The Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there… Jon Cloke* In the series Prospects for Degrowth “You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!” Growth, Degrowth, Post-Growt…

Originally published here, in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series:
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Minority influence: how can degrowth step up? A debate is in progress between alternative strategy prescriptions for degrowth: ecosocialism vs. horizontalism.

Thanks to @postcarboninstitute for republishing our piece on resilience org:
Minority influence: how can degrowth step up? - resilience
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Minority influence: how can degrowth step up? _A contribution to the ecosocialism vs horizontalism debate. In the series Prospects for Degrowth_ _**by**_**Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton*** A debate is in progress between alternative strategy prescriptions for degrowth. On the one side, what we might call minima-maxima or degrowth as under-labourer in a democratic socialist transformation. ‘Minima’ because it realistically notes that degrowth (whether it is a movement or not) “ _does not have the capacity to achieve power and implement policies_ “; ‘maxima’ because it aims for nothing less than transformation through a wider socialist project of seizing state power. In this, the degrowth movement would be a kind of ‘under-labourer’, beavering away to have a catalytic influence on a mass socialist party, so it became both ecosocialist and anti-growth in orientation and programme. This is essentially the view advanced by _Jason Hickel in a recent interview_ , and elements of it were advanced by ourselves in recent pieces in the Degrowth UK series __Prospects for Degrowth__. We say, elements, because our perspective was more nuanced and multi-level than what Hickel was able to put forward in his interview (a written piece, at greater length and reflection might have been less one-dimensional in tone than what could be captured in an interview). On the other side, there is the ‘pluriversal’ perspective, which is less prescriptive, recognises the plurality within the degrowth movement and privileges direct democracy and the transformation of everyday life. This ‘pluriversal’ approach, wherein dialogue with, membership of and influence on the labour movement are legitimate but insufficient strategies, is the view of _Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson and Terry Leahy_ , in their response to Hickel. There are some similarities to this view in the responses of both _Manuel Casal Lodeiro_ and _Mark Burton_ to Ted Trainer’s _anarchist prescription_ for the degrowth movement (almost the mirror image of the Hickel piece), again in _Prospects for Degrowth_. Like Liegey et al., we argued for a multi-level strategy, although in Mark’s case also defending a Marxist and state-oriented approach as a vital part of the package, a position then elaborated by _Anna Gregoletto_. A caricature of the two visions – created from public domain sources However, the above summary misses some critical dimensions of the various contributions and in what follows we will address each in turn, identifying the positions outlined by the protagonists, with an attempt at a more dialectical synthesis from us. In the rest of this article we articulate a synthesis between the two positions, that we call (ana)dialectical (or simply ‘analectical)’, that will allow us to reconcile these two positions in an attempt at strategic unity1. In recognising that the current task is to organise the degrowth movement where it is currently at, our intention is two-fold. Firstly we want to move beyond what could be the danger of polarised positions: we have great respect for the work and views of both Jason Hickel and Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson and Terry Leahy. Secondly, we believe (like Gasparro and Vico)2 that neither of the two positions is sufficient: we can move beyond them while taking the best from both. ### Our analytical framework We used these headings and definitions to create our analectical synthesis. **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- The approach set out in Hickel’s recent piece. Historical precedents: the socialist revolutions of the 20th Century. | The approach set out by Liegey et al. Historical precedents: the anarchist movement, peasant and worker rebellions, the moment of 1968 and the counterculture. | An approach that seeks (dialectically) to synthesise and transcend the two other views, while being open to the voice of those excluded from the debate (_analectics_). Historical precedents: only imperfect and transitory ones – the early years of the Bolivian Movement for Socialism and the alliance that brought it to power 2006, Popular Unity in Chile, late 1960s-1973. Rojava, aspects of the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions, the Caracoles in Chiapas. ### Degrowth as a movement **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Degrowth is not a movement: “Degrowth is an analytical frame that has convinced a lot of people, and has a lot of traction particularly among academics, students and activists, but it is not a movement as such and does not have the capacity to achieve power and implement policies.” | Degrowth is a movement: “Degrowth is a movement in movement(s). … Degrowth, as a movement, represents an international network, containing a diversity of networks, activities and activists. Some activists and advocates might feel relatively isolated yet are still influential …” | Degrowth is a weak but diverse movement, part of an ecology of movements including a set of movements from the Global South, that could be characterised as post-development in orientation. It comprises scholars and activists, thinkers and doers. However, degrowth is not a _political movement_ , one that is in a position to make the necessary transformation in society and economy that degrowthers believe in Despite an impressive research and teaching portfolio, a literature and a plethora of practical degrowth-consistent projects on the ground, the (real) degrowth movement, does not (yet) look like a movement with the ability to catalyse the transformation that is needed for an ecologically safe and dignified future for humanity. ### Defining degrowth **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- “…a planned reduction of excess energy and resource use to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a safe, just and equitable way….at the same time ending poverty, improving human well-being, and ensuring flourishing lives for all” | Is about more than “minimising throughput and use of materials and energy…It is an invitation to explore new imaginaries and ways of life, for instance, from work and technology, to democracy and property” | The core of degrowth is managed and ethical, or just, reduction of the material basis of the economy, the planned reduction of energy and resource use to keep within ecological and earth system limits while maximising human equality and dignity. However, there is also a set of associated elements that while not central to the definition, are strongly associated with it: democracy, justice, decoloniality, liberation, sufficiency, frugality and the critique of economism (the turning of everything into a commodity). These associated elements are so strongly tied to the core proposition, that they may be considered defining for the degrowth movement. In our core definition, we acknowledge the risk of yielding to a restricted definition of degrowth that is prevalent in the English speaking academic sphere, namely a reduction to measurable material dimensions of economic scale. As Fitzpatrick notes3 (2025) the original French definition focussed more on the rejection of economism and hence growth, not in terms of scale but as refusal – a changing the subject, or as Latouche put it, “ _leaving the society of consumption_ ” 4, or “ _leaving the imaginary of development to reintegrate the field of the economic with the social and the political_ ” 5. However, we believe that to deny the centrality of the problematic of material scale is to empty degrowth of real meaning and risks making it a general anti-modern, anticapitalist, anti-economic position: remember that the first use of decroissance was by Gorz (1975) in the context of discussion on the Meadows et al. Limits to Growth report6. What he said was,_“And this is the heart of the problem: global equilibrium, in which no-growth – even degrowth (decroissance) – of material production constitutes a basic condition, is this equilibrium compatible with the survival of the[capitalist] system?”._ So we recover those anti-economistic meanings, and for us as Marxists, opposition to commodification is central, in the ‘belt’ of associated elements that are closely linked to the core. We assert that that core definition is materialist but not economistic, since it is (orthodox) economics that reduces material factors (material flows, geophysical stocks and sinks, diverse and complex ecosystems, etc) as well as human relations and qualities, to monetary terms. That is our dialectical attempt to resolve the discrepancy between the two positions under discussion here. ** Capitalism** **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Capitalism is the central problem. “Under capitalism, production is controlled by capital… the purpose of production is not to meet human needs or achieve ecological goals, but to maximize and accumulate profit.” Certain sectors need scaling down but they are profitable and supported by (capitalistic) governments that won’t therefore take necessary action…. | Capitalism as such isn’t problematised although, “Degrowth thinking is replete with speculative thinking around rich, convivial and authentic postcapitalist futures” and elsewhere, “In terms of the flagrant abuse of planet Earth, we know that capitalist production and trade has increasingly out-stripped its regenerative capacity for the last 50 years.” ” ..it is clear that calls for keeping capitalism on the more qualitative tracks of development consistently failed.” | Capitalism depends on relentless expansion, based on the extraction of value from labour, using natural resources as its substrate. It was preceded by an equally toxic colonial expansion, and the enclosure of the commons in the imperialist countries. These episodes devastated ecosystems and lives. Capitalism, the enclosure of commons and imperialism-colonialism have become intrinsically linked: capitalism cannot survive without expansion into ever more territories and domains, turning everything into a commodity. A degrowth future is incompatible with capitalism and therefore degrowth means the replacement of capitalism with a political, economic and social system that prioritises both humanity and ‘nature’. ### Theory of change, the State and democracy **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- We need “something like a mass-based political party that can advance a wholistic alternative vision, achieve state power, and implement transformative policies.” Within this vision, degrowth is “an element within a socialist transformation … a consequence of socialist transition.” “… now our efforts are fragmented into a hundred disparate movements.” “The Green parties should dissolve themselves and reconstruct around ecosocialist policy and discourse and aim to build a working-class base.” ” Our historic task at this juncture is to regain democratic control over our own productive capacities so that we can build a better civilization.” | Theory of change centred on direct democracy and horizontalism: “Degrowth celebrates postcapitalist imaginaries and strategies that respect principles, perspectives and practices that centre on the transformative, anarchist and utopian-socialist inspired political forms of the 21st century. Think horizontalism, Holloway’s anti-power and Castoriadis on autonomy, which are central to degrowth practices and to other key movements of the 21st century.” A political strategy, as such, is not described; it is more as if, somehow, these dispersed developments will come together to yield transformational systemic change. The “ambition is to alter relationships in the process of transformation, not simply as a result it. … we try to prefigure direct democracy as a means, not simply an assumed end.” | It is difficult to see the scale of the necessary transformation being achieved without a direct engagement with State power, and that does require that a political party, or more likely parties, adopts a degrowth-consistent approach. However, a mass democratic eco-socialist party is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a degrowth transformation. Relying solely on a political party to deliver the necessary ecosocialist and degrowth transformation will not be sufficient because there can be no political revolution without a social revolution to back it up. That is why the degrowth movement, in effect, has a more multi-level and multi-faceted approach, combining the work on policy frameworks, practical experiments and local ‘real utopias’, and political campaigning and mobilisation and networking with those in leadership positions (influencing the influencers). Without this multi-level, multi-sectoral approach, one that relies predominantly on a party or parties to enact the needed change will fail, since it will not be able to call on a pan-societal coalition of support and potential mobilisation. We advocate for some formalisation of this, so that there is an articulation between these spheres of action, building a counter-hegemonic power bloc that will be capable of mounting a systemic transformation and, critically, defeating both capitalist extraction and material accumulation on a world scale7 and the highly resourced and violent forces that will oppose us. #### **Three Myths on Eco-socialism** _Myth One: The Eco-socialist party is top-down and undemocratic_ This first myth has a double sided origin story. On the one hand, it comes from real disappointments coming from attempts to make significant change within existing bourgeois parties. These attempts, as good and strong willed as they could be, faced the constraints of parties that were inherently capitalist and would never offer ways to think of a world without capitalism. In this sense, democracy within bourgeois parties is inherently limited. Freedom of thought and action is constrained within the limits of the liberal-capitalist world, while a large technocratic apparatus seeks to limit as much as possible member participation to elections every four or five years. However, an eco-socialist party would most likely be an entirely different beast. It would be based on member-led democracy, unbound by the constraints of bourgeois democracy, and it would focus on empowering people and communities as one of its strategic goals.That is because the objective of an eco-socialist party is not purely electoral, rather it is to build and cohere revolutionary consciousness. Popular protagonism is the vital energy of the mass socialist party. On the other hand, the idea that an eco-socialist party would be undemocratic has a source in the anti-communist ideology that has hegemonised Northern countries since the Cold War and has only intensified since. We all carry the baggage of a history heavily shaped by long and murderous anti-communist campaigns waged by the United States and its allies. We live in the shadow not only of the Red Scare campaigns, but of the disillusionment that affected the Left after the fall of the Soviet Union. This ideological campaign has implanted an unquestioned association between socialism and authoritarianism within public debate. Yet, this view applied to today’s left is naive and entirely ignores a whole body of activist literature written by leading left organisers in which democracy is a central focus, as well as ignoring the practices of actually existing socialist movements and perpetuating US propaganda that has often harmed Southern States . In short, dismissing eco-socialism or all other forms of socialism as undemocratic has very little to do with how the left is developing at the moment. _Myth Two: The Eco-socialist State would be undemocratic and despotic_ Liegey et al. mention the historical reality of some socialist parties, and especially once they’ve achieved power, becoming authoritarian and even repressive and dictatorial. While it is true that this belief shares some of Myth One’s ‘intellectual’ roots, being part of US imperialist propaganda, Myth Two also points to a danger that the need to maintain cohesion and a clear line in the face of internal opposition and external threats can lead to authoritarian measures, the most famous example being the Soviet Union under Stalin, and the most extreme the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Even in what is perhaps the best case of a socialist revolution and a government of the people in power, Cuba, (and in the face of relentless destabilisation, even terrorism, from the USA) there has been excessive bureaucratisation, and at times repression, together with a slowness to correct inevitable mistakes. Yet the answer is not the model of liberal democracy, with pro-capitalist parties competing, but probably lies in a more thoroughgoing development of democracy with greater autonomy for mass organisations from the State and the party. Freed from the profit imperative, an eco-socialist state would be best positioned to reorganise political life around well-being and popular participation. Cuba is also instructive here. Emerging as a socialist country after defeating a totalitarian dictator, it had to invent the institutions of popular power and people’s democracy: it has done this well but the result is not perfect – maybe it never can be. Further, we stress that any evaluation has to be made in the light of the fact that the country and its leadership, has been, for six and a half decades under a state of siege, due to the continuing US blockade, renewed and intensified again and again: its achievements, including those in participative democracy and environmental restoration, are extraordinary considering this. Secondly, the reliance of ecosocialism on economic planning is contested from the horizontalist perspective, even to the extent of seeing planning as despotic. Yet, any large scale coordination of economic and social activity and development requires planning. In other words, degrowth requires planning. Put simply, there is no reason why an eco-socialist society would be despotic. _Myth Three: Eco-socialism privileges industrial workers_ Misunderstanding is widespread that the concept of ‘working class’ equals ‘industrial workers’. Following Marx, the working class is those who have to sell their labour power to live – that is all of us, including those who have a what is effectively a discretionary exemption from the labour market (children, people with severe disabilities, unpaid carers, retirement pensioners). Although the working classes might be internally divided between those who have access to higher wages and those that are extremely exploited, the definitional characteristic of the working class is one of exploitation by the ruling classes worldwide (via the expropriation of surplus value – and we’d also include those facing more overt expropriation via ‘primitive accumulation’). Industrial workers would be part of a coalition of oppressed peoples against capitalism/imperialism8. #### **The pitfalls of The Party** The minima-maxima proposal is a wager that degrowth can indeed capture or convert the majority of socialists to a degrowth-informed eco-socialist understanding and programme. It is rather a tall order, but as the systemic crisis deepens, not entirely implausible. Another problem with a purely party-based strategy is the risk of co-optation. Many attempts at party building have fallen into the electoralist trap: the sphere of politics shrinks to fighting for elections. There is also a practical problem with the minima-maxima idea. This proposition does not take into account the current state of the actually existing degrowth movement, which at the moment is unlikely to get behind the eco-socialist banner. A very large part of the degrowth movement has done a lot of research and experimentation on prefigurative strategies and attempted the creation of ‘nowtopias’. Certainly, this vision has enormous problems if left isolated by broader political projects, as we will analyse below, but we also do not want to ignore that this praxis is very important for degrowthers. Indeed, this orientation towards utopian thinking, if part of a political project and organisation, could be able to reach terrains that a strategy only focused on seizing political power would not. Strategies that focus on seizing political power through the party instrument address one aspect of the struggle against capital, but there is a broader reality of the capitalist ideology-action-structure complex that these strategies take insufficient account of.9 In this way, the capitalist system is not only sustained by the state but by this complex that, while including the state (within its structures), also goes beyond it to acknowledge the role of ideology (“socially embedded and embodied systems of thought about the way things are and how they should be”) and action (daily activities and practices of social reproduction). This means that transitioning out of capitalism requires us both to break with the existing system and also to replace it with a different way of living and reproducing ourselves. It is the critique of commodification that distinguishes reformist social democrats from revolutionary socialists, including, we would argue, eco-socialists. That is why ecosocialism is so compatible with degrowth. Unless the transformation also includes the totality of the way we live, we will be stuck with some form of capitalism and continued oppression of people and destruction of ecosystems. So while a party is a necessary and unavoidable instrument of revolution, focusing on the party alone will not be enough to carry out a full transition out of capitalism/imperialism. We will also need comrades whose focus is building the alternative institutions to substitute those of the growth-based capitalist order. Not only that, those alternative institutions will also help us to build consciousness and capacity to wage more effective struggle in the present. This is what actually existing degrowth spaces could contribute to a broader strategy that attempts to both seize political power and build an alternative world. To put this into terms perhaps more familiar within the degrowth movement, we will need the combination of all kinds of strategy, interstitial, symbiotic and ruptural10. #### **The pitfalls of Horizontalism** Liegey et al. seem to deny the need for a political carrying force for degrowth, it seems preferring instead to rely on an organic massing of influence from the degrowth pluriverse. As they say, this is a horizontalist approach. Yet, the recent experience of horizontalist movements serves as a cautionary tale for this type of political organisation. The 2010s were a decade in which these type of movements proliferated in the North. The world was shaken by Occupy, various student protests, and the rise of the climate movement as we know it today, through the Fridays for Future strikes and then with Extinction Rebellion and all the groups that spawned from it.11 These movements were the protagonists of moments of jubilant moments of protest. It is important to interrogate ourselves on why these movements were ultimately unsuccessful in generating the kind of system change they called for. We identify three main critiques of the exclusively horizontalist strategy. 1. The problem of an identity-based ‘creativity politics’: Jodi Dean called it the ‘politics of the beautiful moment’.12 A tendency within some leftist currents to mistake aesthetics, media attention and creativity for the achievement of real political objectives. Vice versa, organisation is treated as despotic regression, rather than a tool to help us win, to organise more effectively and distribute power.​​​​​​​13 The attraction towards this kind of tactics (too often mistaken for strategy) comes from the sad fact that identity-based ‘creativity politics’ appears more attractive and achievable “than the sustained work of party building because they affirm the dominant ideology of singularity, newness, and now.”​​​​​​​14 Further, this kind of politics often goes in tandem with a plethora of ‘alternative lifestyle choices’ that are at risk of becoming depoliticised escapist routes for affluent people, as Eva Martínez argued in _her piece on intentional communities_. 2. We cannot avoid the state: it is only possible to avoid the state to the extent the you don’t pose a serious threat to the status quo. The second a movement of any kind becomes a concrete threat to the capitalist/imperialist order, it will be subjected to relentless repression, ranging from infiltration, policing and worse.​​​​​​​15 Further, the state would also serve as an important instrument to protect a post-capitalist world from counter-revolutionary forces and interventions. This does not mean having illusions about the nature of the State: as Marx noted, under capitalism it functions as the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’. So an adequate strategy has to both weaken and dismantle the capitalist state, using the leverage it affords for both emergency action on the ecological and climate emergency and rebuilding society, but ultimately replacing it with another form of societal coordination, which might still be called the State, but might not. 3. The problem of disaggregation: one of the most stereotypical problems of the Left is the lack of unity and strategic or even principled cohesion. Forces that should be in coalitions are splintered in small, single-issue isolated struggles, sometimes not even knowing who is around them doing what, and often fighting each other as much as the system. Without a unifying, organisational force and structure “multiple resistances blur into the menu of choices offered up by capitalism, so many lifestyle opportunities available for individual diversion and satisfaction.”​​​​​​​16 So, if we refuse to engage with the party (or parties) as an instrument for political coherence, degrowth will risk becoming little more than a ‘lifestyle choice’ for Northern intellectuals tired of consumerist society and craving voluntary simplicity. After examining the pitfalls of both an exclusively party-based strategy and an exclusively horizontalist vision, we move beyond this binary altogether to demonstrate that the opposition between horizontal social movements and local initiatives and political parties is ultimately a false choice. #### **For an (Ana)dialectical Movement Ecology** We seek to resolve this apparent contradiction through an (ana)dialectical approach, one that seeks (dialectically) to synthesise and transcend the two other views, while being open to the voice of those excluded from the debate. We find that Nunes’s framework on movement ecology17 is helpful to articulate our vision. We believe that we can think “about what exists in ecological terms”.18 Using an ecosystem as a metaphor to describe the landscape of revolutionary forces, Nunes notes that “ _a healthy ecology needs several actors that combine the ability to intervene at certain key points of the chain with the capacity to think the chain as a whole_.”19 In this sense, a healthy movement ecology allows the flourishing of strategic pluralism, imagining the emergence and consolidation of a ‘prefigurative flank’ and a state-focused eco-socialist flank, while maintaining some political organisation that prevents us from falling into the ineffective and individualistic splintering that has been plaguing leftist projects for decades. In our view, working within an eco-socialist mass party and experimenting with degrowth ‘nowtopias’ would be part of the same revolutionary ecology. Jodi Dean and Kai Heron write that _“experiments in farming, urban gardening, and similar such survival oriented micro-initiatives can be expanded into the repertoire of party practices, treated as opportunities for building skills and camaraderie.”_20 In fact the British socialist and Labour movement did this in the period before the second World War / anti-fascist war, with its socialist clubs, socialist health insurance, cooperatives, educational institutions, cycling and gardening societies: similar cultural practices can be found in many successful social movements21. The distinction is between 1) engagement with the state and its institutions, either to reform it or replace it, and 2) building power, alternatives, prefigurative social relations, in the community (in its diversity). The one influences and informs the other, but critically, each depends on the other. That is why political parties tend to have reference groups whose interests they represent, obscurely as the pro-capitalist parties represent the interests of various sections and institutions of capital (companies, banks, individual rich people) or more transparently, as in the now fraying historical relationship between the British Labour Party, the co-operative movement and the trade unions. For the degrowth movement, the community represented is more diverse and, ideally, it could include campaigning groups on social and environmental justice, service delivery organisations such as agroecological co-ops or community energy co-ops, community associations, such as tenants and renters associations, feminist organisations, trade unions and others. The party too might not be monolithic but might actually be a cluster of parties – we can collectively hedge our bets! Further, opportunities abound for pluriversality, dissent and deliberation even within a single party. For instance, healthy, open factions provide a way for party members to build collective power around specific issues or politics, while remaining part of the unity provided by the party they belong to.22 In this way, the party provides a structured forum for different political positions to express dissent and participation in a way that is constructive and consequential. The relationship is likely to be tense at times, since multiple interests are involved, but the common factor is the pursuit of social and economic justice strictly within environmental limits, i.e. degrowth as ecosocialism, with a widening of democracy, social, economic and political. Together, these non-State institutions build alternative, ‘counter-hegemonic’ popular power, with a new de-ideologised, good sense (political consciousness is one component) that replaces the dominant ideology of capitalism, capable of effectively resisting the inevitable counter-offensive. Such an approach can avoid the twin perils of a left party that becomes authoritarian and unrepresentative, and a plethora of movements and groups that, while doing worthy things locally fail to scale to the needed transformation. There is more that can be said on this but it is essentially a reinvention of the Gramscian model of politics for the third quarter of the 21st century: (inter)national-popular, (counter) hegemonic, playing a war of position prior to the decisive taking of power. We stress, there is no such thing as ‘changing the world without taking power’, but the taking of power is a more complex process than storming the gates of government and implanting a new regime; it means stewarding the power delegated by the people, the community, using it responsibly and accountably, which means inventing new and effective forms of responsive representation and new channels of influence and counter-control – leaders will command while obeying (‘mandar obedeciendo’ as the Zapatistas put it). A lot more could be written here about the challenges of legitimacy and governability, but that is the stuff of any ethical government23. ### Tools for change **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- A mass party, pursuing ecosocialism, and able to foster strategic unity between the existing and currently splintered movements” Achieving transformation through the mass party, as an organisation that is able to create political consciousness and cultivate unity. | A diverse ecosystem of alternatives. | On the one hand, building a mass democratic eco-socialist party to achieve strategic unity and fight for political power. On the other, a coordinated and organised strategy to build alternative institutions and people’s infrastructure. This strategy takes advantage of what the degrowth movement is and has accomplished already, rather than imagining how the movement should be. ## **Conclusion** ### Urgency and immediate tasks **Minima-maxima** | **Pluriversalism** | **(Ana)dialectical synthesis** ---|---|--- Fighting for a public job guarantee in order to gain more control for workers over production. Eco-socialist politics needs to take advantage of the void left by the collapsing liberal order | Not stated in the Liegey et al. piece but likely continuing through a multitude of initiatives, loosely connected. | Practically articulating hope for a better world, one that is socially and economically just, together with taking emergency action to combat the existential emergency of climate and nature. It means the holding together of these two goals, via policies for an Emergency Brake (on emissions, on the destruction of ecological and geophysical systems) and a Plan for Reconstruction24. That means aligning climate and nature mitigation actions with protecting and enhancing people’s livelihoods. The immediate task is to promote this “not only but also” model of hope and campaign for its realisation, in alliance with the plethora of civil society organisations, who also need to be convinced of this. That is a campaign that fuses political education with both electioneering and community building and protection. We find both the minima-maxima mass political party and pluriversalist-horizontalism inadequate to the very real challenge of changing our society and economy into a degrowth one. We do see degrowth as a planned and equitable material contraction (the core) that simultaneously rebuilds a society based on the values of, as the permaculturalists put it, care for the earth, care for each other, and care for ourselves (the integral belt). However, to achieve that is no easy task and to cast it in either vertical or horizontal forms means failing to get to grips with the political challenge and with the many potential pitfalls along the way. Our vision of a political organisation also means eschewing simplistic, ‘magic trick’, sound-bite ‘solutions’, favoured by some in the degrowth and related communities. Examples include Universal Basic Income, a Jobs Guarantee, sovereign money, Modern Money Theory, or partial but inadequate measures such as the Frequent Flyer Levy and Carbon Tax, or the now in vogue wealth tax. Of course, some of these policies might be part of a degrowth transformation, but none of those either alone or together, represents a theory of transition. How, though, can coordination be achieved between the two necessary means of securing a degrowth future, party-style political organisation and civil society activism with its practical projects? One model is to construct a kind of degrowth observatory, whose task would be to gather and disseminate information, not just on the various elements but on the way they contribute to the whole, shared project. Such an institution could help us to systematically map the movement and act as a necessary first step to more coordinated activities. This could be what one of us has elsewhere described as ‘prefigurative action research’, wherein the successes, triumphs, failures and defeats can be analysed to identify more precisely both what has to be overcome and (with contextual sensitivity) what works25. The intelligence that such an ambitious exercise would yield, for example as a standing programme of the International Degrowth Network (as a kind of Degrowth Observatory), could, perhaps, inform some kind of shared institution that might ultimately have a coordinating role, subject to a constituent assembly. That in itself would prefigure the new governing arrangements for the new society that is being striven for. ### **Notes** * The authors are the coordinators of the degrowth uk website. 1 The term ‘analectical’, comes from the work of liberation philosopher, Enrique Dussel it is a contraction of ‘anadialectical’ a fusion of two concepts, a) the dialectic, as a resolution of two opposites through a synthesis that transcends them, and ‘ana’, from the Other, giving critical voice to the oppressed and excluded. Our realisation of this aim, in this piece, can be only partial, but it is important that prescriptions and proposals are in the interests of the global popular majorities, and we try to reflect this. See globalsocialtheory.org/thinkers/dussel-enrique/ 2 _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/neither-the-either-nor-the-or-for-a-sideways-degrowth_ 3 Fitzpatrick, N. (2025). ‘Degrowth’ and the implications of English language hegemony. In A. Nelson & V. Liegey (Eds), Routledge handbook of degrowth. Routledge. 4 Latouche, S. (2012). _Salir de la sociedad de consumo: Voces y vías del decrecimiento_ (First Spanish edition). Ocataedro. 5 Latouche, S. (2012). _La sociedad de la abundancia frugal: Contrasentidos y controversias del decrecimiento_. Icaria. page 20. 6 Marcuse, H., Bosquet, Michel (André Gorz), Morin, E., Mansholt, S., & others. (1975). _Ecología y Revolución Herbert Marcuse, Michel Bosquet (Andre Gorz), Edward Morin, Sicco Mansholt et al._ (Nueva edición. First published in French by Le Nouvel Observateur, 1975). EBOOK. (Quotation is MB’s translation from the Spanish translation). 7 Pineault, E. (2025). Fossilised metabolism: The social ecology of capitalist growth. In A. Nelson (Ed.), _Routledge handbook of degrowth_. Routledge. _https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/f0d99b9c-b15f-48cd-aa94-dca46806489a/book/epub?context=ubx_ 8 Dean, J., Heron, K. _Climate Leninism and Revolutionary Strategy_ , Spectre Journal, 2022. 9 Kagan, C., & Burton, M. H. (2018). Putting the ‘Social’ into Sustainability Science. In W. Leal Filho (Ed.), _Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research_ (pp. 285–298). Springer International Publishing. _https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63007-6_17_ 10 Chertkovskaya, E. (2022). A strategic canvas for degrowth: In dialogue with Erik Olin Wright. In N. Barlow, L. Regen, N. Cadiou, E. Chertkovskaya, M. Hollweg, C. Plank, M. Schulken, & V. Wolf (Eds.), Degrowth & strategy how to bring about social-ecological transformation (pp. 56–71). Mayfly. 11 Bevins, V. If We Burn, London: Wildfire, 2023. 12 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 125. 13 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 125. 14 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 21. 15 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018. 16 Dean, J. Crowds and Party, London:Verso, 2018, 259. 17 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 18 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 19 Nunes, R. (2021). _Neither vertical nor horizontal: A theory of political organisation_. Verso. 20 Dean, J., Heron, K. _Climate Leninism and Revolutionary Strategy_ , Spectre Journal, 2022. 21 Williams, R. (1973). _The country and the city_. Chatto and Windus. p. 36 Williams, R. (1982). _Socialism and Ecology_. SERA. Burton, M. & Steady State Manchester. (2012). _In Place of Growth: Practical steps to a Manchester where people thrive without harming the planet._ Steady State Manchester. _pp. 39-40 Box: Historical memory and lived culture https://steadystatemanchester.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/inplaceofgrowth_ipog_-content_final.pdf_ 22 _https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/08/05/in-defence-of-factions/_ 23 Dussel, E. (2008). _Twenty theses on politics_. Duke University Press. Devine, P. (2002). Participatory Planning Through Negotiated Coordination. Science and Society, 66(1), 72–85. _http://gesd.free.fr/devine.pdf_ 24 See Getting Real: **–** serious policies for the triple crisis. _https://gettingreal.org.uk_ 25 Kagan, C., & Burton, M. (2000). Prefigurative Action Research: An alternative basis for critical psychology? _Annual Review of Critical Psychology_ , _2_(73–87). ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Minority influence: how can degrowth step up?
A contribution to the ecosocialism vs horizontalism debate.
by Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton
In the series Prospects for Degrowth
degrowthuk.org/2025/10/29/minority-infl...

