My understanding is that “degrowth” is not a coherent ideology, per se, so much as a cluster of vaguely related ideas.
So, while, yes, many people under this very large umbrella skew Malthusian (with or without the eugenics), other tendencies such as so-called “solarpunk” focus instead on technological solutions to environmental degradation.
And a significant portion of people you might label as “degrowth” focus on overconsumption as intentional waste serving the purpose of extracting profit. See, for instance, “fast fashion”, which produces overpriced garments with poor workmanship and durability, while using much the same resources (and labor exploitation) as more sustainably produced equivalents.
In the case of “fast fashion”, the “degrowth” comes not from limiting people’s ability to clothe and express themselves but rather from improving production quality (by reducing labor exploitation) and pushing back against the class-based imperative to constantly appear in new styles of clothing.
In other words, a “degrowth” approach to “fast fashion” would tend to push back against the *spectacle* of fashion, not against the garment industry’s provision for human needs.
Similarly, people who want to reduce industrial-scale food waste are not inherently Malthusian. They aren’t encouraging people to eat less; they’re targeting the profit motive that leads to food being discarded rather than eaten. Sure, these people tend not to be Marxists, but then again *most* people aren’t Marxists, so that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wildly neoliberal instead.
Yes, I know this column is mostly discussing a single author relying on a dubious translation, but I honestly don’t care about this sort of literary exegesis.
Oh, and as for Russian and Chinese investments in industry and infrastructure and industry… these investments generally come with the same sort of sovereign-debt burden as anything from the World Bank or the IMF, so I struggle to see how they are somehow serving any anti-Capitalist intent.
This essay seems topical to you:
https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/degrowth-whats-in-a-name-assessing-degrowths-political-implications/
(It examines the breadth of conflicting ideologies that tend to get labeled as “degrowth”, i.e. how “degrowth” is not any one thing.)
My understanding is that “degrowth” is not a coherent ideology, per se, so much as a cluster of vaguely related ideas.
So, while, yes, many people under this very large umbrella skew Malthusian (with or without the eugenics), other tendencies such as so-called “solarpunk” focus instead on technological solutions to environmental degradation.
And a significant portion of people you might label as “degrowth” focus on overconsumption as intentional waste serving the purpose of extracting profit. See, for instance, “fast fashion”, which produces overpriced garments with poor workmanship and durability, while using much the same resources (and labor exploitation) as more sustainably produced equivalents.
In the case of “fast fashion”, the “degrowth” comes not from limiting people’s ability to clothe and express themselves but rather from improving production quality (by reducing labor exploitation) and pushing back against the class-based imperative to constantly appear in new styles of clothing.
In other words, a “degrowth” approach to “fast fashion” would tend to push back against the *spectacle* of fashion, not against the garment industry’s provision for human needs.
Similarly, people who want to reduce industrial-scale food waste are not inherently Malthusian. They aren’t encouraging people to eat less; they’re targeting the profit motive that leads to food being discarded rather than eaten. Sure, these people tend not to be Marxists, but then again *most* people aren’t Marxists, so that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wildly neoliberal instead.
Yes, I know this column is mostly discussing a single author relying on a dubious translation, but I honestly don’t care about this sort of literary exegesis.
Oh, and as for Russian and Chinese investments in industry and infrastructure and industry… these investments generally come with the same sort of sovereign-debt burden as anything from the World Bank or the IMF, so I struggle to see how they are somehow serving any anti-Capitalist intent.