101–110 of 114 posts
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Exactly this. Without stuff to sell, those "industries" wouldn't really exist. If your blog relies on ad revenue and you have nothing to advertise you're not making money. Gucci doesn't need to advertise if there's no competition to Gucci.
On the other hand nobody is going to die because society decided it no longer needed Gucci. There is a strong argument we would be better off without them.
I'm pretty far on the left and used to be active in communist politics (little bit less exceptional here in Europe than across the pond), but I've always been very irritated by these degrowth movements, although a lot of this stuff came out of 'my' political tent. It's to me reminiscent of the 'deep ecology' folks, who don't pursue environmentalism with the goal of furthering human well-being, but have a quasi religi…
Degrowth has never been in the same "political tent" as "communism" (by which I assume you mean Marx/Engels-based socialism?) The idea that human well-being is central, while nature is just a resource used to achieve abundance is completely opposite to the philosophy of the degrowth movement.
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Perhaps you know this already, but they would be outcompeted very quickly and disappear (like the shakers). It’s like how paying extra taxes voluntarily isn’t a substitute for wanting increased taxation.
> they would be outcompeted very quickly and disappear So would we on a larger scale if they had their way.
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> Hasn't technology generally been heading in this direction? It seems we are constantly doing more with less Actually no, we haven't and we don't. Carbon emissions are still growing. Classic mistake: You're confusing relative and absolute reductions. We have reduced relative ecological impact a lot, but overall impact has been growing along the way.
This is also called Jevon’s paradox: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Pedantic corrections:
- It's the Jevons Paradox (not Jevon's), named after William Stanley Jevons
- non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
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Like I said, the specifics are certainly open to ridicule. But I don't think you can dismiss the idea that we need to find a way to live without economic growth. I think we still have room for some growth, but not for long. If we keep to the status quo, waste heat from energy production alone will grow to disastrous levels within a few centuries.
The world's population is still growing, economy must grow or there is less of everything for everyone.
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Degrowth has never been in the same "political tent" as "communism" (by which I assume you mean Marx/Engels-based socialism?) The idea that human well-being is central, while nature is just a resource used to achieve abundance is completely opposite to the philosophy of the degrowth movement.
Then almost by definition the movement prioritizes an anthropomorphized planet over people. The movement, in effect, advocates for killing people.
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Degrowth has never been in the same "political tent" as "communism" (by which I assume you mean Marx/Engels-based socialism?) The idea that human well-being is central, while nature is just a resource used to achieve abundance is completely opposite to the philosophy of the degrowth movement.
If it's not in the same political camp then why does the article say that we need to redistribute our resources before we can even start with degrowth? They're basically asking for the same thing communists are asking for.
And equating redistribution with communism is silly - top income tax rates in the US were the highest - around 80%-90% during MacCarthyism !
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> Hasn't technology generally been heading in this direction? It seems we are constantly doing more with less Actually no, we haven't and we don't. Carbon emissions are still growing. Classic mistake: You're confusing relative and absolute reductions. We have reduced relative ecological impact a lot, but overall impact has been growing along the way.
Carbon emissions are decreasing in Europe despite economic growth. Nature is getting in better shape as well.
>Degrowth is now a buzz word in left-leaning and academic circles around the world Ted Kaczynski and other far-right thinkers (e.g. Pentti Linkola) have been advocating for shrinking the economy for decades. It’s not a left/right issue and one side doesn’t have a monopoly on anti-materialism.
I'm not sure how you characterize Kaczynski as far-right. He was an anarchist.
But I wouldn’t classify anarchism as left-wing either.
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Maybe not working 40 hours a week and enjoying the world in our prime age? We spend our best time of the day stuck in an office or someone else's property doing work for them. Losing all the time we have with sunlight. If we all worked 20 hours a week and maintained our SoL we would even be mentally more stable.
And then the people whose SoL is terrible right now would outcompete you and your SoL will fall, because they're the better candidate for the job. There are a lot of people whose standard of living is low right now.