#ProspectsForDegrowth #ecosocialism

### Overviews of the current conjuncture – openings and risks We (Anna Gregoletto and Mark H. Burton)1 opened the series with Mark’s stock take _,___Prospects for Degrowth 2025__ of the current situation of polycrisis2, which presents a multitude of challenges but also opportunities for degrowth horizons to flourish. He offered a system diagram, showing how a number of factors interact to shape the current global conjuncture in relation to the goals of degrowth. These factors were, * Collapsing planetary and ecological systems in the face of insignificant mitigation and excessive material flows. * The internal and external limits of capitalist expansion. * Bankruptcy of political leadership. * Renewed growthism – backtracking on environmental and social protection. * Geopolitical conflict and population displacement. * Right populism, fascism and racist movements. Mark went on to argue that despite this depressing picture, there are some openings for the degrowth movement to influence and create an alternative future: * Disenchantment of sections of the left and centre-left. * Popular resistance to mega-projects, fossil fuel expansion and other extractivism, data centres, green space erosion. * Interest in demonstration projects and degrowth-friendly alternatives. * Anti-fascist resistance and solidarity movements. He proposed that following a multi-level strategy, the degrowth movement, despite its small size, could be key in building an effective counter-hegemony, an alternative ‘good sense’ of the kind of world we want and need, and how we can struggle together to get it. As he noted, > _“We do not expect to win but we cannot afford to lose. Our approach will be collective not individual, caring, sharing and resisting, while always showing the way along the alternative degrowth pathway that we will be constructing as we go. Or at the very least, helping prepare for a ‘better collapse.”_ Following Mark’s opening gambit, Vincent Liegey offered another analysis on the current conjuncture and what that means for degrowth in ‘ __Nothing surprises me__’. Drawing a caricature of the growthist, capitalist, neocolonial paradigm, Vincent offered an analysis of the polycrisis not dissimilar to Mark’s, commenting on how the extreme degree of the current system’s corruption can represent a paradoxical opportunity for anti-systemic efforts: > “ _It forces all those, who are truly sincere in their progressive and emancipatory aspirations, and in their understanding of ecological reality, to stop kidding themselves.”_ As the message ‘no infinite growth in a finite planet’ becomes ever more intuitive, it is clear that no solution would be complete without being anchored on the imperative of social justice and radical democratic participation. In this way, Vincent offers us a powerful warning that not all anti-systemic efforts (or not all those that claim that label, at least) will be able or willing to provide such a solution. He brings the example of illiberal Hungary, his country of residence, which has acted as a test bed for the authoritarian and nationalistic politics and policies that are now becoming more mainstream in multiple locations. In an echo of one of the originators of the degrowth concept, Castoriadis, he concludes the article by posing the dichotomy of _degrowth vs barbarism_. Mladen’s piece, __Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery__ _,_ self described as a ___“semiperipheral recipe for meaningful degrowth prospects in the present conjuncture”,_ had its origins in the same discussion that Mark’s and Vincent’s pieces grew out of. However, in his case he was frustrated by,__ > “ _… the tacit assumption that the material juggernaut of the human socio-economic activity entangled with the raging climate transformation and living world die-off will simply keep spinning for the foreseeable future. We seemed to be discussing micro-politics, whilst it seemed to me we had been ignoring the proverbial elephant – or their imminent heart attack. That is, we were engaged with the daily tactical choices, worrying about greater representation in institutional structure, as well as our daily navigation through social structures.”_ Mladen found hope, or at least a semblance of it, through two examples. Firstly, the 1920s Zagreb activist August Cesarec, a Marxist who, acknowledging anarchist and utopian sensibilities, drew on the natural world with concepts such as ‘sensible organizing and solidarity’ and ‘general principles of justice’, in the attempt to build a narrative that made sense for those from his semi-peripheral context. Mladen suggests that in a similar way, we might draw on a broad understanding of life in the natural world, its _“biophysical trends and their aggregate effect on us, each only a few degrees of separation from the weather extremes, the food failures, and other interacting lifeforms”_ to paint _“the bigger picture of what is and can be done”._ Secondly, he draws inspiration from the 1970s Limits to Growth debates in the context of self management in socialist Yugoslavia. While > “ _the growthers won”_ , o _ne of the lessons was the organisational power of the ‘one world’ perspective … a genuinely one-world perspective in which the resources, benefits and human commitment are all limited and require deliberation over distribution. A willingness to share radically, to see and understand the other, and to fully accept the collapsing world narrative.“_ 3 Ultimately, Mladen finds inspiration in the collective effort to tell a better story of what might be, or at least how, taking the beautiful and powerful forces of nature very seriously, we might live through a better collapse4. As he says, quoting Oxana Lupatina5, imagining the end of capitalism, or the end of the world, is different in the global periphery and semi-periphery, than in the still (but for how long) dominating world cities. Words of warning came also from Aurora Despierta’s piece, ‘ __Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam__’, in which she outlines the worrying possibility of the ruling class appropriating degrowth discourse: “We cannot pin our hopes on the collapse of capitalism”. Her analysis is reminiscent of Nancy Fraser’s _Cannibal Capitalism_ _6_ , since Aurora also understands capitalism as an essentially cannibalistic, illogical, brutal system. In the physical impossibility of further economic growth, the system would find something else to cannibalise on. Hence, we need to insist on “an anti-capitalist and voluntary degrowth”. The last article of the series examined very current developments in Left British politics and what they might mean for degrowth. In __As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda?__, Mark offers a nuanced critique of the left turn of the Green party, with the election of Zack Polanski, and the slow and troubled creation of a new left party, provisionally named Your Party. Mark’s piece notes that, although both of these constitute positive developments for the Left, neither of them seems ready to confront the ecological reality of overshoot that we all live in, together with the necessity to equitably but urgently downscale our economies. Certainly, Your Party is not a fully formed organisation and there is no political programme critique just yet. However, given the latest leadership spats and internal divisions, questions arise as to whether it will ever be. ### The degrowth movement – critique and defence (Ted, Manuel, Mark) The previous pieces, more focused on creating a concrete understanding of the conditions in which we’re operating, were accompanied by other articles that confronted the question of what, as degrowthers, we should be doing in order to face these circumstances. Ted Trainer’s ‘ __Friendly Critique of Degrowth__’ led to a three-way exchange. Ted’s critiques of the movement include the following key points: degrowth has to be just about reducing consumption, the rest is the movement is losing focus on the imperative to change lifestyles over everything else (turning to his proposed ‘Simpler Way’) he criticised the focus on the State in favour of a consciousness raising strategy to create prefigurative spaces. Perhaps as a result of their respective European standpoints, both Manuel and Mark had difficulty in recognising Ted’s portrayal of the degrowth movement – their experience is clearly different from his. _Manuel’s_ __Reply__ brought attention to the existing literature, particularly Spanish and French literature, to which we might add some English- speaking authors, such as Jason Hickel, which does recognise the need to (qualitatively) reduce consumption and rejects capitalism. Manuel’s piece also highlighted the compatibility between anarchist visions, like the Simpler Way, and the broader degrowth movement, advocating for a ‘dual strategy’, combining bottom-up and top-down strategies. Following Manuel’s, Mark’s reply, __Degrowth, the Movement, the State, Socialism and Marx__**,** noted that, insofar as degrowth activists focus on government and its institutions, this can be seen in terms of non-reformist demands waged both within and outside a State that is always a terrain of contestation. The dichotomy of top-down and bottom-up is a simplification, and like Manuel he advocated a combination of strategies. In response to Ted’s disparaging comments about socialism and Marxism, he argues that Marxism is not inherently productivist, despite there having been a strong productivist strand in that tradition, a claim also shared by Anna’s later article. ### Aspects of and approaches to degrowth (Graham, Eva, Richard, Anna) This discussion also sparked reflections on other aspects of degrowth. Eva Martinez’s __Proposals for Degrowth__ built on this exchange adding a critical perspective of lived experience on living in intentional communities and of other interstitial approaches. Eva says, _“communities are in danger of becoming a hideaway for members to escape conditions of mainstream society”._ Her piece also interrogates the uncomfortable question of the privileges of the Simpler Life. In other words, who can actually afford to lead that kind of intentional life? Eva concludes her piece by urging those living in intentional communities to engage with organising efforts in their localities, or in urban neighbouring spaces, to re-politicise their lifestyles. Anna’s piece, __Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition__ _,_ echoing Manuel’s concept of dual strategy, investigated and affirmed the need for a State strategy, as part and parcel of ecosocialist degrowth, in conjunction with more local and non-State strategies. There is an echo of this in a recent interview with Jason Hickel, who argued that degrowth _is_ a socialist trajectory, but one that needs a mass class-based movement to take on the vested interests that govern the State under late capitalism7. Anna sets out the advantages of engaging with the State, while being clear that at present it protects the interests of capital. She also argues that there is a need for a revolutionary (and ecosocialist) political force, built painstakingly from the various strands of the left – a daunting task indeed. Richard Muscat’s __Creatively disrupting capitalism__ traces the genesis of a degrowth activist in the making, from the privileges of what we might call an ecomodernist lifestyle as a worker in climate tech, to the uncomfortable realisation of the reality of ecological collapse and its entanglements with the capitalist-imperialist system, to his experience as an activist and advocate for degrowth, led Richard to offer some suggestions to the movement. One of his recommendations is simplifying the way that we share our theories to become more accessible to ‘regular people’, in favour of which Richard proposes the need for even more anti-capitalist, degrowth ‘instruction manuals’. Richard ends his article by returning to the creativity he mentioned in the title, the very antithesis of capitalism. Creativity is the centre of Graham Janz’s piece, __Familiarizing degrowth: art and grounded communities__ _,_ is a prefigurative exploration of the problematic of how to anchor degrowth in communities, and, more boldly, how to transform degrowth ideas from academic niches to wildly popular discourse. Put more simply, how to ‘familiarise’ them. The answer for Graham lies in the arts. Graham imagines ways of picturing glimpses of post-growth living through the visual arts while at the same time pushing for the creation of community spaces that enable degrowth lifestyles and democratic participation to flourish. In __Th__ __e Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there…__, Jon Cloke gets specific about the material dimension of growth and degrowth, focusing on the neglected global problem of waste. The accelerating scale of all kinds of waste is truly incredible and as Jon notes, this presents a series of problems for even imagining a degrowth future, although only degrowth will address the issue: > _Before any practical degrowth policies can be implemented, the fundamental reality of growth and increase have to be challenged as concepts and policies at the very root. But this devious, diabolical ‘reality’ is cunning, greedy and has more disguises than can be imagined – the most important of which are that growth and increase are invisible, unstoppable, inevitable and that terminating them is outside human reality._ ### Conclusion: Thinking of Silences and Further Prospects We conclude this appraisal by pointing out some areas of silence in the series, as well as areas that present further prospects for degrowth thinkers and activists. The first of two major silences we identify is on degrowth and decolonisation. While anti-imperialist commitment was mentioned in a couple of the pieces, no article centred on the relationship between the two. It is possible that this reflects a general silence within the degrowth literature. However there are some notable exceptions8. At the recent _Oslo conference_, there was a ‘degrowth and delinking tent’, with discussions and events organised around _Samir Amin’s concept of delinking_ from the global economic system. This was not a theme of the conference but nevertheless acted as a contemporaneous commentary and critique. The second absence within the series has been gender, feminism and queer perspectives to degrowth. The relationship of feminist thinking, economics and ecology has added an important perspective to the degrowth scholarship in recent years through the work of theorists like Stefania Barca and networks like FaDA. This is a topic on which we invite contributions for future articles in the series or stand alone articles. The final prospect, unfolding at the time we’re writing this closing piece, is captured by two developments for us in the UK. Firstly, the launch of a new Left party (provisionally called ‘Your Party’) by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, and secondly the apparent leftward and social movement orientated shift in the Green Party’s leadership team. Do these developments have the potential of shifting the prospects outlined for degrowth in this series so far? Is there a serious prospect that either force, or an alliance of the two, will take the degrowth agenda seriously? As Mark _explored, in the piece noted above_, the Green Party of England and Wales tends to downplay their position against growth, and Your Party has hardly mentioned the climate and ecological crises so far. Against this, in the UK and internationally, there is an extremely worrying turn to xenophobia and outright fascism, together with moves to curtail even the inadequate policies in place for environmental and climate protection. _Malign and dangerous forces are in play_ and they are the sworn enemies of degrowth. As we write this, we hear that the Tory Party too has now broken with the already grossly inadequate consensus of the mainstream parties on decarbonisation targets. Dangerous times indeed. What our series shows is that despite the storm clouds, there is a lively and pluralistic degrowth movement waiting in the wings, with a life-belt to hand, since it is degrowth that is the only hope for a viable future. ### Notes 1 Anna and Mark are the coordinators of the website, _Degrowth UK._ 2 Mark prefers the term ‘pancrisis’ since we are faced with an all-embracing crisis with multiple dimensions and ramifications. That crisis is the crisis of capitalism’s endless, growth-demanding destruction of people and planet. 3 See T Hirvilammi, Tuuli, et al. _Towards a Postgrowth Policy Paradigm. Report on the Theoretical Framework on Sustainable Wellbeing and Transformation_. Zenodo, _https://zenodo.org/records/14899252/files/D1.1%20Towards%20a%20postgrowth%20policy%20paradigm.%20Report%20on%20the%20theoretical%20framework%20on%20sustainable%20wellbeing%20and%20transformation%20.pdf?download=1_ section 4.2. 4 Burton , M. _Prospects for Degrowth 2025_ 5 Lopatina, Oxana. “Where Is Hope?” _Postgrowth Futures: New Voices, Novel Visions_ , edited by Vedran Horvat and Lana Pukanić, IPE, 2025, pp. 13–18. https://gef.eu/publication/post-growth-futures-new-voices-novel-visions/ 6 https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism 7 _https://breakdownjournal.substack.com/p/interview-with-jason-hickel-degrowth-a84_ See also this response to Jason Hickel: _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/debating-degrowth-a-response-to-jason-hickel_ We plan to pick up this debate with our own response later. 8 Some degrowth thinkers have, moreover, emphasised the extractive colonial nature of the capitalist, growthist, accumulation model. Based in the Global North, examples include Joan Martínez Alier, Ulrich Brand, and Jason Hickel, while in the Global South, Ashish Kotari, Vandana Shiva, Alberto Acosta, Max Ajl, and Maristella Svampa are degrowth-aligned thinkers among many others. * * * * *

