Kohei Saito’s “Start From Scratch” Degrowth Communism | if taken seriously, it would lead to political disaster for both the socialist left and the environmental movement | Jacobin
Kohei Saito’s degrowth rewrite of Marxist theory is not only incorrect — if taken seriously, it would lead to political disaster for both the socialist left and the environmental movement.
Degrowth is a popular concept among solarpunks. This Jacobin article discusses some of its flaws from a Marxist standpoint. In particular, Jacobin reminds us an interpretation of Marxism which blames the Western working class for exploiting the Global South, and lectures the ever-more-exploited Western worker on the need to consume less, divides international labor against itself and sabotages its own best hope of success.
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Good article, although long. The main part is towards the end so I recommend skipping to this bit:
Degrowthers consistently misdiagnose the core problem of capitalism as “growth” when in fact it is the lack of social control over production and investment decisions. When we attain such control, we may indeed choose to grow many socially useful forms of production (and degrow others).
This is frustrating because its a strawman. A degrowth scenario could still have growth in some areas (and I would expect it to if it was part of a realignment on more equitable and sustainable principles) and the whole global experience degrowth.
At the core of this is the physical limits of energy sources (and therefore economic activity which is highly coupled and is likely to remain so). There is room for disagreement here but its down to whether or not one believes that tech will save us by providing a different high energy source in time (or a sufficient combination of energy sources and efficiency and decoupling options). On the timescales of Climate Change I'd say that's highly unlikely and a period of degrowth will be necessary and the precautionary principle suggest we should work to this in case the tech options don't work.
Idk to me every time a Marxist talks I feel like he is more focusing on defending Marxism and trying to say “Marx already said it he said everything so read Marx and be Marxist” rather than anything useful else lol
I’m not gonna read Marx because people who read it are insufferable and we can explain a better world in much easier words thanks to sociology and psychology anyway 🤷
I do understand the sentiment but I would urge that we need all the voices of discontent towards the current system to be united if we even stand a chance at the change we need on the timelines necessary.
I agree that solidarity and good faith dialogue needs to be two way and it can be difficult at times but we must keep striving to find a way of working with those voices.
Also, should go without saying but you shouldn't judge a person by their fans (or really a subset of them). Lots in Marx has relevance and resonance to the problems we face. Solarpunk without class analysis will be subverted into techno-captialists vision for the future.
I don’t need Marx for class analysis and I agree on being united. What I do not like is puttingn theory in front of praxis. I won’t ever say “I won’t unionize with this Marxist”, I just won’t play their theory game on their field 😎
As I said, don’t need Marx to still get to the same direction of unions, associations, cooperatives, NGOs, mutual aid, sabotage, anticonsumerism and so on 🤝
