A group of 18 European Parliament Members have issued a statement officially calling for #Degrowth.
Here is part of what they wrote...
We believe that the current economic model, based on endless growth, has reached its limits.
Firstly, continuous economic growth, especially based on the consumption of fossil fuels, is leading to catastrophic global warming.
Secondly, the infinite pursuit of growth relies on the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of biodiversity, and the accumulation of waste and pollution. This also poses risks to our health, our economies, and our societies writ large.
Thirdly, the current economic model is contributing to social inequality and exclusion. The emphasis on economic growth has not translated into equal distribution of wealth or opportunities. Instead, it has resulted in a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few leaving many behind.
Fourthly, the current economic model is inherently unstable and prone to crises, as seen, for example, during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pursuit of growth at all costs has created a global economic system that is fragile and vulnerable to shocks.
We need an economic system that prioritises human well-being and ecological sustainability over GDP growth, one that recognises that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.
We also believe we need to find new ways of organising our economies without relying on the continuous exploitation of resources and the constant increase in production and consumption.
We call for more pluralism in economic thinking within EU institutions and for its alignment with the scientific evidence of climate, ecological, and social sciences.
We call for economic models and other decision-support tools to be more diverse, more comprehensive, and more readable for citizens.
We call for decision-making processes to be aligned with our common policy objectives rather than on the basis of the variation of GDP figures.
Names of those who signed on as co-authors: Philippe Lamberts (BE), Bas Eickhout (NL), Ville Niinisto (FI), Manuela Ripa (DE), Marie Toussaint (FR), Ernest Urtasun (ES), Kim Van Sparrentak (NL) — Greens/EFA; Manon Aubry (FR), Petros Kokkalis (EL), Marisa Matias (PT), Helmut Scholz (DE) — The Left (GUE/NGL); Pascal Durand (FR), Aurore Lalucq (FR), Pierre Larrouturou (FR) — Socialists & Democrats (S&D); Sirpa Pietikainen (FI), Maria Walsh (IE) — European People’s Party (EPP); Katalin CSEH (HU) — Renew Europe (RE); and Dino GIARRUSSO (IT) — Non-attached (NI).
Prof. Julia Steinberger reports
that for 3 full days the EU parliament hosted thousands of scientists, activists and policy-makers charting a future beyond growth, but says every single journalist there she spoke to said, "my editor refuses to print any story critical of economic growth."
She is asking people to spread the word about this. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1659429887751405569.html #degrowth#beyondgrowth
Humble request: do you know of any real life experience of post-capitalist economies, even partial ones? Local currencies? Cooperative models? Community land trusts? Priority given to resilience over efficiency? #solarpunk economies? There are a few usual suspects (Mondragon, Cooperativa Integral Catalana, Transition Network...), but I struggle to find long lists of cases. Boost appreciated @g_kallis@jks@jasonhickel#postcapitalism#economics#degrowth#postgrowth
Americanos are pissed that they can't have bananas year round if #degrowth/ #communism/ #anarchy happens. Banana availability has its roots in imperialism, destructive monocropping, and grueling agricultural labor/slavery.
We literally have a word for client states of #imperialism for the export of bananas: banana republic. Banana imports to the West is drenched in the blood of thousands massacred for your God damn commodities. In the #Philippines, companies told this instruction to banana worker syndicalists: “turn them into fertilizers for the bananas.”
On top of that is the steep ecological and carbon costs to actually shipping the damn things. Do you really need bananas year round?
There's also the problem of monocropping which destroys the biodiversity of forests to make way for plantations, even if we discount the slave labor. Monocropping has made Cavendish plantations at high risk of diseases. It could very well be that Cavendishes would become an endangered species just like the Gros Michel after nature erases its scourge. Maybe the extinction of the Cavendish is already a matter of time, rendering banana disocorse moot.
Americanos just don't understand that in a liberated world, maybe people won't be breaking their backs for some Americano to get their god damn banana. Of course degrowth/communism/anarchism means that relations to luxuries will change.
Besides, Cavendishes suck. They literally taste terrible. Y'all seriously live like this? Lakatan, Señorita, and Sabah tastes way better. Yeah, they can't be exported, boohoo. Not everything has to be a commodity, much less to please some Americano half a world away.
If you'd like to learn more about #degrowth, especially the theoretical underpinnings of the idea and its relation to #anarchism, I recommend reading the in-depth blog article linked below.
Here is a brief bit from the beginning...
The concept of degrowth is really quite simple. It is, at its core, just the reduction of society’s overall metabolism to a level consistent with biospheric boundaries through pathways that prioritize societal well-being. That’s really it.
It is not austerity, recession, or eco-fascist population reduction. In fact, it’s a shift away from the current orthodox socio-economic worldview to one where those descriptors don’t even really make sense because the evaluation of societal well-being has fundamentally changed.
#Degrowth#Capitalism: "Degrowth does not call for all forms of production to be reduced. Rather, it calls for reducing ecologically destructive and socially less necessary forms of production, like sport utility vehicles, private jets, mansions, fast fashion, arms, industrial beef, cruises, commercial air travel, etc., while cutting advertising, extending product lifespans (banning planned obsolescence and introducing mandatory long-term warranties and rights to repair), and dramatically reducing the purchasing power of the rich. In other words, it targets forms of production that are organized mostly around capital accumulation and elite consumption. In the middle of an ecological emergency, should we be producing sport utility vehicles and mansions? Should we be diverting energy to support the obscene consumption and accumulation of the ruling class? No. That is an irrationality that only capitalism can love."
Radically Open Security, the nonprofit computer security company donates 90% of its profits to NLnet. Today @ros turned 10 years old and crossed the magical number of 1 million euro in donations to NLnet.