Thanks Resilience.org for reposting and correcting the title.

Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far - resilience
www.resilience.org/stories/2025-10-16/prosp...

#ProspectsForDegrowth

Prospects for Degrowth ## Articles in this series. **Introduction and call for articles.** **Prospects for Degrowth 2025.** _Mark H Burton_ **Nothing Surprises Me.** _Vincent Liegey_ **A (friendly) critique of the Degrowth movement** _Ted Trainer_ **A (friendly) critique of the Degrowth Movement: A Reply by Manuel Casal Lodeiro** _Manuel Casal Lodeiro_ **Degrowth, the Movement, the State, Socialism and Marx: A response to Ted Trainer** _Mark H Burton_ **Response to Manuel and Mark** _Ted Trainer_ **Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities** _Graham Janz_ **Proposals for Degrowth** _Eva Martinez_ **Creatively Disrupting Capitalism** _Richard Muscat_ **Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam** _Aurora Despierta_ ****Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition**** __Anna Gregoletto__ **Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery** _Mladen Domazet_ **The Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there…** _Jon Cloke_ **As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda?** _Mark H Burton_ **Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far.** _Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton_ ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading...

There are now 15 articles in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.

Prospects for Degrowth – degrowthUK
https://degrowthuk.org/prospects-for-degrowth/

#degrowth

Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far. by Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton1 In the series Prospects for Degrowth pdf version of the article Overviews of the current conjuncture – openings and risks We opened the series with Mark’s stoc…

Thank you for reposting but you've used the title of the introduction as the title for the piece. It is actually "Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far". Would you correct it please?
See degrowthuk.org/2025/10/06/p...
#ProspectsForDegrowth #Degrowth

Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far. by Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton1 In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ _pdf version of the article_ ## **Overviews of the current conjuncture – openings and risks** We opened the series with Mark’s stock take _,___Prospects for Degrowth 2025__ of the current situation of polycrisis2, which presents a multitude of challenges but also opportunities for degrowth horizons to flourish. He offered a system diagram, showing how a number of factors interact to shape the current global conjuncture in relation to the goals of degrowth. These factors were, * Collapsing planetary and ecological systems in the face of insignificant mitigation and excessive material flows. * The internal and external limits of capitalist expansion. * Bankruptcy of political leadership. * Renewed growthism – backtracking on environmental and social protection. * Geopolitical conflict and population displacement. * Right populism, fascism and racist movements. Mark went on to argue that despite this depressing picture, there are some openings for the degrowth movement to influence and create an alternative future: * Disenchantment of sections of the left and centre-left. * Popular resistance to mega-projects, fossil fuel expansion and other extractivism, data centres, green space erosion. * Interest in demonstration projects and degrowth-friendly alternatives. * Anti-fascist resistance and solidarity movements. He proposed that following a multi-level strategy, the degrowth movement, despite its small size, could be key in building an effective counter-hegemony, an alternative ‘good sense’ of the kind of world we want and need, and how we can struggle together to get it. As he noted, _“We do not expect to win but we cannot afford to lose. Our approach will be collective not individual, caring, sharing and resisting, while always showing the way along the alternative degrowth pathway that we will be constructing as we go. Or at the very least, helping prepare for a ‘better collapse.”_ Following Mark’s opening gambit, Vincent Liegey offered another analysis on the current conjuncture and what that means for degrowth in ‘ __Nothing surprises me__ ’. Drawing a caricature of the growthist, capitalist, neocolonial paradigm, Vincent offered an analysis of the polycrisis not dissimilar to Mark’s, commenting on how the extreme degree of the current system’s corruption can represent a paradoxical opportunity for anti-systemic efforts: “ _It forces all those, who are truly sincere in their progressive and emancipatory aspirations, and in their understanding of ecological reality, to stop kidding themselves.”_ As the message ‘no infinite growth in a finite planet’ becomes ever more intuitive, it is clear that no solution would be complete without being anchored on the imperative of social justice and radical democratic participation. In this way, Vincent offers us a powerful warning that not all anti-systemic efforts (or not all those that claim that label, at least) will be able or willing to provide such a solution. He brings the example of illiberal Hungary, his country of residence, which has acted as a test bed for the authoritarian and nationalistic politics and policies that are now becoming more mainstream in multiple locations. In an echo of one of the originators of the degrowth concept, Castoriadis, he concludes the article by posing the dichotomy of _degrowth vs barbarism_. Mladen’s piece, __Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery__ _,_ self described as a ___“semiperipheral recipe for meaningful degrowth prospects in the present conjuncture”,_ had its origins in the same discussion that Mark’s and Vincent’s pieces grew out of. However, in his case he was frustrated by,__ “ _… the tacit assumption that the material juggernaut of the human socio-economic activity entangled with the raging climate transformation and living world die-off will simply keep spinning for the foreseeable future. We seemed to be discussing micro-politics, whilst it seemed to me we had been ignoring the proverbial elephant – or their imminent heart attack. That is, we were engaged with the daily tactical choices, worrying about greater representation in institutional structure, as well as our daily navigation through social structures.”_ Mladen found hope, or at least a semblance of it, through two examples. Firstly, the 1920s Zagreb activist August Cesarec, a Marxist who, acknowledging anarchist and utopian sensibilities, drew on the natural world with concepts such as ‘sensible organizing and solidarity’ and ‘general principles of justice’, in the attempt to build a narrative that made sense for those from his semi-peripheral context. Mladen suggests that in a similar way, we might draw on a broad understanding of life in the natural world, its _“biophysical trends and their aggregate effect on us, each only a few degrees of separation from the weather extremes, the food failures, and other interacting lifeforms”_ to paint _“the bigger picture of what is and can be done”._ Secondly, he draws inspiration from the 1970s Limits to Growth debates in the context of self management in socialist Yugoslavia. While “ _the growthers won”_ , o _ne of the lessons was the organisational power of the ‘one world’ perspective … a genuinely one-world perspective in which the resources, benefits and human commitment are all limited and require deliberation over distribution. A willingness to share radically, to see and understand the other, and to fully accept the collapsing world narrative.“_3 Ultimately, Mladen finds inspiration in the collective effort to tell a better story of what might be, or at least how, taking the beautiful and powerful forces of nature very seriously, we might live through a better collapse4. As he says, quoting Oxana Lupatina5, imagining the end of capitalism, or the end of the world, is different in the global periphery and semi-periphery, than in the still (but for how long) dominating world cities. Words of warning came also from Aurora Despierta’s piece, ‘ __Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam__ ’, in which she outlines the worrying possibility of the ruling class appropriating degrowth discourse: “We cannot pin our hopes on the collapse of capitalism”. Her analysis is reminiscent of Nancy Fraser’s _Cannibal Capitalism_ _6_ , since Aurora also understands capitalism as an essentially cannibalistic, illogical, brutal system. In the physical impossibility of further economic growth, the system would find something else to cannibalise on. Hence, we need to insist on “an anti-capitalist and voluntary degrowth”. The last article of the series examined very current developments in Left British politics and what they might mean for degrowth. In __As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda?__ , Mark offers a nuanced critique of the left turn of the Green party, with the election of Zack Polanski, and the slow and troubled creation of a new left party, provisionally named Your Party. Mark’s piece notes that, although both of these constitute positive developments for the Left, neither of them seems ready to confront the ecological reality of overshoot that we all live in, together with the necessity to equitably but urgently downscale our economies. Certainly, Your Party is not a fully formed organisation and there is no political programme critique just yet. However, given the latest leadership spats and internal divisions, questions arise as to whether it will ever be. ## **The degrowth movement – critique and defence******(Ted, Manuel, Mark) The previous pieces, more focused on creating a concrete understanding of the conditions in which we’re operating, were accompanied by other articles that confronted the question of what, as degrowthers, we should be doing in order to face these circumstances. Ted Trainer’s ‘ __Friendly Critique of Degrowth__ ’ led to a three-way exchange. Ted’s critiques of the movement include the following key points: degrowth has to be just about reducing consumption, the rest is the movement is losing focus on the imperative to change lifestyles over everything else (turning to his proposed ‘Simpler Way’) he criticised the focus on the State in favour of a consciousness raising strategy to create prefigurative spaces. Perhaps as a result of their respective European standpoints, both Manuel and Mark had difficulty in recognising Ted’s portrayal of the degrowth movement – their experience is clearly different from his. _Manuel’s_ __Reply__ brought attention to the existing literature, particularly Spanish and French literature, to which we might add some English- speaking authors, such as Jason Hickel, which does recognise the need to (qualitatively) reduce consumption and rejects capitalism. Manuel’s piece also highlighted the compatibility between anarchist visions, like the Simpler Way, and the broader degrowth movement, advocating for a ‘dual strategy’, combining bottom-up and top-down strategies. Following Manuel’s, Mark’s reply, __Degrowth, the Movement, the State, Socialism and Marx__**,** noted that, insofar as degrowth activists focus on government and its institutions, this can be seen in terms of non-reformist demands waged both within and outside a State that is always a terrain of contestation. The dichotomy of top-down and bottom-up is a simplification, and like Manuel he advocated a combination of strategies. In response to Ted’s disparaging comments about socialism and Marxism, he argues that Marxism is not inherently productivist, despite there having been a strong productivist strand in that tradition, a claim also shared by Anna’s later article. ## **Aspects of and approaches to degrowth** (Graham, Eva, Richard, Anna) This discussion also sparked reflections on other aspects of degrowth. Eva Martinez’s __Proposals for Degrowth__ built on this exchange adding a critical perspective of lived experience on living in intentional communities and of other interstitial approaches. Eva says, _“communities are in danger of becoming a hideaway for members to escape conditions of mainstream society”._ Her piece also interrogates the uncomfortable question of the privileges of the Simpler Life. In other words, who can actually afford to lead that kind of intentional life? Eva concludes her piece by urging those living in intentional communities to engage with organising efforts in their localities, or in urban neighbouring spaces, to re-politicise their lifestyles. Anna’s piece, __Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition__ _,_ echoing Manuel’s concept of dual strategy, investigated and affirmed the need for a State strategy, as part and parcel of ecosocialist degrowth, in conjunction with more local and non-State strategies. There is an echo of this in a recent interview with Jason Hickel, who argued that degrowth _is_ a socialist trajectory, but one that needs a mass class-based movement to take on the vested interests that govern the State under late capitalism7. Anna sets out the advantages of engaging with the State, while being clear that at present it protects the interests of capital. She also argues that there is a need for a revolutionary (and ecosocialist) political force, built painstakingly from the various strands of the left – a daunting task indeed. Richard Muscat’s __Creatively disrupting capitalism__ traces the genesis of a degrowth activist in the making,rom the privileges of what we might call an ecomodernist lifestyle as a worker in climate tech, to the uncomfortable realisation of the reality of ecological collapse and its entanglements with the capitalist-imperialist system, to his experience as an activist and advocate for degrowth, led Richard to offer some suggestions to the movement. One of his recommendations is simplifying the way that we share our theories to become more accessible to ‘regular people’, in favour of which Richard proposes the need for even more anti-capitalist, degrowth ‘instruction manuals’. Richard ends his article by returning to the creativity he mentioned in the title, the very antithesis of capitalism. Creativity is the centre of Graham Janz’s piece, __Familiarizing degrowth: art and grounded communities__ _,_ is a prefigurative exploration of the problematic of how to anchor degrowth in communities, and, more boldly, how to transform degrowth ideas from academic niches to wildly popular discourse. Put more simply, how to ‘familiarise’ them. The answer for Graham lies in the arts. Graham imagines ways of picturing glimpses of post-growth living through the visual arts while at the same time pushing for the creation of community spaces that enable degrowth lifestyles and democratic participation to flourish. In __Th__ __e Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there…__ , Jon Cloke gets specific about the material dimension of growth and degrowth, focusing on the neglected global problem of waste. The accelerating scale of all kinds of waste is truly incredible and as Jon notes, this presents a series of problems for even imagining a degrowth future, although only degrowth will address the issue: _Before any practical degrowth policies can be implemented, the fundamental reality of growth and increase have to be challenged as concepts and policies at the very root. But this devious, diabolical ‘reality’ is cunning, greedy and has more disguises than can be imagined – the most important of which are that growth and increase are invisible, unstoppable, inevitable and that terminating them is outside human reality._ ## Conclusion: Thinking of Silences and Further Prospects We conclude this appraisal by pointing out some areas of silence in the series, as well as areas that present further prospects for degrowth thinkers and activists. The first of two major silences we identify is on degrowth and decolonisation. While anti-imperialist commitment was mentioned in a couple of the pieces, no article centred on the relationship between the two. It is possible that this reflects a general silence within the degrowth literature. However there are some notable exceptions8. At the recent _Oslo conference_ , there was a ‘degrowth and delinking tent’, with discussions and events organised around _Samir Amin’s concept of delinking_ from the global economic system. This was not a theme of the conference but nevertheless acted as a contemporaneous commentary and critique. The second absence within the series has been gender, feminism and queer perspectives to degrowth. The relationship of feminist thinking, economics and ecology has added an important perspective to the degrowth scholarship in recent years through the work of theorists like Stefania Barca and networks like FaDA. This is a topic on which we invite contributions for future articles in the series or stand alone articles. The final prospect, unfolding at the time we’re writing this closing piece, is captured by two developments for us in the UK. Firstly, the launch of a new Left party (provisionally called ‘Your Party’) by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, and secondly the apparent leftward and social movement orientated shift in the Green Party’s leadership team. Do these developments have the potential of shifting the prospects outlined for degrowth in this series so far? Is there a serious prospect that either force, or an alliance of the two, will take the degrowth agenda seriously? As Mark _explored, in the piece noted above_ , the Green Party of England and Wales tends to downplay their position against growth, and Your Party has hardly mentioned the climate and ecological crises so far. Against this, in the UK and internationally, there is an extremely worrying turn to xenophobia and outright fascism, together with moves to curtail even the inadequate policies in place for environmental and climate protection. _Malign and dangerous forces are in play_ and they are the sworn enemies of degrowth. As we write this, we hear that the Tory Party too has now broken with the already grossly inadequate consensus of the mainstream parties on decarbonisation targets. Dangerous times indeed. What our series shows is that despite the storm clouds, there is a lively and pluralistic degrowth movement waiting in the wings, with a life-belt to hand, since it is degrowth that is the only hope for a viable future. ### Notes 1 Anna and Mark are the coordinators of the website, _Degrowth UK._ 2 Mark prefers the term ‘pancrisis’ since we are faced with an all-embracing crisis with multiple dimensions and ramifications. That crisis is the crisis of capitalism’s endless, growth-demanding destruction of people and planet. 3 See T Hirvilammi, Tuuli, et al. _Towards a Postgrowth Policy Paradigm. Report on the Theoretical Framework on Sustainable Wellbeing and Transformation_. Zenodo, _https://zenodo.org/records/14899252/files/D1.1%20Towards%20a%20postgrowth%20policy%20paradigm.%20Report%20on%20the%20theoretical%20framework%20on%20sustainable%20wellbeing%20and%20transformation%20.pdf?download=1_ section 4.2. 4 Burton , M. _Prospects for Degrowth 2025_ 5 Lopatina, Oxana. “Where Is Hope?” _Postgrowth Futures: New Voices, Novel Visions_ , edited by Vedran Horvat and Lana Pukanić, IPE, 2025, pp. 13–18. https://gef.eu/publication/post-growth-futures-new-voices-novel-visions/ 6 https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism 7 _https://breakdownjournal.substack.com/p/interview-with-jason-hickel-degrowth-a84_ See also this response to Jason Hickel: _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/debating-degrowth-a-response-to-jason-hickel_ We plan to pick up this debate with our own response later. 8 Some degrowth thinkers have, moreover, emphasised the extractive colonial nature of the capitalist, growthist, accumulation model. Based in the Global North, examples include Joan Martínez Alier, Ulrich Brand, and Jason Hickel, while in the Global South, Ashish Kotari, Vandana Shiva, Alberto Acosta, Max Ajl, and Maristella Svampa are degrowth-aligned thinkers among many others. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

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Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far. – degrowthUK
degrowthuk.org/2025/10/06/prospects-for...

