will be nothing left after the nukes but dying. Fast or slow, but dying.
If you didn’t grow up in the “duck and cover” world of the 50s and 60s, you have no idea how close nuclear war is now. And Putin said that “…if you cannot avoid a fight, strike first.” If Russia is pushed too hard into a corner, a first strike is on the table. Europe first in minutes. The US only minutes later or perhaps at the same time if Russian subs do the launching.
But, keep dreaming of some ‘transition’ if it makes you happy. Us “old hippies” have been around and seen it all. Our life perspective is better than those whose lives have been too short to really experience the real world and who depend on government propaganda for their ‘news’.
makati1 on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 9:11 pm
Claman, are they ‘practicing’ for future events closer to home or off the coasts of America?
http://www.defensenews.com/story/breaking-news/2015/12/08/submarine-russia-kalibr-caliber-cruise-missile-syria-kilo/76995346/
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 9:30 pm
Claman, are you downstream from any Norwegian rivers? Keep an eye out for flotsam and jetsam.
Norway: Houses washed away as severe floods batter parts of country
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/norway-houses-washed-away-severe-floods-batter-parts-country-1532211
makati1 on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 9:55 pm
BTW; Who needs Fukushima when you have it in your own water supply…lol.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_URANIUM_IN_THE_WATER_CAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
“…Uranium, the stuff of nuclear fuel for power plants and atom bombs, increasingly is showing in drinking water systems in major farming regions of the U.S. West – a naturally occurring but unexpected byproduct of irrigation, of drought, and of the overpumping of natural underground water reserves … More broadly, nearly 2 million people in California’s Central Valley and in the U.S. Midwest live within a half-mile of groundwater containing uranium over the safety standards, University of Nebraska researchers said in a study published in September..”
Do you know what you are drinking?