Happy birthday ROS! And thanks a million :-).
We interviewed ROS co-founder and CEO Melanie Rieback to learn why she decided to give the company such an unusual business model.
Don't ever let anyone tell you we don't have enough money to fight climate change, or to reduce income inequality, or to begin the shift toward degrowth.
The money is there. It's just being spent in all the wrong ways and all the wrong places...
Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels, farming, and fishing are causing “environmental havoc,” according to the World Bank, severely harming people and the planet.
Many countries spend more on harmful subsidies than they do on health, education, or poverty reduction, the bank says, and the subsidies are entrenched and hard to reform as the greatest beneficiaries tend to be rich and powerful.
In 2021, UN agencies reported that almost 90% of agricultural subsidies harmed people’s health and the climate, and drove inequality, while the IMF found that trillions of dollars of fossil fuel subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis at a time when rapid cuts in carbon emissions were needed.
Fossil fuels are “vastly underpriced,” the report says, while subsidy reforms “save lives.” Pollution from fossil fuels causes 8.7 million deaths a year, according to a 2021 study, one in five of all deaths globally.
Subsidies for agriculture are “unequal and unwise,” the report says. “Not only do these subsidies promote inefficiencies, but they also cause much environmental havoc.” The report found that subsidized fertilizer caused so much overuse in some regions that it reduced crop yields, while also causing huge nitrogen pollution.
It also found farm subsidies were responsible for the destruction of 5.4 million acres of forest a year, about 14% of global deforestation, which leads to almost 4 million extra cases of malaria a year. Fishing subsidies amount to about $118 billion a year and are a key factor in the over-exploitation of marine life, which has sent the oceans into “a collective state of crisis,” according to the report.
The report says government subsidies today make up an “enormous share of public budgets worldwide, perhaps larger than at any point in human history.”
It's a vicious cycle between Big Oil, Big Ag, and Big Government, with money going round and round and round. That cycle must be broken.
Capitalism got us into this mess. Capitalism cannot get us out of this mess. We need system change NOW.
So I started reading "Degrowth in the suburbs. A radical urban imaginary", a book I came across when watching one of of the Happen Films productions. It's a rather heavy and academic book tackling the issues of #degrowth, #energydescent and how the suburbs will need to change in the post-fossil-fuels and postcarbon future. A fascinating read that I highly recommend, and I will be posting excerpts from it in this thread.
Is this approach simply too radical to be considered?
"Reducing Consumption: The Unpopular Answer To Global Crises"
Most of the proposed solutions to civilizational collapse assume stable geopolitical environments and access to large amounts of capital and resources. However, they fail to address the heart of the matter, which is ever-rising consumption. Dramatically reducing consumption is not included in these plans, except by a few advocating for degrowth.
Degrowth, or negative growth, means less consumption of stuff and energy over time. Achieving a steady-state economy with lower consumption levels is essential. Either we plan for it and execute a plan that takes us down to a fraction of what we consume today, or nature will force us into a steady-state level of consumption, possibly even lower than planned.
Reducing consumption is the unpopular but necessary answer to global crises. It requires rethinking our current way of life and acting in ways that prioritize sustainability and long-term stability.
The question I posed above was obviously rhetorical. But you and I know the answer.
Reducing consumption is not just too radical for consideration in our capitalist culture, it's totally unthinkable. Because lowered consumption would mean less economic growth or no growth at all, and we can't have that!!!
I critically examine the geopolitics of planetary environmental injustice, climate breakdown & economic growth. By centering Global South perspectives, prevailing ideologies promoting hyperconsumption, overproduction & waste are critically interrogated. #climatechange#climatecrisis#degrowth
Are you a #degrowth enthusiast or simply someone that is looking for an alternative economy, and also happen to love graphic novels?
Maybe you also like creative commons indie projects?
So maybe you might consider backing this amazing nice comic featuring Degrowth All Stars.
The perfect present for your skeptic neoliberal friend who screams in agony when you point out to them that infinite growth on a finite planet cannot happen.
'Economic growth is appealing because of its simplicity. It dismisses the complexity of justice, equality and sustainability by converting everything into a single economic value and concentrating only on its increase. In this sense, abandoning the gross domestic product as the measure of social progress is a prerequisite for addressing solutions to structural problems that have been marginalized under the growth imperative. This is what #degrowth calls for.'
I didn't expect the #degrowth tag to have such a high proportion of posts arguing against it. Or more often, taking potshots at straw-man versions. So here's a small corrective.
Capitalist growth will doom even its beneficiaries to a hostile future. We need degrowth at every scale, as soon as possible, by any means necessary. Use adblock, become a quiet quitter, eat less meat, sabotage a golf course, learn to compost. We owe this – and much more – to future generations of the living world.
Rotterdam!
Kris De Decker and I will be giving a workshop on building a Bike Generator workshop as part of #lowtechmagazine.
We will discuss energy production, low-voltage applications, hacking appliances and degrowth.
INFO
WHERE?
Huis van de Toekomst, Jan Kobellstraat 56a, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
WHEN?
WED 11 October (15:00-17:00)Introduction by Kris De Decker (in Dutch)
THU 12 October (10:00-17:00) → Workshop: build a bike generator with Low-tech Magazine (in Dutch)
FRI 13 October (14:00-19:00) → Workshop: build a bike generator with Low-tech Magazine (Dutch/English)
SAT 14 October (14:00-17:00) → Workshop: build a bike generator with Low-tech Magazine (Dutch/English)
TO PARTICIPATE
Just walk in or email: contact@huisvandetoekomst.org
(No prior technical knowledge required, everyone is welcome and admission is free)