#degrowth #ProspectsForDegrowth

Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far. by Anna Gregoletto and Mark H Burton1 In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ _pdf version of the article_ ## **Overviews of the current conjuncture – openings and risks** We opened the series with Mark’s stock take _,___Prospects for Degrowth 2025__ of the current situation of polycrisis2, which presents a multitude of challenges but also opportunities for degrowth horizons to flourish. He offered a system diagram, showing how a number of factors interact to shape the current global conjuncture in relation to the goals of degrowth. These factors were, * Collapsing planetary and ecological systems in the face of insignificant mitigation and excessive material flows. * The internal and external limits of capitalist expansion. * Bankruptcy of political leadership. * Renewed growthism – backtracking on environmental and social protection. * Geopolitical conflict and population displacement. * Right populism, fascism and racist movements. Mark went on to argue that despite this depressing picture, there are some openings for the degrowth movement to influence and create an alternative future: * Disenchantment of sections of the left and centre-left. * Popular resistance to mega-projects, fossil fuel expansion and other extractivism, data centres, green space erosion. * Interest in demonstration projects and degrowth-friendly alternatives. * Anti-fascist resistance and solidarity movements. He proposed that following a multi-level strategy, the degrowth movement, despite its small size, could be key in building an effective counter-hegemony, an alternative ‘good sense’ of the kind of world we want and need, and how we can struggle together to get it. As he noted, _“We do not expect to win but we cannot afford to lose. Our approach will be collective not individual, caring, sharing and resisting, while always showing the way along the alternative degrowth pathway that we will be constructing as we go. Or at the very least, helping prepare for a ‘better collapse.”_ Following Mark’s opening gambit, Vincent Liegey offered another analysis on the current conjuncture and what that means for degrowth in ‘ __Nothing surprises me__ ’. Drawing a caricature of the growthist, capitalist, neocolonial paradigm, Vincent offered an analysis of the polycrisis not dissimilar to Mark’s, commenting on how the extreme degree of the current system’s corruption can represent a paradoxical opportunity for anti-systemic efforts: “ _It forces all those, who are truly sincere in their progressive and emancipatory aspirations, and in their understanding of ecological reality, to stop kidding themselves.”_ As the message ‘no infinite growth in a finite planet’ becomes ever more intuitive, it is clear that no solution would be complete without being anchored on the imperative of social justice and radical democratic participation. In this way, Vincent offers us a powerful warning that not all anti-systemic efforts (or not all those that claim that label, at least) will be able or willing to provide such a solution. He brings the example of illiberal Hungary, his country of residence, which has acted as a test bed for the authoritarian and nationalistic politics and policies that are now becoming more mainstream in multiple locations. In an echo of one of the originators of the degrowth concept, Castoriadis, he concludes the article by posing the dichotomy of _degrowth vs barbarism_. Mladen’s piece, __Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery__ _,_ self described as a ___“semiperipheral recipe for meaningful degrowth prospects in the present conjuncture”,_ had its origins in the same discussion that Mark’s and Vincent’s pieces grew out of. However, in his case he was frustrated by,__ “ _… the tacit assumption that the material juggernaut of the human socio-economic activity entangled with the raging climate transformation and living world die-off will simply keep spinning for the foreseeable future. We seemed to be discussing micro-politics, whilst it seemed to me we had been ignoring the proverbial elephant – or their imminent heart attack. That is, we were engaged with the daily tactical choices, worrying about greater representation in institutional structure, as well as our daily navigation through social structures.”_ Mladen found hope, or at least a semblance of it, through two examples. Firstly, the 1920s Zagreb activist August Cesarec, a Marxist who, acknowledging anarchist and utopian sensibilities, drew on the natural world with concepts such as ‘sensible organizing and solidarity’ and ‘general principles of justice’, in the attempt to build a narrative that made sense for those from his semi-peripheral context. Mladen suggests that in a similar way, we might draw on a broad understanding of life in the natural world, its _“biophysical trends and their aggregate effect on us, each only a few degrees of separation from the weather extremes, the food failures, and other interacting lifeforms”_ to paint _“the bigger picture of what is and can be done”._ Secondly, he draws inspiration from the 1970s Limits to Growth debates in the context of self management in socialist Yugoslavia. While “ _the growthers won”_ , o _ne of the lessons was the organisational power of the ‘one world’ perspective … a genuinely one-world perspective in which the resources, benefits and human commitment are all limited and require deliberation over distribution. A willingness to share radically, to see and understand the other, and to fully accept the collapsing world narrative.“_3 Ultimately, Mladen finds inspiration in the collective effort to tell a better story of what might be, or at least how, taking the beautiful and powerful forces of nature very seriously, we might live through a better collapse4. As he says, quoting Oxana Lupatina5, imagining the end of capitalism, or the end of the world, is different in the global periphery and semi-periphery, than in the still (but for how long) dominating world cities. Words of warning came also from Aurora Despierta’s piece, ‘ __Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam__ ’, in which she outlines the worrying possibility of the ruling class appropriating degrowth discourse: “We cannot pin our hopes on the collapse of capitalism”. Her analysis is reminiscent of Nancy Fraser’s _Cannibal Capitalism_ _6_ , since Aurora also understands capitalism as an essentially cannibalistic, illogical, brutal system. In the physical impossibility of further economic growth, the system would find something else to cannibalise on. Hence, we need to insist on “an anti-capitalist and voluntary degrowth”. The last article of the series examined very current developments in Left British politics and what they might mean for degrowth. In __As UK politics turns both right and left, how do we get degrowth onto the agenda?__ , Mark offers a nuanced critique of the left turn of the Green party, with the election of Zack Polanski, and the slow and troubled creation of a new left party, provisionally named Your Party. Mark’s piece notes that, although both of these constitute positive developments for the Left, neither of them seems ready to confront the ecological reality of overshoot that we all live in, together with the necessity to equitably but urgently downscale our economies. Certainly, Your Party is not a fully formed organisation and there is no political programme critique just yet. However, given the latest leadership spats and internal divisions, questions arise as to whether it will ever be. ## **The degrowth movement – critique and defence******(Ted, Manuel, Mark) The previous pieces, more focused on creating a concrete understanding of the conditions in which we’re operating, were accompanied by other articles that confronted the question of what, as degrowthers, we should be doing in order to face these circumstances. Ted Trainer’s ‘ __Friendly Critique of Degrowth__ ’ led to a three-way exchange. Ted’s critiques of the movement include the following key points: degrowth has to be just about reducing consumption, the rest is the movement is losing focus on the imperative to change lifestyles over everything else (turning to his proposed ‘Simpler Way’) he criticised the focus on the State in favour of a consciousness raising strategy to create prefigurative spaces. Perhaps as a result of their respective European standpoints, both Manuel and Mark had difficulty in recognising Ted’s portrayal of the degrowth movement – their experience is clearly different from his. _Manuel’s_ __Reply__ brought attention to the existing literature, particularly Spanish and French literature, to which we might add some English- speaking authors, such as Jason Hickel, which does recognise the need to (qualitatively) reduce consumption and rejects capitalism. Manuel’s piece also highlighted the compatibility between anarchist visions, like the Simpler Way, and the broader degrowth movement, advocating for a ‘dual strategy’, combining bottom-up and top-down strategies. Following Manuel’s, Mark’s reply, __Degrowth, the Movement, the State, Socialism and Marx__**,** noted that, insofar as degrowth activists focus on government and its institutions, this can be seen in terms of non-reformist demands waged both within and outside a State that is always a terrain of contestation. The dichotomy of top-down and bottom-up is a simplification, and like Manuel he advocated a combination of strategies. In response to Ted’s disparaging comments about socialism and Marxism, he argues that Marxism is not inherently productivist, despite there having been a strong productivist strand in that tradition, a claim also shared by Anna’s later article. ## **Aspects of and approaches to degrowth** (Graham, Eva, Richard, Anna) This discussion also sparked reflections on other aspects of degrowth. Eva Martinez’s __Proposals for Degrowth__ built on this exchange adding a critical perspective of lived experience on living in intentional communities and of other interstitial approaches. Eva says, _“communities are in danger of becoming a hideaway for members to escape conditions of mainstream society”._ Her piece also interrogates the uncomfortable question of the privileges of the Simpler Life. In other words, who can actually afford to lead that kind of intentional life? Eva concludes her piece by urging those living in intentional communities to engage with organising efforts in their localities, or in urban neighbouring spaces, to re-politicise their lifestyles. Anna’s piece, __Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition__ _,_ echoing Manuel’s concept of dual strategy, investigated and affirmed the need for a State strategy, as part and parcel of ecosocialist degrowth, in conjunction with more local and non-State strategies. There is an echo of this in a recent interview with Jason Hickel, who argued that degrowth _is_ a socialist trajectory, but one that needs a mass class-based movement to take on the vested interests that govern the State under late capitalism7. Anna sets out the advantages of engaging with the State, while being clear that at present it protects the interests of capital. She also argues that there is a need for a revolutionary (and ecosocialist) political force, built painstakingly from the various strands of the left – a daunting task indeed. Richard Muscat’s __Creatively disrupting capitalism__ traces the genesis of a degrowth activist in the making,rom the privileges of what we might call an ecomodernist lifestyle as a worker in climate tech, to the uncomfortable realisation of the reality of ecological collapse and its entanglements with the capitalist-imperialist system, to his experience as an activist and advocate for degrowth, led Richard to offer some suggestions to the movement. One of his recommendations is simplifying the way that we share our theories to become more accessible to ‘regular people’, in favour of which Richard proposes the need for even more anti-capitalist, degrowth ‘instruction manuals’. Richard ends his article by returning to the creativity he mentioned in the title, the very antithesis of capitalism. Creativity is the centre of Graham Janz’s piece, __Familiarizing degrowth: art and grounded communities__ _,_ is a prefigurative exploration of the problematic of how to anchor degrowth in communities, and, more boldly, how to transform degrowth ideas from academic niches to wildly popular discourse. Put more simply, how to ‘familiarise’ them. The answer for Graham lies in the arts. Graham imagines ways of picturing glimpses of post-growth living through the visual arts while at the same time pushing for the creation of community spaces that enable degrowth lifestyles and democratic participation to flourish. In __Th__ __e Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there…__ , Jon Cloke gets specific about the material dimension of growth and degrowth, focusing on the neglected global problem of waste. The accelerating scale of all kinds of waste is truly incredible and as Jon notes, this presents a series of problems for even imagining a degrowth future, although only degrowth will address the issue: _Before any practical degrowth policies can be implemented, the fundamental reality of growth and increase have to be challenged as concepts and policies at the very root. But this devious, diabolical ‘reality’ is cunning, greedy and has more disguises than can be imagined – the most important of which are that growth and increase are invisible, unstoppable, inevitable and that terminating them is outside human reality._ ## Conclusion: Thinking of Silences and Further Prospects We conclude this appraisal by pointing out some areas of silence in the series, as well as areas that present further prospects for degrowth thinkers and activists. The first of two major silences we identify is on degrowth and decolonisation. While anti-imperialist commitment was mentioned in a couple of the pieces, no article centred on the relationship between the two. It is possible that this reflects a general silence within the degrowth literature. However there are some notable exceptions8. At the recent _Oslo conference_ , there was a ‘degrowth and delinking tent’, with discussions and events organised around _Samir Amin’s concept of delinking_ from the global economic system. This was not a theme of the conference but nevertheless acted as a contemporaneous commentary and critique. The second absence within the series has been gender, feminism and queer perspectives to degrowth. The relationship of feminist thinking, economics and ecology has added an important perspective to the degrowth scholarship in recent years through the work of theorists like Stefania Barca and networks like FaDA. This is a topic on which we invite contributions for future articles in the series or stand alone articles. The final prospect, unfolding at the time we’re writing this closing piece, is captured by two developments for us in the UK. Firstly, the launch of a new Left party (provisionally called ‘Your Party’) by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, and secondly the apparent leftward and social movement orientated shift in the Green Party’s leadership team. Do these developments have the potential of shifting the prospects outlined for degrowth in this series so far? Is there a serious prospect that either force, or an alliance of the two, will take the degrowth agenda seriously? As Mark _explored, in the piece noted above_ , the Green Party of England and Wales tends to downplay their position against growth, and Your Party has hardly mentioned the climate and ecological crises so far. Against this, in the UK and internationally, there is an extremely worrying turn to xenophobia and outright fascism, together with moves to curtail even the inadequate policies in place for environmental and climate protection. _Malign and dangerous forces are in play_ and they are the sworn enemies of degrowth. As we write this, we hear that the Tory Party too has now broken with the already grossly inadequate consensus of the mainstream parties on decarbonisation targets. Dangerous times indeed. What our series shows is that despite the storm clouds, there is a lively and pluralistic degrowth movement waiting in the wings, with a life-belt to hand, since it is degrowth that is the only hope for a viable future. ### Notes 1 Anna and Mark are the coordinators of the website, _Degrowth UK._ 2 Mark prefers the term ‘pancrisis’ since we are faced with an all-embracing crisis with multiple dimensions and ramifications. That crisis is the crisis of capitalism’s endless, growth-demanding destruction of people and planet. 3 See T Hirvilammi, Tuuli, et al. _Towards a Postgrowth Policy Paradigm. Report on the Theoretical Framework on Sustainable Wellbeing and Transformation_. Zenodo, _https://zenodo.org/records/14899252/files/D1.1%20Towards%20a%20postgrowth%20policy%20paradigm.%20Report%20on%20the%20theoretical%20framework%20on%20sustainable%20wellbeing%20and%20transformation%20.pdf?download=1_ section 4.2. 4 Burton , M. _Prospects for Degrowth 2025_ 5 Lopatina, Oxana. “Where Is Hope?” _Postgrowth Futures: New Voices, Novel Visions_ , edited by Vedran Horvat and Lana Pukanić, IPE, 2025, pp. 13–18. https://gef.eu/publication/post-growth-futures-new-voices-novel-visions/ 6 https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2685-cannibal-capitalism 7 _https://breakdownjournal.substack.com/p/interview-with-jason-hickel-degrowth-a84_ See also this response to Jason Hickel: _https://degrowth.info/en/blog/debating-degrowth-a-response-to-jason-hickel_ We plan to pick up this debate with our own response later. 8 Some degrowth thinkers have, moreover, emphasised the extractive colonial nature of the capitalist, growthist, accumulation model. Based in the Global North, examples include Joan Martínez Alier, Ulrich Brand, and Jason Hickel, while in the Global South, Ashish Kotari, Vandana Shiva, Alberto Acosta, Max Ajl, and Maristella Svampa are degrowth-aligned thinkers among many others. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Following several months of interesting articles from various quarters in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series, we've written a summary and reflection on it all.

Prospects for Degrowth: the story so far. – degrowthUK
degrowthuk.org/2025/10/06/prospects-for...
#degrowth

Original post on mstdn.social

"What goes with [GDP growth] is ... ignored; growth depends on increased production and distribution, which always increase waste."
Jon Cloke in our new #ProspectsForDegrowth piece.

The Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there… – degrowthUK […]

The Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there… **Jon Cloke* In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ ** “You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air But I tell you once and once again, _Macavity’s not there!_ ” ## Growth, Degrowth, Post-Growth There are so many accepted definitions of economic growth that it’s almost a monad, “a most basic substance” that goes without question. In one recent example, Max Roser (2021) defines growth as _“an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and services that a society produces.”_ However, what goes with it is also inevitable but ignored; growth depends on increased production and distribution, which always increase waste. Waste, like Macavity, is an inextricable part of growth, always there, mostly invisible, hard to measure. After all, as UNEP (2024: 17) reports “Some countries have no official waste data whatsoever, or this data may be incomplete or inaccurate” – some 2.7 billion people live their lives outside any waste collection (ISWA, 2024). Oscar Wilde pointed out in The Picture of Dorian Grey, “In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures.” Waste endures; human waste will outlast humanity… we live in the Vastocene, the era of waste, not the Anthropocene. Global Municipal waste, Bn tonnes by decade. Source: UNEP, 2024, copyright but reproduced under stated allowable use. A two-dimensional depiction of goods and services has also been picked up by Degrowth specialists – In a (2025) article on post-growth, this is described as referring _“to societies that do not pursue GDP growth as an objective, and which are able to meet human needs in an equitable way without growth.”_ But purposeful deconstruction of waste as a component of growth continues to be left out as a growing factor in the production; waste nonetheless is a major constituent of growth, maybe the only constant in growth. Gille (2010) points out that _“waste derives from the “assumption that the economy is constituted by the production and exchange of intended things”_ , but in a global economy waste is increasingly an inevitable consequence of global supply chains, exploitative contracts and uncontrolled resource exploitation. If a theoretical economy relies on the exchange of intended things, a _profitable_ economy relies on the waste produced by the production, distribution and sale of those things. Growth is still accepted in the self-referential hagiography of institutional, orthodox economics; growth is goods and services. Some growth, however, such as waste battery disposal and recycling in Nigeria, is simply invisibilized from GDP. Nigeria produces 110,000 tonnes1 of used lead-acid batteries a year and it recycles some 200,000-250,0002 in a dangerous trade that escapes GDP figures – the global trade in lead-acid batteries is expected to grow from US$ 79.9 billion (2021) to about US$ 115.1 billion in 20303. Food, e-waste, batteries, clothes and growing quantities of waste from every consumer good are overwhelmingly generated by the wealthier countries, NOT because the wealthy recipients can’t do without them, but because global mass consumption is being accelerated by the vast TNCs which profit from each sector, a phenomenon known as ‘growth’. Growth depends on increasing waste, increased profit depends on accelerating waste. Wealthy countries are by far the largest generators of waste and by far the largest dispersers of their own waste through global networks and dumping, from plastic in the oceans, to clothing in the Atacama in Chile, to lead-acid batteries in Nigeria. Growth accelerates from and profits from waste, and globalization accelerates, profits from and disperses waste on a global basis. Researchers on degrowth emphasize a set of sources which must act as critical limiters on growth (Demaria et al, 2013). These are 1) Ecology, seeing living systems as having value in themselves; 2) An anti-utilitarian critique of development, the “hegemonic imaginary of both development and utilitarianism” (2013: 196); 3) Arguments re the meaning of life in modern societies; 4) A bioeconomic critique of resource availability and limits on use; 5) Calls for a ’deeper democracy’, especially regarding limits to growth; and 6) Justice, given the tendency of current processes of growth to worsen inequality. But the problem with these premises is that they tend to cope with growth as a given, accepted thing, rather than analysing the systemic waste that creates growth. This author began a systemic, geo-political and philosophical analysis of waste in 2013 by beginning with food waste (Cloke, 2013: > “ _The total food waste by consumers in industrialized countries (222 million tons) is almost equal to the entire food production in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons). Whereas consumers in Europe waste an estimated 95–115 kilograms of food per year, in sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia the per capita waste is only 6–11 kilograms per year (USDA and US-EPA, 1999, v, 4).”_ The amount of food wasted has very little to do with population size, if not per capita wealth – the richer consumption zones are, the more waste they produce, growth and waste which have little/nothing to do with quality of life. By 2024 the US wasted some 30-40% of the national food supply4 – the UNEP (2024) Food Waste Index Report states that _“US$1 trillion worth of food is wasted each year (World Bank 2020). This represents more than one-third of all the food that is produced globally, using over a quarter (28 per cent) of the world’s agricultural area (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] 2013).”_ It needs to be stated over and over again however, that these levels of waste are made inevitable by the global production systems designed to cheapen food production, not by accidents of technology or lack of investment. These same systems also waste the labour, water, energy and resources needed to produce that waste food, which have their own production chains. Waste-based (vastogenic) growth is a profitable global spider’s web of human and resource atrocity: > “ _The global reality, however, is that an increasing percentage of a rapidly increasing global food supply is being wasted (along with the resources it takes to produce, transport, and sell that food), in a major part because the way in which the world’s corporatized global food regimes have developed makes it profitable to do so (Cloke, 2016: 103).”_ It is only by conducting this kind of pathological analysis of systemic growth that researchers can understand how “ _worldwide adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990, and adolescent obesity has quadrupled”_ and “ _in 2024, 35 million children under the age of 5 were overweight”_ (Ritchie, 2024), whilst at the same time (globally) in 2021 “ _half of child deaths were linked to nutritional deficiencies.”_ Understanding the gross deformities in the system of food production growth leads inevitably to the conclusion that growth has nothing to do with satisfying hunger and leading to a healthy diet. Global food supply growth is entirely related to over-producing for high-income zones of consumption, at the cost of under-producing for low-income zones of production – food waste is the dynamic reality of this. Equally, as in the UK, the growth of transport and TV networks, domestic food storage technologies and the massive spread of retail networks combined to boost waste: > “ _The take-off phase for mass food consumerism doubles food waste from 1939 to 1976, but the biggest increase in food/waste takes place when car, TV, fridge, freezer and road networks plus the spread of supermarket networks combine to produce a veritable explosion in throughput of food/waste materials.”_ > (Cloke, 2020). ## The taste for waste It would be impossible to develop a meaningful history of the richer nations on earth without assessing the primordial worship of personal consumption, and growth through consumption. From Adam Smith’s famous “ _Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production”_ in The Wealth of Nations (1776) to Bernays’ work in turning PR into a cattle prod for consumers in ‘Public Relations’ (1945), growth through unthinking consumption grew into the norm. Consumption was the sovereign right of the individuals, but large groups of individuals could be persuaded to consume more of desired products at a faster rate, irrespective of utility. As one example, there are estimated to be 16 billion smart phones in existence, maybe twice the number of people in the global population – up to 1/3 in the EU are not used, but in 2022 5.3 billion phones were thrown away5, mainly as a result of marketing new products. Bernays pointed out in his 1928 book ‘Propaganda’: _“Mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained—that is if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity.”_ Consumption must increase, and with it the amount of waste it produces. From Windows to the iPhone, size, shape and functionality may increase or decrease but the rate of exchange accelerates and the price increases. As increasingly powerful conglomerates sought to accelerate consumption throughout the last half of the 20th century and communication with the consumer through TV and radio made for intimate contact, so accelerating consumer appetite creation became the big thing. This explicit connection between waste and growth was openly discussed in post-war PR and marketing literature: “ _We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption.”_ (Lebow, 1955) But none of this discussion on the ‘progressive’ nature of accelerated growth allowed any mention of that menacing, ever-going, shadowy giant, waste. Neither does it mention the key roles of envy, dissatisfaction and depression in propelling consumer growth. From Charles Kettering’s 1929 article ‘Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied’ to Tim Jackson’s 2021 article ‘Broken promises—the engine of consumerism’6, it is openly stressed that “The success of consumer society lies not in meeting our needs but in its spectacular ability to repeatedly disappoint us”. Growth is based on the planned psychological failure of consumption and expanded efforts to re-create it. How will Degrowth cope with this dependency of the human psyche on failed consumption? ## Waste is increasingly invisible and unstoppable The figures on the toxic relationship between consumption and waste can be hard to find – the vast industries of PR, marketing, management consultancy and advertising really don’t want to draw attention to them. Neither do they want public attention drawn to the failure of attempts to encourage more consumption, attempts which themselves create more waste. Every year, these combined industries are involved in the global rollout of greater than 30,000 new products – 95% of these fail7. “75% of consumer packaged-goods and retail products fail to earn even $7.5 million in their first year”8, and the list of massive product failure goes on and on. Think of how much water and energy, how many resources, how much production ability and how many labour hours are lost in this planned failure. Stromberg (2013) pointed out that online shopping substantially increased waste, from the mid-1990s onwards. The increase in both consumption and waste here coincide directly with the first secure online transaction in 1994, the launch of Amazon and E-bay platforms in 1995 and the dramatic expansion of broadband/online access beginning in 2000. According to the Economist, between 2018 and 2050 global waste production will nearly double, as a result of increased access to online consumption mechanisms in lower-income countries and potential increases in household income there9. The convenience of online consumption (24/7 shopping; product choice; price variation; convenience; home delivery; product reviews; personalized shopping; accessibility) has also substantially increased waste in wealthier zones and countries. Not only that, but countries with a higher per capita GDP waste more – wealth plus online shopping equals far more waste! **WASTE GENERATION – ACTUAL AND MODEL PREDICTION** Source: Kaza, Shrikanth and Chaudhary, 2021, (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo “you are free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt this work, including for commercial purposes”). Within global supply chains, a multiplicity of contractual and technical stipulations demanded by powerful corporate purchasers and suppliers increase waste. Payment terms including unilateral contract changes by purchasers; retailer product quality standards deterring small producers; slotting allowances and pay-to-stay fees to retailers for new products; product take-back clauses allowing retailers to return product to suppliers once a residual shelf-life has been reached; category management to suit the sales strategies of retailers, the list of devolving costs outside the supply chain increases waste (Cloke, 2020). If take-back clauses return a mass of goods to suppliers on a shelf-life basis, what will the suppliers do, except dump the returned goods? ## Systemic waste, planned obsolescence and practical degrowth After Brooks Stevens set out the term “planned obsolescence” (as a mechanism to promote growth) into common use in 1954, it has become synonymous with waste – In 1960, Packard and McKibben were outlining “the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals”. The wave of trans-nationalization of corporations that began in the 1950s (based on cost reduction. access to resources, competitive advantage and mergers and acquisitions), encouraged by political and financial services developments, led to an exponential growth in waste in the blink of an historical eye – _“Roughly one third of all materials that have been extracted or discarded since 1900 have been mobilized between 2002 and 2015 only.”_(Krausmann et al, 2018). In the face of this profligacy, practical ideas for degrowth policies include scaling down harmful industries, ending planned obsolescence, cutting advertising, shifting to usership, money creation, co-operative models, income and wealth equality and fossil fuel non-Proliferation10. All of these sound like reasonable policies and, with political will to accomplish them, they are accomplishable. But they are literally flying in the face of the massive financial and political will-power of an overwhelmingly powerful global elite which has all the weapons. Bernays’ ideas of the necessity for increased production and Lebow’s destructive ideas for consumption are not theories, they literally drive the global capitalist machine and all levels of political power take this increased consumption as primordial, a basic human right. Before any practical degrowth policies can be implemented, the fundamental reality of growth and increase have to be challenged as concepts and policies at the very root. But this devious, diabolical ‘reality’ is cunning, greedy and has more disguises than can be imagined – the most important of which are that growth and increase are invisible, unstoppable, inevitable and that terminating them is outside human reality: > _“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.”_ > “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” > Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen *DR JON CLOKE, LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY Jon Cloke currently works as a Research Associate, National Network Manager for the Low Carbon Energy for Development Network (_www.lcedn.com_) and as Research Associate for ENR-Demos (https://www.enrdemosproject.net/). Since completing his PhD he has been teaching and doing research in a variety of different research areas including alternative energy, corruption, corporate social responsibility and social inclusion in higher education. He is also interested in global economic crises, financialization and the evolution of capital originated in examining the political economy of the discourse on corruption and from examining the wider relational spaces of corruption within the global financial services sector as they relate to ‘normal’, as opposed to ‘aberrant’ practices in the global development _dispositif._ ## **Sources** (end note references follow the alphabetical list) Cloke, J., (2013) Empires of waste and the food security meme. Geography Compass, 7(9), pp.622-636. Cloke, J., 2016. Food security and food waste. Peter Jackson· Walter EL Spiess, 99. Demaria, F., Schneider, F., Sekulova, F. and Martinez-Alier, J., (2013) What is degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement. Environmental values, 22(2), pp.191-215. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2013). Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources: Summary Report. Rome. _http://www.fao.org/3/i3347e/i3347e.pdf_. International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) (2024). Global waste management outlook 2024: Beyond an age of waste: Turning rubbish into a resource. Kallis, Giorgos et al. (2025) Post-growth: the science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries, The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 9, Issue 1. Kaza, S., Shrikanth, S. and Chaudhary, S., 2021. More growth, less garbage. Krausmann, F., Lauk, C., Haas, W. and Dominik Wiedenhofer, (2018) From resource extraction to outflows of wastes and emissions: The socioeconomic metabolism of the global economy, 1900–2015. Global Environmental Change Volume 52: 131-140. Lebow, Victor (1955) Price Competition in 1955, Journal of Retailing, Spring 1955. Packard, V. and McKibben, B., 1960. The waste makers. Ritchie, H. (2024) – “Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/half-child-deaths-linked-malnutrition. Roser, M. (2021) – “What is economic growth? And why is it so important?” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-economic-growth. Stromberg, J. (2013) “When will we hit peak garbage?”, The Smithsonian magazine, accessed 28/8/25 at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-will-we-hit-peak-garbage-7074398/ The Business Research Company (2025) Waste And Recycling Global Market Report 2025. Accessed 9/7/25 at _https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/waste-and-recycling-global-market-report_ United Nations Environment Programme (2024). Global Waste Management Outlook 2024: Beyond an age of waste – Turning rubbish into a resource. Nairobi. Accessed 15/9/25 at https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/44939 USDA and US-EPA. (1999). Waste not, want not: feeding the hungry and reducing solid waste through food recovery. USDA/EPA document EPA 530-R-99-040. Accessed 2/6/25 at _https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/tiff2png.cgi/1000170R.PNG?-r+75+-g+7+D%3A%5CZYFILES%5CINDEX%20DATA%5C95THRU99%5CTIFF%5C00001192%5C1000170R.TIF_ World Bank (2020). Addressing Food Loss and Waste: A Global Problem with Local Solutions. Washington, D.C. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34521 1 https://sweetcrudereports.com/nigeria-generates-approximately-110000-tons-used-lead-batteries-annually/ 2 https://businessday.ng/companies/article/200000-tons-used-batteries-leave-nigeria-annually-killing-local-recycling-businesses-ugbor/ 3 https://www.fnfresearch.com/lead-acid-battery-market 4 https://www.wastemanaged.co.uk/our-news/food-waste/food-waste-facts-statistics/#:~:text=Estimates%20suggest%20that%20around%2030%2D40%%20of%20the,with%20an%20estimated%20value%20of%20%C2%A314%20billion. 5 BBC News, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63245150 accessed 30/7/25 6 https://cusp.ac.uk/themes/aetw/consumerism_disappointment/ 7 MIT Professional Education, accessed 30/6/2025 at https://professionalprograms.mit.edu/blog/design/why-95-of-new-products-miss-the-mark-and-how-yours-can-avoid-the-same-fate/ 8 Yaqub M. (2025) Business Dasher, 10 Product Launch Statistics & Trends: A Must-Know in 2024, accessed 30/06/2025 at https://www.businessdasher.com/product-launch-statistics/ 9 The Economist (2018) ‘Global waste generation will nearly double by 2050’, accessed 20/06/2025 at http://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/10/02/global-waste-generation-will-nearly-double-by-2050. 10 Degrowth Policies, Degrowth Net, accessed at https://explore.degrowth.net/degrowth/policies/ on 30/7/25 ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

A new piece in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.

The Macavity of Degrowth – Waste, the Empire that isn’t there… by Jon Cloke.
degrowthuk.org/2025/09/18/the-macavity-...
#degrowth #waste #GlobalWaste

Original post on mstdn.social

"Meanwhile [various] projects, are co-constructed, won or lost, implemented and written about using cloaked expressions and degrowth-like terminology.
"But the fear of openly speaking about justice, survival and revolution, the fear of being the first fool to shout ‘the emperor has no clothes’ […]

Original post on mstdn.social

From Croatia:
'Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery' – Mladen Domazet

In the series #ProspectsForDegrowth […]

Original post on mstdn.social

'Stories of expanded solidarity: the personal and the political in the degrowth perspective from the European periphery' – Mladen Domazet

In the series #ProspectsForDegrowth […]

Original post on mstdn.social

Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition
by Anna Gregoletto, on DegrowthUK

degrowthuk.org/2025/06/12/degrowth-as-a...
Also
Degrowth: a dead end or the way out?
by Aurora Despierta […]

Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition _**by Anna Gregoletto**_ * In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ _Many thanks to Mark Burton for encouraging me to write this article and offering so many helpful suggestions.__Thank you also to my comrades at Climate Vanguard.__Without their teachings I’d have never been able to articulate the ideas in this article.__Do check outClimate Vanguard’s incredible work._ **A multi-faced Strategy for a Multi-faced Degrowth** Many degrowthers recognise that talking about degrowth means talking about a ‘family’ of approaches characterised by a vibrant multiplicity. The edited volume Degrowth and Strategy recognises this and puts forward a minimal definition of degrowth (“a democratically deliberated absolute reduction of material and energy throughput, which ensures well-being for all within planetary boundaries”[1]) that is compatible with this diversity of positions. This variety includes degrowthers that adopt more reformist approaches, adjacent to social democratic strategies, whilst others take revolutionary/state-focused strategies, and others still find themselves closer to anarchist positions, as reflected in this series. I think that, something that we should keep in mind when thinking about degrowth as a concrete measure to actualise a post-capitalist transition, is that, as Max Ajl said, “Degrowth is not meant to replace communism, anarchism, or democratic socialism as horizons for human hope, and it is certainly not a recipe for disregarding class struggle.”[2] In this way, I find it useful to think about degrowth as an effective tool that needs to be attached to a political project for transforming the State. This article is not meant to be a rebuttal to anarchist approaches to Degrowth, communal ways of living, partly because excellent replies have already been published within this series, but also because I am in alignment with Degrowth and Strategy’s acknowledgement of the need for a plurality of strategies that reflects the multiplicity of the degrowth movement. It’s essential to experiment with utopias, prefigurative spaces and interstitial strategies. We need these efforts; no serious transition theory would dare to claim otherwise. To provide a really existing example, I am thinking of Venezuela as recounted by Chris Gilbert in Commune or Nothing,[3] a book that tells the story of the communal movement as the frontline for the socialist struggle in Venezuela. But, going back to Max Ajl, “degrowth means not just the construction but also the “political defense” of nowtopias. It does not sidestep politics.”[4] In order not to sidestep politics, we must acknowledge that we need the State. For one thing, transitioning to a degrowth economy will be a massive process that will require immense planning efforts.[5] As an example, just look at post-revolutionary Cuba and the immense planning apparatus it took to lift the economy off the subordinate peripheral position it was put in by the imperialist capitalist system.[6] Second, if degrowth is to make good on its definitional promises, it needs to have a strategy to deal with the global unequal exchange. I see little way of doing so without a national body that is able to act on the international sphere. Lastly, even if degrowthers were able to spread their prefigurative efforts far and wide, they would still need the State in order to defend the fruits of their political work from the interference of domestic capitalists and from foreign interventions. I’m not trying to diminish the importance of communal living, local food production, or workers’ cooperatives. What I am saying is that all these efforts, despite doing away with capitalist dynamics from the inside, are not able to simply opt out of the capitalist system: housing co-ops still have to compete in the capitalist housing markets; so do local food producers; and workers’ co-ops still have to participate in the global system of capitalist extractive production. As the collective Why Marx? wrote in Prometheus journal, even the municipalism and decentralisation lauded by intellectuals like Kohei Saito at some point will have to confront the budgetary and financial priorities of a state that is still capitalist.[7] To sum up, we cannot wish away capitalism. In line with one of the central arguments in Degrowth and Strategy,[8] I argue that we need to dismantle the current imperialist/capitalist system in a slow and gradual process of transition, brick by brick, and for that we need the State as much as we need utopian thinking and interstitial strategies to build parallel and alternative institutions. I’ll spend the next section of the article explaining how eco-socialism and degrowth can complement each other in devising a transition strategy for the State. **‘Eco-socialism is the horizon, degrowth is the way’:[9] Grounding Eco-Socialism in Degrowth** In his interview with Samuel Miller-McDonald, Jason Hickel’s simple quote “ecosocialism is the horizon, degrowth is the way”[10] resolves a deep problem plaguing part of the current theorisation about socialism and post-capitalist living. Jodi Dean and Kai Heron criticised the lack of thinking about transition within the eco-socialist or eco-socialist leaning literature.[11] In other words, we are starting to get an idea of where we might want to go, but we have little clue of how to get there. And this is where degrowth advocates, practitioners and theorists can enter the eco-socialist debate by offering degrowth as an effective component of a strategy for transition, one tool in a large and varied tool box. And it could be a planning tool that is derived from observation and theorisation about existing practices, in this way unifying interstitial efforts and ruptural strategies in a powerful feedback loop. Interstitial- informed degrowth would be a planning tool to guide eco-socialist policy, helping to shield eco-socialist visioning from ‘productivist’ currents within socialist thinking.[12] Grounding eco-socialist debates in degrowth policy to complement the transition strategy would prevent us from falling into the trap of an ecologically illiterate, Eurocentric, idealistic accelerationist socialism that has no place nor feasibility in today’s context. A key example of what an eco-socialist degrowth programme could look like is suggested by Jason Hickel.[13] I summarise it here in three key pillars: 1. Waste Reduction: ending planned obsolesce (through extended warranties, and right to repair) and food waste; 2. Degrowth of destructive industries: including the advertising industry and other destructive industries (fossil fuels, arms companies); 3. Moving to an Economy of Use-Value: through sharing mechanisms but also expansion in the provision of public services, such as public transport, and other socially useful sectors. These policies can be combined in symbiotic ways with more interstitial strategies, but still they give these utopian experiments the help and coordination of the State. **The Advantages of a State Strategy for Degrowth** In the same way as eco-socialist thinking is complemented by degrowth, there are many advantages to be gained by degrowth entering the struggle for the control of the State, several of which are necessary if we wish to deliver on the ambitious transformations that degrowthers promise. Socialist theory teaches us to transform the State from a tool of oppression into our route to liberation. _1. Democratising Degrowth_ First, entering the political struggle would push degrowth to become more deeply democratic by building what Marta Harnecker calls popular protagonism.[14] In order to struggle politically for the control of the State in a way that is fundamentally anti-capitalist, it is necessary that degrowth and eco-socialist advocates enable the people to take up a protagonist role in the struggle. Popular protagonism is the antidote for technocratic, top-down, elitist reforms. As Marta Harnecker says “We must move from a culture in which citizens beg the State to solve their problems to a culture where citizens make decisions, and through struggle get results”.[15] At the moment, it is still true that the State is the oppressive tool of the ruling classes. But, we can transform it into a terrain of contestation. Carving out space for autonomy and to build alternative institutions is how we create popular protagonism and agency. Building popular protagonism would mean creating strong pathways of exchange between social movements, academia and policy making. It would also mean decentralising state power in favour of municipalism to favour decision-making methods that help us build that popular protagonist (such as, but not restricted to, citizens’ assemblies), though always coordinated through a democratic national planning framework. _2. Grounding Degrowth in Anti-Imperialist Politics_ Second, taking control of the State allows us to be grounded in anti-imperialism. It is true that simply reducing production would reduce or halt the extraction of resources. But anti-imperialist commitment does not mean merely halting resource extraction. An eco-socialist anti-imperialist degrowth programme for the State would allow us to consider proposals such as reparations and climate debt.[16] A programme that includes similar proposals has been put forward by members of the degrowthuk network in the 2024 report ‘Stop the Damage’.[17] _3. Finding Unity in Multiplicity_ Third, a state strategy means moving against the splintering of the Left and the degrowth movement. Having a party programme or another similar format of political organisation would be a logical way to organise the multiplicity of degrowth approaches, because it would provide us with a formal forum of discussion and disagreement in which to always confront and cohere our various tactics. It would allow us to combine interstitial strategies, like those outlined in many of the pieces in this series, together with other ruptural strategies that aim to break away from the imperialist/capitalist system. Different strands of degrowth would be able to both find their space in the path to transition and to have disagreements, whilst still agreeing to a fundamental set of points of unity. _4. Winning the Battle of Ideas_ Fourth, fighting for the control of the State through an electoral programme, party conferences and actions that help us build popular protagonism, would be essential to win the battle of ideas. By firmly tying the tyranny of growth that only supplies us with things we don’t need to enrich the wealthy together with the artificial scarcity of things we do need to survive, degrowthers could raise class consciousness and mobilise a class base that is now being shepherded to the right. But we can only do so within a solid political organisation that ensures unity in multiplicity. _5. Resilience in Resistance_ Lastly, we also need to recognise that transition will take a long time. It’s not the swift, instantaneous process that some analysts have imagined. This doesn’t mean that we should abandon the sense of urgency that characterises many of the Left’s struggles. But we must always remember that urgency doesn’t equal short-termism. Urgency must always be complemented by long term strategies for a durable process of transition. A united strategy, with common fora in which to discuss and debate degrowth, within the structures of political organisation would allow us to plan for long term transitions. **So, What is To Be Done?** To conclude this article, I wish to ask the century-old question: what is to be done? First, I suggest it is necessary to think about the kinds of political organisation that would be able to support an eco-socialist state strategy through degrowth. As I’ve already anticipated here and there in previous sections, we cannot discount the idea of a revolutionary party.[18] We need to accept that the party is an extremely effective tool to politicise people, to facilitate debate and policy discussions, to ensure coherence in discourse, resilience in the struggle, and democracy in methods. Looking at the British context, the existing party system presents a rather infertile soil for degrowth and eco-socialist ideas. The first-past-the-post system has made the Labour Party one of the greatest obstacles to Left politics since the New Labour wave in the 1990s. Similarly, the Green Party, although moving to the Left in recent times, is still far from being the revolutionary anti-capitalist party we need. Yet, at the same time as the centrist parties are collapsing or vacillating, the far right is beginning its swift (if false and superficial) organising campaign. Given this political landscape, the first step towards establishing an eco-socialist party anchored in degrowth is uniting Left movements into a popular bloc. I concede, this is a daunting task, that could take a whole other article to even begin to explore. But, some starting points of reflections could be thinking about how we begin to think of mass joint campaigns grounded in the class struggle[19] and the place that degrowth could take within them. An eco-socialist party in Britain would be the vehicle for politics grounded in class analysis and the class struggle. I hope that as degrowthers and eco-socialists we will soon move on from debating the necessity for this form of wide and sturdy organisation that draws together and coheres our pluriverse of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist thinking and acting, and start organising to actually bring it to like. The far right has jumped ahead of us and began hurrying up in doing this sort of work. We cannot let Reform get ahead. I wish to conclude by going back once again to Max Ajl and his formula ‘build on existing strengths’.[20] In contexts outside of Britain, there are parties ready to undertake this politics and some are beginning to consider degrowth as a viable way forward already. Buen Vivir movements in Latin America, which have much in common with degrowth, have seeped into the institutional sphere with Bolivia and Ecuador including the concept into their constitutions.[21] Although the degree to which these two states have actually delivered on the demands of Buen Vivir has so far been far from complete (ignored in some cases, like Ecuador), this experience still testifies to the strengths of those movements and in the push-back from those movements, especially in Ecuador, against continuing extractivism. In Europe, the Spanish Izquierda Unida took an unequivocal stance of support for degrowth, a call that appealed to other Spanish parties as well.[22] If we look at Britain, while we may not have an equivalent to Izquierda Unida, we are witnessing degrowth communities blooming across the country. I wish to draw attention to the working group Getting Real, whose efforts have generated a comprehensive policy manifesto for degrowth in Britain. There is hope in existing efforts. * * * [1] Schulken, M., Barlow, N., Cadiou, N., Chertkovskaya, E., Hollweg, M., Plank, C., Regen, L., Wolf, V., 2022. ‘Introduction: Strategy for the multiplicity of degrowth’, in eds. Degrowth & Strategy, Mayfly Books, p.11 https://www.degrowthstrategy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Degrowth-n-Strategy-2022.pdf [2] Ajl, M. 2018. Degrowth Considered, The Brooklyn Rail, Field Notes. [3] Gilbert, C. 2023. Commune or Nothing, Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project, New York: Monthly Review Press. [4] Ajl, Degrowth Considered. [5] Bellamy Foster, J. 2023. Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development, Monthly Review 75 (3). [6] Helen Yaffe’s pioneering research in We Are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, 2020, New Haven: Yale University Press. [7] Why Marx?, 2024. How to Build a Marxist Party, Prometheus. [8] see Chapter Two by Ekaterina Chertkovskaya in particular, which also offers definitions and reflections on the different types of strategy for the degrowth movement. [9] Ecosocialism is the Horizon, Degrowth is the Way, The Trouble. [10] Ecosocialism is the Horizon, Degrowth is the Way, The Trouble. [11] Dean, J., Heron, K., 2022. Climate Leninism and Revolutionary Transition, Spectre Journal. [12] Löwy, M., Akbulut, B., Fernandes, S., Kallis, G., 2022. For an Ecosocialist Degrowth, Monthly Review 73 (11). [13] Hickel, J. 2021. Less is More, London: Penguin. [14] Harnecker, M. 2015. A World to Build: New Paths Toward Twenty-First Century Socialism, New York: Monthly Review Press. [15] Harnecker,A World to Build. [16] see Max Al’s contribution in particular. [17] see especially the section on ‘Climate justice and the Global South’ in Stop the Damage! Build a Better Future: How Britain can face ecological, social and economic perils, by Mark H. Burton and others. [18] see Climate Vanguard’s work, in particular The Eco-Socialist Party, Brief: Climate Vanguard, 27 November 2024. [19] as suggested by Andreas Chari in ‘Towards a Mass Communist Party’, Prometheus; and Climate Vanguard in their brief ‘The Eco-socialist Party’.’ [20] Ajl, M. 2020. Andreas Malm’s Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency, The Brooklyn Rail, Field Notes. [21] Acosta, A., 2016. Rethinking the World from the Perspective of Buen Vivir, Degrowth in movement(s): Buen Vivir. [22]Interview with Alberto Garzón and Eva García on the evolution of the Spanish United Left party towards degrowth, 15/15\15, 2022. See also the 2022 Manifesto Decrecer para vivir. * * * *Anna is a young researcher, historian in training and activist based in London. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

New article,

Degrowth as an Essential Part of an Eco-Socialist Transition
by Anna Gregoletto, on DegrowthUK

degrowthuk.org/2025/06/12/degrowth-as-a...

#degrowth #ProspectsForDegrowth #Ecosocialism

Original post on mstdn.social

"Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam" –
degrowthuk.org/2025/05/31/degrowth-a-de...
New piece in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.
Beware diluted, fake, scam "degrowth". Insist on the real thing.
#degrowthUK #degrowth
The […]

Original post on mstdn.social

Beware diluted, fake, scam "degrowth". Insist on the real thing.

New piece in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.

"Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam" – #degrowthUK #degrowth

degrowthuk.org/2025/05/31/degrowth-a-de...

The […]

Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam Aurora Despierta In the series Prospects for Degrowth This article by the Spanish writer Aurora Despierta is her adaptation (highly summarised for translation into English), for the series Prospect…

Beware diluted, fake, scam "degrowth". Insist on the real thing.

New piece in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.

"Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam" – #degrowthUK

degrowthuk.org/2025/05/31/d...

#degrowth

Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam **_Aurora Despierta_** In the series _Prospects for Degrowth_ This article by the Spanish writer Aurora Despierta is her adaptation (highly summarised for translation into English), for the series Prospects for Degrowth, of the original article: _Decrecer ¿callejón o salida? La futura estafa del capital’_(2-5-2025) _https://kaosenlared.net/decrecer-callejon-o-salida-la-futura-estafa-del-capital/_ _Translated by Mark Burton and Anna Gregoletto _ For a radically anti-capitalist degrowth that cannot be adulterated and domesticated by capitalism. For a strategy that leads us away from the deceitful ‘green’ and warmongering capitalism that compromises us and leads us leads to total disaster. There was a phrase in the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the mid-late 1960s that said ‘wave the red flag against the red flag’, as a manoeuvre similar to that of the false flag ( _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag_). In the future we could say ‘wave the [false] flag of [scam] degrowth, against the [true] flag of [consistent] degrowth’. **We should be very vigilant that degrowth does not end up doing what has happened to so many social movements: becoming part of the arsenal for the perpetuation of capitalism.** In such a scenario, degrowth discourse and the co-opted or domesticated degrowthers would serve as shiny new draught horses for the bourgeoisie to ride in the carriage of its capitalism as if it were the realisation of degrowth. ## I.- Can the Bourgeoisie avail itself of the Degrowth Discourse? The Triple Condition. Of course it can! If it didn’t, it would be the sign of one of two opposite situations: a) it doesn’t need it to create confusion and division, to justify anything, to cajole us, because it has us totally ideologically dominated and crushed our resistance; or, b) we are so strong that it sees no way it can adulterate our movement. I hope and trust that a) will not happen, but I don’t think we can prevent b), because the bourgeoisie is not stupid when it comes to social struggle, and it will take preventive measures. Everything points to the fact that they will try, and the result will depend on how difficult or easy we make it for them. And that, in turn, will depend on our applying the _**TRIPLE CONDITION**_ : i) W**hether or not we are capable of defending a consistent degrowth is only possible if the causes of capitalist growthism are questioned to their roots** : the exploitation of _**wage labour**_ for the extraction of _**surplus value,**_ the source of profit, which is the motivation and engine of capital, to reinvest it (accumulation of capital) to increase production and labour productivity, and to increase profit in the next cycle, causing economic growth in the process, but with social inequalities, disordered and unsustainable, causing, in the competitive struggle for profit, the whole ecological disaster, crises and economic conflicts (such as the current tariff war) and military conflicts, each one more serious and destructive (up to the risk of nuclear war and ‘nuclear winter’). ii) **Whether or not we are able to make it clear that capitalism cannot degrow** , because, like a vehicle primarily designed to go forwards, capitalism has no reverse gear ‘from the factory’, and if it does go backwards, it is because it is going down a slope with no more control than the brakes. That is, capitalist ‘degrowth’ can only come in the form of economic crises, a war economy, wars and collapse of capitalism (see my article, in Spanish, ‘Collapsing and cannibalistic capitalism’ (11-4-2025) _https://kaosenlared.net/capitalismo-en-colapso-y-canibal/_ – ). iii) **W****hether or not we are able to orientate the mentality of the working class and popular sectors along the lines of the** _**Big Narrative-Framework**_**for this epoch, which, by survival, will push them to question capitalism.** That is: * CAPITALISM AT WAR AGAINST LIFE (collapsing capitalism, global warming, ecocide, more genocide, nuclear war and extinction). * OUR LIVES MATTER MORE THAN THEIR PROFITS. THERE IS NO FUTURE WITH CAPITALISM, AND THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE (Degrowth defeating capitalism and its bourgeois states). * SOON or IT WILL BE TOO LATE! While once we could perhaps have said ‘we know that capitalism provokes and exploits wars, but we can co-exist with it’, now we can say that we are not compatible with it.. Nothing is more important than life and nothing is worse or more dangerous than that which is an existential threat to life on the planet. And that sets all the alarm bells ringing and calls us to serious questioning and prepare for action for survival. This is the way to immunise ourselves against the poison of adulterated degrowth with which they will try to intoxicate us. If we do not succeed, the bourgeoisie will execute its strategy of appropriating and domesticating degrowth to turn it against us. What there is no doubt about is that some sectors of the bourgeoisie are clever, cunning and opportunist. That is why they are always able to exploit any weakness of ours, whether in theory or in practice and to turn those ideas ‘upside down’, perverting them, emptying them of their critical, subversive content, despite having opposed them at another time, perhaps even in blood and fire. The _liberty, equality and fraternity_ of the late 18th century have fallen in the harsh reality of capitalism and the violence of its bourgeois states. The techno-bureaucracy of State Capitalism disguised itself as socialism and communism (USSR, etc., and still China and North Korea). The ‘social and democratic Europe’, was condemned ‘within an order’, unquestionably neoliberal-capitalist which limits and perverts everything, and throws itself into warmongering militarism, such as against Russia and China. We already have plenty of experience of how they have commodified everything that claims to be natural, organic, ecological, sustainable, etc. ‘Sustainable development’, ‘green development”’ the ‘ecological transition’ end up being little more than the emperor’s latest new (green) clothes to continue doing what he has always done: dominate, enrich himself, and degrade life on the planet (ours and that of many, many other species). **We cannot pin our hopes on the collapse of capitalism** , because there is no guarantee that this will not lead to a nuclear war (the easiest thing to mobilise, without deploying millions of people in troops, vehicles, ships, supplies, fuel…), or to a society worse than capitalism, of a neo-slavery type for example, all the more likely, the weaker we are, which is what we are exposing ourselves to. The bourgeois states have been ‘fighting climate change’ for many years only to achieve the sad result that we have already reached the extra 1.5 degrees Celsius that we were not supposed to. And with Trump it will get worse, since he has already pulled out of the Paris Accords and aims to further drive fossil fuel capitalism. They gain time with false promises and commitments, and make us lose ours, while they go on with their business as usual. They would do the same with degrowth. Trump is brutally reversing the strategy that capitalism and the US bourgeois State over which he presides, with its partners and allies of more than half a century, in economic policy and international relations. So we had better prepare ourselves for other surprises in the future on the issue of degrowth, even if they are no longer come from Trump himself. Using adulterated degrowth would be like a judo manoeuvre, i.e. taking advantage of our own strength and momentum, in order to knock us down. More intelligent than a narrow-minded denialist discourse, because now we would not have to fight against a totally opposite and blatant lie that would quickly unmask itself in the face of the evidence, so that they would not have enough capacity to manoeuvre, and we would corner them, until checkmate (always complicated), but instead against deceitful version of ourselves. It would be enough for them to present themselves as advocates of ‘moderate and realistic’ degrowth as opposed to ‘radical and utopian’ degrowth. That would be the most reassuring and ‘advanced’ message after almost two centuries of saturating our brains with growthism. I would opt for that without hesitation, if I didn’t already know too much to swallow it; but a lot of people will prefer that sedative to the’ truth. It’s as if they are saying, “People may end up supporting degrowth, so let them support us with a version that is easier to accept, and we will prevent them from embracing the original“. In this case the usual, ‘“why accept the copy if you have the original?“ wouldn’t apply, just as you’d rather buy a cool, ‘branded’ bag, even if it’s a fake, an imitation, because it costs a lot less. But in this situation, you wouldn’t think that their degrowth is a scam, but simply realistic, more real than the real thing! **We would be wrong if we thought that we have won the ideological struggle and imposed the terms of public debate, because they have been ‘forced to accept our framework of thought’. In reality, they have appropriated it and sold it in an adulterated form!** And they don’t need to convince everyone, not even the majority, but just a big enough minority to prevent us from being able to gain the ‘critical mass’ and the dynamic that generates change. It would be enough for them to have enough confusion (not total), enough people (not everyone), just for the necessary time (not forever), to defeat us and impose themselves definitively, until they drag us into their collapse and there, demoralised and without a future, end up in some dystopia. It would be nothing more than the last or penultimate scam of capitalism before its final collapse, if it doesn’t first lead us into nuclear world war so that we don’t have to worry about the future any more: how thoughtful!. ## II Scam degrowth in practice The general danger is that the bourgeoisie will want to present the forced and inevitable ‘degrowth’, because the collapse of capitalism has already begun, as a deliberate degrowthist political choice, and that we will think “they are dealing with it, they are solving it!“ But it will be a con. For our degrowth is not to live with a shrinking, perverse and sadistic capitalism, but to get out of capitalism, to overcome it. As has been seen with so many social movements (including that of the working class) it may well happen, at least in certain cases, and seen as a theoretical hypothesis, not as anyone’s concrete prediction, that the bourgeois state, through elections, parliamentarism, promotion and financing of associations, etc., manages to get a good part of the leading members and activists of degrowth to become appendages of the bourgeois state, providing the discourse it needs in exchange for projects that will end up conforming to the ‘realism’ of what capitaism can admit. Meanwhile, the social movement will be deprived of once valuable members, and forced, if it wants to be true to itself, to confront those who have gone over to the other side. This will create confusion and harm the reception of its message among ordinary people, seeing the movement divided, and with tempting expectations that will seem more comfortable on the side of the bourgeois State, as opposed to the risks of those who will confront it. ‘Divide and rule’, the oldest principle in the world. The most important thing is not to imagine the concrete ways in which we can be swindled by the scam degrowth. _It would be useless to know all their tricks if we had not taken measures to immunise people against this poison._ So that’s the most important thing, as I have set out in the previous section. But let’s do that exercise, without further pretensions. As you will have already concluded, the most blatant lie that the bourgeoisie can tell us is that, being in economic crisis, in a war economy, in war, or already collapsing capitalism, they want to disguise it by saying that everything is going well, ‘we are in control’, because we are ‘degrowing’, more or less voluntarily, and although that demands sacrifices, it would be fundamentally good, so, patience and resignation. In the face of this, we must be clear that if it is capitalism and it is contracting, it is capitalism, but it is not degrowth, it’s a crisis of collapsing capitalism, involuntary; like neither anorexia nervosa, nor starvation are the same as being on a diet’. I will start with the issue of the moment, which is transcendental and which summarises all the problems we will be confronted with. That of ‘rearmament’ (arms escalation, to be added to what already exists, which is enough to destroy us), the consequent austerity policies (killer austerity), and the growing risk of war, including nuclear war. **Some governments would argue that increased armament will not result in cuts to social budgets . Perhaps not in the immediate term, but certainly down the road because the public debt repayments that will result will come from somewhere.** And how to justify militarism with farcical degrowth? Well, to justify the reduction of civil production, killer austerity, even the imposition of the rationing card for some products, they could say that “it is due to the need to degrow but, in an unfavourable international context, with enemies who endanger our degrowth strategy and who aspire to take advantage of our weakening to plunder us, too bad, and that for this reason we have no choice but to defend ourselves by also investing in security, that is to say, in military spending”. The slogan would be ‘let’s shrink but be safe’, who wouldn’t want that? In fact, the bourgeoisie, especially the European bourgeoisie, is already realising that the electric car industry it had hoped for is unviable, so it will not invest as much and the automobile sector will continue to shrink. The same is true for the wind turbine industry for large wind farms, because they cannot compete with Chinese industry. And part of the automobile industry is already known to be converted io produce military vehicles such as tanks. This could be presented as an understanding of the need to degrow in private and individual transport,1 but that, “nevertheless, we need to defend ourselves (degrow, but safely)”. Making a virtue out of necessity. But none of this is _**our**_**** degrowth, because **their criterion, for whether to degrow or not, is whether or not they make money, how much money, for how long**. As long as the money rains, even if it is on account of public indebtedness (we will pay for it in the future with austerity), as long as they can do business, they will go ahead, although it is already very clear that this is pure speculation, yet another ‘bubble’ (remember that in Spain of real estate construction: unsaleable houses, or airports without planes, or roads without cars…), a false solution that should stop NOW, not when they can continue no longer, when all the evil is done and irreparable. The higher we climb, the harder the fall will be, the greater the waste of natural and social resources, and the waste of time, which will not have been allocated to the necessary adaptation. The capitalist class will want to present the reduction of production, the lay-offs of workers, the closures of companies, as something inevitable, a requirement of the decline ‘of the economy’, as if it were everybody’s business (‘economy’, from the Greek, administering the household), so as not to question its class nature, of the capitalism which, despite knowing for decades what was going to happen, has brought us here, nor the how and when of the measures to be taken, etc. While there were profits, they did not want to rethink the future to make the landing as painless as possible for ‘those at the bottom’; when the losses come, it will be up to us to bear the brunt and make a living as best we can saying “That’s the way it is”. “Even socialism should degrow!“ the cynics will tell us. If they have already achieved our resignation with the arguments of ‘lack of profitability’, ‘lack of competitiveness’, ‘excessive costs’, ‘obsolete facilities’, etc., then why not with ‘we are doing it to save life on the planet and avoid greater economic evils’? Then there will be resignation and no demand for accountability from capital. We will see that they will be capable of trying to sneak in the relocation of companies on account of degrowth. “We do need to shrink, but other countries still need to grow“, they will say, repeating the message of degrowth and claiming exemplary “social responsibility” and “international solidarity”. To move the enterprise to a country with much lower wages, fewer labour and social rights, much lower taxation of capital, and much less environmental rigour; so that the production of these goods does not decrease, but even increases, taking advantage of the competitive advantage? How does this contribute to global degrowth, if the result is zero subtraction: “what I take away here, I put there; what I don’t emit here, I emit there“. Isn’t this all about making more profit and nothing to do with degrowth? If we are going to give up jobs here, let’s close the company (not just the plant here), eliminating dispensable and unsustainable production. And in the reverse case, i.e. to re-shore an industrial company, to bring it back to the country? Although their main motive will be monetary profit and geopolitical-military interests, not ecological considerations, they will try to legitimise this, following the very slogan of degrowth to relocate. They will justify it on the grounds that it reduces the impact on international transport. But what if the least important thing is to relocate this production because it means maintaining a production that should be decreasing because it is not that necessary and is not sustainable, and what if, on top of that, it is largely focused on export, so that the savings in transport through relocation are largely recovered through export? In this, the bourgeoisie can more easily gain the support of the working class with the prospect of job creation and economic growth, which will be disguised by saying that at the same time it is ‘degrowing’ where the company was previously located. **They will talk to us about degrowth, but the products and economic branches that will be reduced, disappear or be preserved will not necessarily be the ones that suit us, but according to whether or not they are profitable, although in some cases they will coincide.** Thus, what they will try for as long as possible not to degrow is the set of branches and objects (including Artificial Intelligence) involved in the production of armaments which, however, is the most socially useless production, a total waste, since its products are condemned to destruction in an exchange with other similar ones, but also of human lives (military and civilian), of agricultural fields contaminated by military components, the massive planting of anti-personnel mines, the destruction of cities, vital infrastructures and services (roads, bridges, dams and hydroelectric plants, fuel reserves, water, gas and electricity pipelines, sewage systems, schools, hospitals, etc.). …). Without going any further back in time, one need only look at what they have done to Gaza, where it is no longer possible to live without international aid to simply eat and drink, and even that is being denied. That is accelerated ‘degrowth’ via genocide – a sample of what awaits many on the road to collapse! And what about the financial crises? Remember the disasters that followed the one that began in 2007-8 and its long tail of austerity. Decreasing expectations of profit in productive reinvestment will drive surplus value into financial speculation, where it will provoke new ‘bubbles’ that will eventually burst. Will they tell us that this is a “natural” consequence of degrowth and that we must endure it as we endure the inevitable consequences of an illness, and that ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, that ‘a good purge cleanses the organism’, because that is how we will degrow? But aren’t they already adding fuel to the fire because the necessary measures have not been taken, putting an end to all the deregulation of the financial world that brought it about; will the banks and their large shareholders have to be rescued, with the excuse of rescuing individual savers, for whom other measures could be implemented; or will these savers be sacrificed while there will be hardly any consequences for the managers of private and public entities and institutions clearly implicated as being responsible for the disaster? Will we continue with compound interest, which will have contributed to the crisis, because it is a boost to growth in addition to the spontaneous accumulation of capital (more surplus value, because it must also be shared with the bank in the form of interest)? Why not impose simple interest or compensation for inflation or take even more radical measures? The austerity measures they take with an unjust social criterion (with the maximum impact for the working class and popular sectors; to affect as little as possible or even increase the privileges of the rich) just as in the last decade they justified them because “we live beyond our (economic) means“, now they will say that “we live beyond the sustainability of planetary life“. They will present them as policies that are necessarily degrowthist, environmentalist, sustainable, etc., even though they affect the most basic things (food – ‘more guns, less butter’ , health care – sacrifice of public health care for the benefit of private health care, education, housing, insufficient unemployment insurance for the unemployed, especially if they are long-term unemployed, reduction of pensions ….), and we could have done it in a much better way, even if we had to give up many things that until now seemed necessary to us, but are really unsustainable, and we will be able to do without them. The incongruence with true degrowth will not matter. What is more, to the confusion they will create, will be added the distrust and discredit with which they will manage to infect real degrowth, because the bourgeoisie always plays with both hands. The left hand, will adulterate degrowth and make the most of it, but since it will not be possible to avoid all the discontent, the right hand will denounce the bad impacts as if they had nothing to do with this adulteration saying instead that is came from to with the original degrowth. The ultra-right will also take advantage of this situation to blame real degrowth for being the supposed inspiration for everything, and that ‘being more radical, it would be even worse’, as they already do with the ecologists and the real energy transition. What does it matter that the discourse has neither head nor tail if it makes ours explode, and that we run like headless chickens, ending up in their casserole? The capacity for deception and demobilisation by this scam-degrowth, however crude it may be, will be all the greater the weaker we are at that stage of the class struggle, and therefore the lesser the scope and impact of our work of unmasking it. Prior to scam-degrowth, it is very likely that they will resort to an even weaker version of degrowth, barely distinguishable from ‘sustainable growth or development’, in fact whitewashing ‘green’ capitalism, embellishing it in the eyes of the people. This could be the so-called post-growth2, which dissociates itself from degrowth (arguing that that word produces rejection among the people, etc.), and which has already been put forward in a Spanish candidacy (that of the left coalition, Sumar3, for the European Parliament elections of 9 June 2024 [and many times too in the English speaking world]. As it becomes more concrete in terms of arguments and proposals, it will be worthy of another article. There will be no real degrowth, that is to say, one that is not an expression of the crises, war economy and war itself, and the collapse of capitalism, at our expense, if it is not an anti-capitalist and voluntary degrowth, led by us, because we are overcoming capitalism. But this requires, whether we want to see it or not, a revolution. To remain permanently on the defensive, in the face of the permanent offensive of the bourgeoisie and the social breakdown and tendency towards chaos that the collapse of capitalism will bring, is only a guarantee of total defeat. And if we do not succeed, what will be imposed will be the most complete and ferocious of the dictatorships of the bourgeoisie (whether with a ‘democratic’ mask or overtly fascist), which will not even ensure our survival, but will expose us to the worst of dangers: nuclear war and ‘nuclear winter’. In effect, we have got deeply into a trap from which it will be very difficult to get out. But the longer we let time pass, the worse things will be for us. 1E.g. https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/03/rheinmetall-mulls-converting-german-vw-facility-into-military-vehicle-production-site/ https://www.babcockinternational.com/what-we-do/support/frontline-support/vehicle-armouring-and-conversion/ 2E.g. Raworth trying to discourage the term degrowth, https://www.kateraworth.com/2015/12/01/degrowth/ and see Kallis’s reply https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/youre-wrong-kate-degrowth-is-a-compelling-word/ For a comparison of post-growth and degrowth see https://thisvsthat.io/degrowth-vs-post-growth [Eds.] 3Although certain leaders and activists within Sumar have embraced the problematic of degrowth https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2022/05/12/interview-with-alberto-garzon-and-eva-garcia-on-the-evolution-of-the-spanish-united-left-party-towards-degrowth/ [Eds.] ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Beware diluted, fake, scam "drgrowth". Insist on the real thing.

New piece in our #ProspectsForDegrowth series.

Degrowth: a dead end or the way out? Capital’s future scam – degrowthUK
degrowthuk.org/2025/05/31/degrowth-a-de...

That's voices from Canada, Scotland and Malta via UK and Austria to add to England, France/Hungary, Australia, Spain.
#ProspectsForDegrowth

Original post on mstdn.social

More recent pieces in the series
#ProspectsForDegrowth (and still more on the way)

Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities
Graham Janz
degrowthuk.org/2025/04/29/familiarizing...

Proposals for Degrowth
Eva Martinez […]

Creatively Disrupting Capitalism Richard Muscat* _In the series_ _**Prospects for Degrowth**_ I am a degrowth activist. It’s not a career path I ever envisaged for myself. I arrived here after a couple of decades working, for want of better phrasing, on “capitalism’s side”. First for a range of high-growth Silicon Valley software companies and their ilk; latterly directly in venture capital focused on climate change technology startups, aka “Climate Tech” or “Impact Investing.” Climate change was an important stop on my journey here. Growing up in Malta, a small Mediterranean island, I was from a young age acutely aware of environmental degradation. Hot, Flat, and Crowded could have been inspired directly by my country although a more accurate title would have been Hot, Flat, Dusty, Corrupt, Post-Colonial, and Crowded. But rather than dwell on politics or activism I chose to embrace high salaries and high-powered perks while my wife pursued an academic career in environmental and decolonial anthropology. Through the twists and turns of life, remote jobs, and the nature of academic funding opportunities, when Covid hit we found ourselves living in rural Scotland with two young children, a five-year-old and a newborn. Lockdown was fantastic for me. I was not required to work. I taught my five year old daughter swimming in the river in Summer and she taught me cross-country skiing in the forests in Winter. We spent the in-between times at our allotment learning how to count seeds, draw plants, and build stuff. Our newborn in the meantime wreaked havoc with our sleep patterns and an equal amount of havoc with our hearts as we saw his joy when tasting freshly picked raspberries for the first time. During this time I was also evaluating what to do next with my career. Spending more time with rural communities and farmers in Aberdeenshire, climate change came to the fore of my consciousness once again. Even here, in the far North of a rich Western country, weather patterns were already playing tricks on us while unemployment, poverty, and addiction lived next door to handsomely paid oil and gas engineers and executives. I emerged from lockdown resolved to do “something meaningful”and headed to Cambridge to join a leading climate tech incubator with the goal of founding a venture-backed startup to save the world. More twists and turns and I ended up employed by the very incubator I joined, there to help select the very best of the best prospective startup founders who, through hustle and venture capital, would decarbonise our economy and reshape it into a regenerative one. What I found was that I was actually employed to be the conscience of the organisation and the experience led me to hit rock bottom. In the roughly two years I spent embedded in the impact investment ecosystem I witnessed first-hand the entire gamut of reprehensible behaviours capitalists and financiers are so skilled at denying and deflecting: underpaid and exploitative employment; an implemented belief that white, male scientists and engineers are better than the rest; dismissal of the capabilities and experiences of Global South residents; direct workplace bullying, sexism, and racism; a sickening lack of integrity; and a surprising (to me, at the time) lack of care for ecology and environment. As my job increasingly became centred around dealing with the practical and emotional fallouts from these behaviours I gratefully accepted the mercy of redundancy when it came. I was doubly grateful because I was also losing faith in the actual effectiveness of these climate tech startups at mitigating or reversing the effects of climate breakdown. To my untrained eye it seemed like too many of them operated a model of environmental trade-offs; doing the “least shit thing” instead of instigating any meaningful change. This gut feeling I had that climate tech wasn’t doing much good was difficult for me to articulate though because I lacked the right ideas and language with which to frame my qualms without sounding like an unhinged conspiracy theorist. So with the benefit of a rest and hindsight I began reading again. Not the technical or business stuff this time—my technical and business background had made it easy for me to absorb and understand enough of the so-called ‘hard’ climate science. I wanted to read the source textbooks of so many ideas impact investors claim to espouse but seemed unable to implement. I started by reading the most often mentioned book in ‘impact’ circles: Doughnut Economics. I was shocked. Despite talk about planetary boundaries, circularity, regenerative economics, earth’s vital systems, and doughnut models I was struck by the notion that virtually nobody in “climate capitalism” had actually read this book. Or if they had, then they could not have really understood it. The path from Raworth led to Meadows, Carson, Schumacher, hooks, Marx and more recent thinkers like Hickel, Klein, Parrique, Jensen, and Cripps. System change, propaganda, limits to growth, modern monetary theory, colonial history, feminism. It turned out the language and ideas I needed were not only there, but had been there for a number of decades now. Therefore equally shocking is, as Katy Shields excellently lays out in the Tipping Point podcast, how all of this knowledge has been sidelined for the past half century. As I increasingly developed an affinity to these ideologies I also developed in parallel a sense of impostor syndrome. Despite Raworth’s exhortation that “we are all economists now,” I am clearly not an economist. I am also neither an academic nor a philosopher nor a policymaker. And despite an increase in my online popularity, having written a few provocative articles, I struggled to see where I can meaningfully contribute. *** In April 2025 I arrived in Copenhagen (by bus) at the first meeting of a Nordic Summer University study circle on the topic of de-growth and exnovation that I was invited to attend. Out of thirty odd participants I think I was the only person there without a PhD (or not on track for one) or without direct involvement in public policy/activism. This was not a new experience and neither is it a complaint. In 2024 I attended several degrowth-related events including the Beyond Growth conferences in Rome and Vienna, a lot of online events and courses, as well as participating in some working groups run by the International Degrowth Network. In every case I felt a disconnect between my backgrounds and those of those around me or those delivering presentations. Not in a negative way. In fact, almost universally, most people I heard from and met have been open to teach, share, and discuss. Often very patiently. And the process has helped me build up my reserves of knowledge to be able to speak about the problems of capitalism in a more articulate and convincing way. But I am still left with the question of where do I fit in exactly? What can I bring to the discussions that goes beyond just showing up? (Without discounting the value of “just showing up”, but that’s a different topic.) Back to Copenhagen. For the first time I expressed these concerns of mine explicitly in group discussions and I received an interesting response. Or perhaps this response was always there but I am now in a better position to receive it. Put simply, what I heard was a variation (or paraphrasing) of: “OK, so you know a bit about how the other side works. Is there something you can tell us that we can use to build power, effectiveness and tangible plans to help us move away from capitalism being the dominant economic paradigm?” Maybe I wanted to hear this. But when I proposed a discussion topic for an open space session loosely titled “Developing a practical field guide to disrupting capitalism” it was one of the most subscribed sessions that morning. We had a wide-ranging and invigorating discussion but the biggest purpose it served to me personally was that it helped kick into gear a few skills of mine that have lain dormant for a couple of years. Or perhaps, rather than dormant, resting and replenishing themselves. Skills that I have previously used to create successful business strategies, campaigns, and product ideas and designs. I am not laying claim to a Eureka moment; a starting point at best. But I’d like to share four key points that have emerged from my observations of the current state of degrowth activism and academia. The purpose is to have constructive discussion, learn further from your feedback, and most importantly, make progress. ## Details can be devils Degrowth, post-growth, stable-state, steady-state, regenerative, sustainable, circular, buen vivir, transitional, doughnut, post-economic. Inside academic circles these can be important distinctions and can lead to important research focuses and discoveries. But from the outside it looks suspiciously similar to the linguistic obfuscation we accuse economists and green-growthers of: addressable carbon, net-zero, real zero, greenhouse gas equivalents, decoupled growth, impact entrepreneurship, climate entrepreneurship, supply-chain transparency. To be effective and build power we need to simplify, not exacerbate, the cognitive overload experienced by “regular” people making day-to-day decisions. Nuance is important but let’s also be mindful of where the line in the sand is and pay more attention to which side people are on and less to which square foot they precisely occupy. ## Practical idealism requires real alternatives It’s easy for me to rail against the evil of venture capital-driven business and startup incubators. And I can be fairly convincing as to why the built-in profit motive will almost always result in an extractive business that will most likely undo any potential for “good” the underlying ideas might have. But then the natural question from the entrepreneur is usually: “OK, so what do I do?” “Where do I find the funding for my startup?” “Who is going to mentor me and be my advisor?” “How do I compete against the incumbents?” I use entrepreneurs and startups a lot in my examples because I know that world but the story applies elsewhere too. You can shame or convince (depending on tactic) an oil company employee, a farm labourer, a banker, a marketer (or insert other harmful industry) only up to a point. And that point is the prospect of having no job the next day. Put more bluntly, it’s very easy to be idealistic when you have few responsibilities or when you have a tenured job. Idealism can lead the way but it needs to be followed by practical alternatives for everybody else. ## A measure of progress is needed John Doerr, one of the most successful and wealthy American venture capitalists active today, decided a few years ago that he wanted to solve climate change. To do this he wrote a book called Speed and Scale in which he outlines ten areas that urgently need fixing so that we can “save the world”. Things like “Fix food” and “Electrify everything”. The underlying premise (similar to, say, Bill Gates’s approach) is that we can invest our way out of catastrophe and to enable this, the website speedandscale.com collects and shares data tracking “global progress to net zero.” It’s not my goal to critique that project. The majority of the actions being tracked come out of the green growth approach to sustainability and there are better people than me who can critique that. What I am interested in is the idea of tracking progress. If we are to make meaningful and urgent progress on instigating global system change then it strikes me as useful to have an idea of how far we’ve come and how far we need to go. Reducing progress to a simplistic set of top-down goals and metrics is probably not realistic, or even desirable, but I’m sure there’s a valuable middle ground between a centralised over-reliance on metrics and, well, none at all. ## Action plans Ryan James of (re)Biz shared an observation with me last year that the opposite of consumerism is creativity. Not in the artistic sense but in the broader sense of making as opposed to consuming. The difference for example between darning a sock and buying one, between preparing a meal or ordering one. Or the difference between consuming venture capital to build a “climate tech unicorn” versus creating a regenerative organisation. The problem of course is that the recipe, or instruction manual, for the first two (sewing and cooking) are easy to envisage. The instruction manual for building a new economy is harder to imagine. That is, the concrete set of steps we need to take to connect the academic and idealistic vision to what I do tomorrow morning. The obstacles are many. But in the capitalist system we have books that guide people, step by step, laying out every template and minute detail, for how to build billion dollar companies and the venture funds that invest in them. We need alternative instruction manuals “lying around” for people to pick up and follow when they get the itch to do something. *** I am sharing these observations as a starting point not as an end point. As a call to anyone with a desire to collaborate on these specific topics to reach out and co-create a plan for creatively disrupting capitalism. I chose the term “disrupt” to be part of this article’s title, and of the open space discussion in Copenhagen, very deliberately. It is a term capitalists love. Capitalist economics thrives on disruption. You disrupt an industry with new technology, starve the incumbents, and replace the system with your own. Refine, repeat, and grow. Examples abound: Starbucks and Amazon undercut local retailers until they’re starved out of the market; Uber crowds out local providers and then jacks prices; Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Netflix and other streaming services hold creators to ransom; Facebook, Google, and Twitter undermine news and literature to replace them with attention-draining 30-second clips and headlines. The list goes on. So why not disrupt capitalism? Creatively. By which I mean replace the consumption model with a maker model. Or rather, models, because one size doesn’t really fit all and the monoculture of capitalism needs replacing with a diverse array of making things. Capitalism’s version of disruption is violent and heavy-handed, starving people and organisations of meaning and income. We don’t need to be violent in return. But we can be firm and assertively state that yes, we are going to disrupt your system. Not to starve you, but because we, and you, need to go on a diet. ________________ * **Richard Muscat** was born in Malta and now also holds British citizenship after having lived and worked in Cambridge and Aberdeen for around fifteen years as a designer and executive in various software companies. He holds a BSc in Computer Science and an MA in Creativity and Innovation. Richard currently lives in Austria and is the founder of _Untangled_ , an open data project focused on exposing broken climate funding models. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Creatively Disrupting Capitalism by Richard Muscat
New article in the series "Prospects for Degrowth"
degrowthuk.org/2025/05/23/creatively-di...

#ProspectsForDegrowth

An outline of the poly crisis and it's impacts globally. Follows the analysis in the first part of "Prospects for Degrowth 2025" https://degrowthuk.org/2025/04/04/prospects-for-degrowth-2025/

Our series,

Prospects for Degrowth

Do add your thoughts, either picking up the overview in the first article, or raising further issues.
More to come next week.
https://degrowthuk.org/prospects-for-degrowth/

#ProspectsForDegrowth
#Degrowth

Original post on mstdn.social

If you'd like to add your thoughts to the series, do take a look at the initial piece, Prospects for Degrowth, 2025.
degrowthuk.org/2025/04/04/prospects-for...
It sets out the terrain within which we attempt to work and shift to a lower production, lower consumption, higher […]

Proposals for Degrowth by Eva Martinez* _In the series_ _**Prospects for Degrowth**_ **PART ONE :****RESPONDING TO THE EXCHANGE** I enjoyed Ted’s piece and I am in sympathy with his key point, which seems to be the primacy of communities orientated towards self sufficiency in securing a degrowth future. The concept of interstitial, prefigurative spaces is what attracted me to degrowth. This sort of thinking motivated me to join a community when I was 18, which I never saw as separate from political action, and degrowth offered an eloquent way to describe this. Personally, I have found prefigurative spaces so helpful as they seem to catapault you into the future. You are suddenly in a situation of reduced resource usage and learning to navigate that. It is very different from the messy, slow work of trying to reform towns and cities in line with degrowth. Despite my sympathy with Ted, it seems like a misstep to urge the movement as a whole to recognise these communities as the strategy to trump all others. Manuel gave a great explanation of dual strategies, and I think this is a good way to think about things. Too many left movements have become paralysed by their reluctance to engage with the state. As Manuel says, ‘practical’ and policy-focused or academic degrowthers have a lot to offer each other. There can be a situation of cross-fertilisation and mutual benefit. In short, I would rather have a dedicated and experienced person campaigning for policy changes at state level, than a half hearted commune member! However, I would also like to propose a stronger ‘banding together’ of degrowthers who favour interstitial spaces. I draw on the Quaker meetings I attend as an illustration. Quakers are remarkably inclusive, incorporating even non-theists who enjoy the style of worship. This inclusivity can sometimes result in a weakening of collective strength, granted. Yet it protects individual integrity while still allowing people to unite under the same banner. Within this, Quakers will run small groups and retreats that allow people to discuss their experiences and beliefs with others who think similarly. The relevance for us is clear. Why don’t degrowthers who favour prefigurative spaces and their cultural effects as the primary lever for change focus on building deep exchanges with each other? I think we could achieve more interesting results with this, and faster, than by trying to convince other degrowthers of our strategy. And we could do this without cutting ourselves off from the larger movement. I am keen to engage with people and learn from their experiences of prefigurative spaces and lifestyles. My own is just one piece of the puzzle, one small impression of what does and doesn’t work. If even a few of us got together and shared, we could work out some common themes and patterns that might allow us to build more resilient models. I enjoyed Steve’s comments on quality 1-1 relationships being the bedrock of any social change that is going to endure and be radically different from what has gone before. So this is an invitation to reach out to me, whether you have experience of prefigurative spaces or just an interest in the concept. Let’s talk about it. I am also visiting Steve in the middle of next month, so that could be a good time for some video calls if you’re feeling brave. **PART TWO :****PREFIGURATIVE SPACES IN THE UK** I would like to offer some reflections on prefigurative spaces in the UK, their current limits, and some suggestions on how this movement could be intensified. I am not an academic, and this will be full of anecdotal experiences and my general impressions. I have used headings to help organise my thoughts. **Engaging with ‘the cultural problem’** Ted rightly points out that for degrowth to take hold, a critical mass of people must understand why giving up ‘the imperial mode of living’, as it has been called, is necessary. And not just this (because no one desires their own immiseration), but they must look forward to embracing simpler lifestyles and pleasures. In short, there must be a massive cultural shift that we are simply not seeing yet. This is where I think top down reforms could help, because many people are overworked and time poor. This leads to a high consumption of goods and a lack of space to think through how or if things could be better. A shorter working week or some form of UBI could create an opening that helps us to get through to people. One thing we have in our favour is widespread disillusionment amongst young people regarding the current state of things. The capitalist system has less to offer them than it did previous generations. And if we want to convince them of degrowth, an interesting angle is that of work abolition. This phrase is much more rallying and appealing to the jaded than ‘reduction in working hours’ or ‘a re-valuation of work’. I also think it captures the radical, emancipatory vision of degrowth nicely. A lot of young people hate working! What if degrowth explicitly offered them the chance to escape that endless grind? For degrowth to have the best odds, prefigurative spaces must become better developed. The spaces of the post-growth future are not yet present or stable enough for many young people to feel safe stepping into. I note with some sadness that the UK does not have a strong volunteering culture. In Germany, it is common for high school graduates to take a year out to do this and it benefits their university applications. There is not a comparable situation in the UK. I was one of two Scottish volunteers at a Camphill Community in Scotland, the rest of the young people came from Europe. Camphill is somewhat traditional and hardly making political radicals out of those who come to stay. Most volunteers will go home to study degrees and enter the workforce, though for some it might spark an interest in social work or agriculture over other fields. However, having the experience of living in a tight knit community that provides a lot of its own needs gives a young person an expanded vision of what is possible. I grew up in an ex-steelworks town along Scotland’s central belt, and here the sense of social possibility was severely impaired. Giving teenagers the opportunity to see ways of life outside the excruciatingly narrow one forced upon them can only be good for the collective consciousness. It is almost ‘too late’ by the time people enter adult life and adapt themselves to its demands. While the idea of some Scottish delinquents being thrust into the agrarian, wholesome Camphill lifestyle is chuckle-inducing for me, connecting young people to such opportunities seems like a vital step in creating the mass cultural change that Ted envisions. **Forgetting about ‘the cultural problem’** All in all, I worry that attempts to convince ‘ordinary people’ of degrowth ideas are not the best use of our limited energies. It seems to me that there are plenty of people in the UK who already know they want to live differently. They might not use the term ‘degrowth’ or link their desires to social change on a mass scale, but I contend we have enough in common with most of them to get started with. These people are the ‘off gridders’, the aspiring homesteaders, the van lifers seeking a permanent base. To me, the UK seems rammed with people who want to get back to nature and enjoy a simpler lifestyle. If we want to encourage the spread of small communities, it would be most effective to support those who already want to do it. Until everyone with this desire has been assisted to find a space where they can live it out, discussion about convincing the general public is hard to take seriously. The sad truth is that for many who want the simpler life, it will remain a pipe dream. Financial hardship and the impacts of generational trauma block the way for many. To illustrate this, I’d like to share the story of a family who joined the commune I lived in towards the end of its lifespan. They were a mother, father, and three children, all living in a small van, all sleeping on a mattress squeezed into the back. The van was constantly breaking down and issues with the windows let in the cold air at night. They came from a deprived area of the English midlands and had been dealt a bad hand, contending with abusive, drug addicted family members from a young age. They had their first child when they were still teenagers. The father developed a drug problem and spent time away from his new family in prison before straightening out. They were genuine people who had suffered a lot and wanted to give their children everything they’d never had. They dreamed of their children having fresh air, space to play, access to nature, and tailored home-based education. The reality they faced was quite different. The family placed extra strain on an already struggling community when they had to be accommodated elsewhere because their van was not fit for them. Not long after they arrived, the community disintegrated and they were rejected for emergency housing by the local council. They were told to return to their home constituency and request it there. They went through a period of struggle and homelessness before finally getting a permanent place. Though it is not quite what they were dreaming of, at least it has a garden. The mother tries her best to homeschool the children and the father found work at a local factory. But their story is a stark illustration of what can happen if people pursue their dreams of community without a financial safety net or strong support network. In my opinion, there is nothing truly radical about the community movement unless it can find a way to nurture, support, and include the likes of this couple. Another piece of the puzzle well worth a mention is how people of colour who want to get back to the land can face obstacles. Typically their families haven’t had the same opportunities to accrue the economic advantages and inheritances that often propel older, white English people towards their dreams. I remember a great discussion with a black woman from London who held this vision and had gained practical experience through a Farm Start project in the Caribbean. But the project ended and she returned to London and her regular job, because the fact is without capital, the path is murky and difficult. **Depoliticised Communities** Ted wrote ‘I am especially disappointed that the ecovillage and transition town movements are not making clear their significance for the revolution’ and I was pleased to hear someone bring this up. Many communities in the UK seem to be mere options on a menu of ‘alternative lifestyle choices’ open to more affluent sections of society. Basically, and if I’m being uncharitable, communities are the slightly more radical version of shopping at the organic food supermarket over Tescos. If an emancipatory vision and social activism are not explicitly centred, communities are in danger of becoming a hideaway for members to escape conditions of mainstream society. It is understandable why people want this, but it is certainly no engine for sweeping change. One remedy I see for depoliticised communities is partaking in activism and engaging with the activists in their region. One idea that particularly inspires me is of these small communities making contact with radical climate groups in urban areas, and agreeing a sort of ‘people exchange’. This would give concrete activists a taste of the post-growth future they fight for and connect community members to the struggle for change taking place in broader society. **Conclusion** I am not used to writing opinion pieces like this, but I felt that sharing some thoughts clumsily was more helpful than not sharing at all. To summarise, in part one I urged any degrowthers with a passion for prefigurative spaces to get in touch with me and knock ideas around. In part two, I discussed some openings for convincing people of degrowth’s vision. I then argued that our primary strategy should be finding and aiding the people who already want to be part of small, self-sustaining communities. I maintain that these spaces are not accessible to people with low economic and social capital. And until this changes, their revolutionary potential will be circumscribed. Finally, I responded to Ted’s mention of the depoliticised nature of many existing communities and made some suggestions as to what could remedy this. Going forwards, I would be curious to research the number and scope of small communities in the UK. I would like to know if some regions have achieved a higher concentration of them and about the connective tissue between these projects and the areas they are based in. If anyone knows of any literature on UK communities from a degrowth perspective please let me know. Furthermore, I would like to learn what policies state-focused degrowthers think could ease the spread of small communities throughout the UK. * **Eva Martinez** is a 22 year old based in Scotland and soon to go backpacking through Europe and Turkey. She has lived in an ill-fated commune as well as a long-established intentional community, and hopes to build more experience and knowledge of these kinds of projects. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Welcome to a new #degrowth commentator, Eva Martinez from Scotland, with a very insightful piece in our series, #ProspectsForDegrowth
Proposals for Degrowth – degrowthUK
degrowthuk.org/2025/05/01/proposals-for...

Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities _by Graham Janz*_ _In the series_ _**Prospects for Degrowth**_ **Toward a voluntary and democratic degrowth****** Degrowth is voluntary and democratic. It can’t be achieved through violence or unjustified coercion –– though of course nature is coercive and, as Hannah Arendt puts it, so is the truth.[1] On the road toward degrowth, citizens of settlements ranging in size from neighbourhoods and hamlets to cities will need to share a favourable understanding of degrowth, and voluntarily participate in the labour necessary to achieve it, such as procuring and distributing basic needs for all in ecologically sustainable ways. Equality is an imperative democratic principle that grants each person the power to live according to their own self-determination and participate meaningfully in shaping the polity in which they belong. Western democracy is frighteningly unequal in its emphasis of individualistic freedom over equality and fellowship and the domination of financial institutions that operate outside of democratic governance. This system prevents most people from developing their full potential as human beings. Systems that protect inequality embolden the wealthy to further enrich themselves and destroy the planet for selfish gain. The degrowth movement can break down social hierarchies by promoting equality and putting real democracy into practice. When I mention degrowth to people I meet, they say they’ve never heard of it. The environmental movement and NGOs have not wholeheartedly embraced degrowth either. They remain attached to green growth, green jobs, and green transition – or a solar and wind powered version of the current system. Some advocates still confuse degrowth with collapse. Degrowth advocacy has much educational work ahead if the movement is to reach the critical mass necessary for its voluntary and democratic requirements. **Infiltrating the arts with degrowth****** To familiarize degrowth ideas, activists could engage more in fiction, films, songs, and visual arts. Critics could review past and current media from a degrowth perspective, discussing how a film or book does or does not convey degrowth ideas. Activist filmmakers and authors could insert degrowth into popular genres like romantic comedy. For example, take Jane Austin’s _Pride and Prejudice_ and remove the poverty looming overhead for unmarried women, or create an original story where someone from a degrowth urban area travels to stay in a farming village, demonstrating the diversity within the movement and how such differences might play out comedically and romantically. These stories can take place in transformational stages and/or during a period when degrowth has already been achieved and apply existing theory, like thought experiments performed by characters or actors. Authors will need to consider interpersonal problems that might arise and invent ways of resolving them, such as power hungry individuals seeking to assert themselves as rulers or unrelenting advocates of unpopular and potentially harmful ideas. A comedic solution for an overinflated ego could be to make them into a king and remove any possibility that they might rule over another person. For example, every member of the community moves away before the coronation ceremony. These ‘degrowth films’ are likely to be low budget and probably won’t make it to the masses, but a globally networked degrowth movement engaged in local cinema can spread our degrowth rom coms around the world. Songs and poetry can focus on moments where degrowth already dwells. For example John K. Samson’s _Winter Wheat_ : _No one knows we’re anywhere we’re not supposed to be,___ _so stay a while and watch the wind throw patterns on a field.___ Here Samson calls for an unhurried meditation unmediated by technology and direct interaction between self and planet, shared with friends, a lover, or a phantom of the songwriter. In a similar way the Master Patterner in Ursula le Guin’s _Earthsea_ dedicates his life to learning the wisdom of the ancient trees by reading the patterns their shadows cast onto the ground in the Immanent Grove. Beyond wisdom and meditation, absorbing oneself in activities such as these are costless rebellions against consumerism and the continuous profit-obsessed erosion of time and space. If everyone dropped everything to watch grass blow for hours on end, the economy would be at a standstill. It would be a revolution. My song _I Want To Smash Every Car That I See,_ influenced by John K. Samson and Ursula le Guin, imagines a post-work society and the end of cars where asphalt landscapes are replaced with gardens: _Our days will be uncomplicated, my mind will be at ease,___ _We’ll spend time watching the movement of the leaves.___ My conception of post-work doesn’t involve automation, but a shift away from work for the sake of economic growth/capital and work for work’s sake toward a just redistribution of labour and its fruits, including reproductive and care work. There will be work in the garden after all. Immersed in a garden free from car noises, wonder and a love of life is ever present in the most minute details, even in the slight movement of leaves on a calm day. Leisure and idleness, or slow living, have historically been the spoils of the wealthy classes, made possible by the toil of the lower classes, alienated from the fruits of their labour. All people should be entitled to live as slowly as they wish – but never at the expense of any other person. A balance needs to be established. Visual arts could depict scenes of degrowth life. For example, egalitarian slow living, a degrowth city, a cluster of small-scale collective degrowth farms, people engaged in collective decision making, scenes of care. Illustrations feed the imagination and can serve as instruction manuals. **Community places for the dissemination of degrowth****** The recent election in Canada got me thinking more about community forming initiatives and how they can change the political landscape from below. In 2008 I volunteered to stuff mailboxes for Green Party MP candidate Dave Barnes in Brandon-Souris in Canada. Barnes was a high school teacher and taught a special Eco-Odyssey programme. Many of his young supporters were his former students, converts to an ecological ideal. They knew him and his enthusiasm for nature. He got 16% of the vote in that election, exceptional for the Green Party in a Conservative stronghold. I’m not advocating for the Canadian Green Party here. It’s still a party of green growth. Yet, support for the Greens indicates a willingness to address climate change, biodiversity decline, and a whole host of other ecological problems. People who vote Green are likely to be more receptive to degrowth than Liberal or Conservative voters. Barnes and his Eco-Odyssey programme shows that immersing people (especially young people) in an ecologically focused educational or cultural environment is a way of changing the collective consciousness toward accepting degrowth. Unfortunately Eco-Odyssey was retired and many of the Green voters moved away or began voting differently (or more strategically). The anchor that grounded the movement was lifted. The political party concentrates political and ecological efforts into a losing battle that fizzles out until the next election cycle. A new candidate appears out of nowhere and returns to nowhere when they lose. Effort should instead focus on building grounded ecological communities – anchors – at the local level that constantly push for system change. Local cinema, art galleries, concert halls, and other community facilities can bring diverse people together for shared experiences. These are places that could become catalysts for change at the local level.Where there are no community places for degrowth artists and activists, vacant buildings could be acquired and converted into cultural centres. Long-standing vacant buildings are not unusual in (sub)urban areas, though they might not always be in the best locations. Squatting shouldn’t be ruled out entirely, but squats are precarious. A secure situation could be achieved by working with municipal governments – a win-win for activists in need of buildings and city councillors searching for ways to reduce signs of urban decline. Special measures invoking socially responsible uses of (sub)urban space should be recommended to be adopted by urban governments. Cultural activities, like art and community, the production of healthy and ecological food, non-commodified housing, and ecological restoration are examples of socially responsible building uses. Prolonged vacancy, abandonment, or the failure to sell an unused building within a specified timeframe are examples of irresponsible uses. Under these measures, municipal governments will be able to purchase long-standing vacant properties at non-market values – perhaps not without pushback from property rights advocates. These measures should be applied with extreme caution and pertain only to long-standing vacant buildings as European colonialists in North America used similar reasoning to dispossess Indigenous people in a slow genocide. It’s likely that the owners of vacant buildings are real estate speculators or neglectful owners using them as tax write-offs. Others might already be publicly owned. Once a building is acquired, a board of volunteers would ensure that it is converted into a cultural centre. The board would be responsible for raising funds related to repair and maintenance. The municipal government might offer to provide full or partial funding, it should be noted that conservatives are unlikely to provide financial assistance. A decade-long debate in Brandon, Manitoba centred on converting the historic Strand Theatre into a cultural centre ended with the building’s demolition. No one wanted to pay and repair costs only increased over time. Putting the financial burden on the volunteer board and classifying the building’s ownership as a type of common would allow for a sustained anti-capitalist culture to flourish without the looming risk of funding cuts during austerity cycles. As an example, Alhambra is a leftist cultural centre in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony (Germany) that supports an autonomous community of anti-fascist, feminist, and LGBTQ groups. The building has regular concerts, presentations, open meetings, and a weekly Küfa (kitchen for everyone) where meals are made from discarded supermarket food. There is a bar, kitchen, dining area, places for meetings, and a large hall. The rooftop is covered in solar panels that provide electricity and a supplementary income. Every event raises money to pay for the building’s maintenance and materials needed for actions. Many German cities have similar centres. A degrowth cultural centre could have jam rooms, artist studios, and libraries with audio recording and filmmaking equipment in addition to a gallery, theatre, kitchen, and gathering spaces. Volunteers could organize weekly environmental/political documentary showings in community centres and host discussions afterwards; seasonal bus trips to national parks and forests with knowledgeable guides, camping, and hiking to address growing nature deficit disorder; and Küfas and/or potluck[2] picnics in urban parks to bring people together for shared meals. At any event direct democracy should be put into practice. Such organized degrowth efforts might be happening already in various locations. It would be useful to map out, coordinate, and communicate between different organizations to strengthen connectivity between locales. Depictions of degrowth in art make degrowth more familiar. Anchors – organizations grounded in physical places that host regular events – bring people together and make friendship formation possible. At the heart of everything this is what a strong social movement needs: people coming together to form meaningful and lasting friendships with a shared passion for system change and a willingness to push for that change. That means being inclusive and putting an effort in to make sure everyone feels they are welcome, but also to take action against abusers. Art, friendship, and grounded place-based communities are tools of resistance for the construction of a degrowth society. **Acknowledgement** A special thank you to Anna Gregoletto for the helpful suggestions and to Alexandra for reminding me not to overthink. Thank you to Mark Burton for edits too. **References** [1] Taylor, A. (2019). _We Might Not Have Democracy, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone_. Metropolitan Books. [2] or “Bring and Share”. * **Graham Janz** was born in Brandon, Manitoba (Canada) and has spent the past years ungrounded and wandering between southern France and Sweden. He has a BA in Philosophy and a MSc in Socio-Spatial Planning. ### Share this: * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

New in the series #ProspectsForDegrowth
Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities – Graham Janz
degrowthUK degrowthuk.org/2025/04/29/familiarizing...
#degrowth #Arts

Original post on mstdn.social

Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities

by Graham Janz In the series Prospects for Degrowth Toward a voluntary and democratic degrowth Degrowth is voluntary and democratic. It can't be achieved through violence or unjustified coercion –– though of course nature is coercive and, as […]

Original post on mstdn.social

Response to Manuel and Mark

In the series Prospects for Degrowth by Ted Trainer Dear Manuel and Mark, thanks for your valuable commentaries on my impressions about the movement. On Manuel’s response I think that Manuel is quite correct in noting that my comments do not apply well to some […]

Original post on mstdn.social

In these dark times, are there prospects for degrowth?
What do we face?
How do we foment multi-level action for planned, ethical, equitable, anti-colonial degrowth?

Add your insights: degrowthuk.org/2025/04/04/call-for-arti...

#ProspectsForDegrowth #degrowth […]

Original post on mstdn.social

Do add your voice to the series.
#ProspectsForDegrowth

So far & more to come https://degrowthuk.org/prospects-for-degrowth/

Introduction and call for articles.

Prospects for Degrowth 2025.
@markhburton
(Now with explanatory diagram)

Nothing Surprises Me.
@Liegey

A (friendly) critique of the […]