I wrote some articles about degrowth (here, here, here and here). I always meant to write more but I also have another project called Climate/Housing and instead I wrote a series of articles there about extreme weather events. Then I got distracted by other things, like getting repairs done on my house. Now I'm back and here's what may or may not be the final post in my degrowth series.
Back when I started writing about degrowth I observed that the idea makes perfect sense, but that its advocates don't seem able to outline a political pathway towards it. This is not to say that they are naive or disengaged - far from it. It is just such a fringe political idea at the moment that most people in politics and business (heavily intertwined in most societies including ours) simply ignore it.
I don't want to be a hypocrite and write a pithy series of posts that are similarly impractical. I mean, at least Jason Hickel and Kohei Saito published books that were read by more than 100 people! So here I want to talk practicalities. How do we engage with degrowth in a practical way?
A while ago I wrote about how our politicians operate in a kind of
alternative reality. In this reality, it is possible to ignore vast amounts of scientific evidence and claim things like that the Great Barrier Reef in not in danger, that the actions we are already taking are enough to tackle climate change, and that we can go on digging up coal and gas forever without anything bad happening. Within this alternative reality, they seem to believe, and would like us to believe, that economic growth can continue forever and that if it doesn't this will be the disaster to end all disasters.
Meanwhile, back in real reality there is no need for anyone to advocate for degrowth, any more than we need to advocate for the sun to rise or the tide to come in. Degrowth will happen whether we like it or not. When the resources run out, climate disruption reduces agricultural productivity and increases damage from extreme weather events and war breaks out, the economy will shrink.
Our choice is not whether to continue to grow or not. Our task is to ensure, as far as possible, that the inevitable degrowth is managed in a way that minimises human suffering and maximises human flourishing. Degrowth presents us with a danger and an opportunity. The big danger is not so much that we'll continue to grow (we won't) but that when the crunch comes it will be a human and ecological disaster as rich nations and greedy oligarchs fight to maintain their share of a shrinking pool at the expense of everyone else.
How do we avoid this? Here is a set of things for people who understand real reality to work on.
1. Promote Redistribution
As I have mentioned previously, 'economic growth' could easily be retitled 'rich people's yacht (or private jet) money'. Our super-wealthy individuals and corporations are appropriating an obscene proportion of our economic output, leaving everyone else with the dregs. Over in the US, the world's richest country, Trump and his billionaire enablers are currently accelerating this cash grab. Other countries are preserving a fig leaf of fairness, but it is very small fig-leaf.
If we care about fairness, justice and humanity, we need to do precisely the opposite, especially as our economy begins to shrink. As I noted in my
previous degrowth post the people who are manipulating our politics and economy to enrich themselves already have more wealth than they know what do do with. They like to pretend that this wealth is a result of their cleverness and hard work, but actually its a result of exploiting their workers, appropriating scarce natural resources for themselves and gaming government systems to bring them more wealth. Ordinary people need to take it back.
This means advocacy for some specific, not very revolutionary things.
- A progressive tax system, including particularly wealth and inheritance taxes that return excessive wealth to the public.
- Higher wages for workers, protected and backed by strong trade unions.
- A generous welfare system that genuinely keeps people out of poverty, including both good income support and strong public health and public housing systems.
- Genuine and generous international aid to ensure that the citizens of poor countries don't get left behind while the rich nations hang on to the spoils of colonialism.
Instead of protecting rich people's Lear jets, we should protect poor people's nutrition, health and housing.
2. Build Community
As I pointed out in the
second post of this series, one of the things that drives the growth machine at the level of ordinary people (at least in rich countries) is our social isolation. Each of us needs to own our own car, lawn mower, workshop full of tools, washing machine and so on because we don't have mechanisms for sharing. Our isolation also leaves us vulnerable in disasters which are becoming more frequent. Who will help us? Where can we go for refuge?
The best protection against these things is to build strong community networks and organisations based around sharing and mutual aid. The beauty of this as a response is that it sidesteps the political polarisation and controversy that surround things like climate policy, economics and government programs. Not that these things go way, but people of all political views, religions and skin colours find it easier to cooperate over a local initiative like a garden or a tool library than they do over an election or a government climate policy debate. The more we embed strong local relationships, the better we can cope with the problems of degrowth without tearing each other apart.
In a more dangerous world - with more frequent and severe weather events, greater risk of war and shrinking economies, strong communities are an essential protective factor. Experiences of flood, fire and earthquake around the world, including
my own experience of flooding here in Brisbane, tell us that it is not governments or emergency services (necessary though these are) that help us get through natural disasters, it is family, friends and neighbours. They are the people on hand right when you need them, the people there in your street when the emergency services are locked up in their depots or prevented from reaching us by water or fire, and they are the ones still there a few weeks, a few months, a few years later when we are still recovering but everyone else has moved on.
3. Promote Good Public Infrastructure
We will weather degrowth much better with good public infrastructure. Good quality public and active transport networks make for a far more efficient and cost-effective transport system than heavy reliance on private cars. A good public health system will help us weather the increased hazards of changed climate. Good public spaces - parks, libraries, community centres etc. - relieve our need for large private homes.
These public systems aren't alternatives to strong community networks and the sharing economy. Rather, they help to build it. They put is in one another's company as we use the same places and meet others in our local communities. Public facilities also provide neutral spaces for community networks to meet and work in, and infrastructure to support them. Good, abundant parkland can host community gardens. Libraries and community centres provide meeting spaces and places for joint activities. Building community is easier the more we meet each other naturally in the course of our everyday lives.
4. Protect Natural Systems
When I say 'natural systems' I don't just mean wilderness areas, although we should protect them too. We need to stop thinking about 'nature' as something separate from ourselves and our society and recover our understanding of our reliance on natural systems for our lives and livelihoods. We need good soil to grow good food. We need clean water to drink, wash in and harvest food from. We need trees to absorb carbon and produce oxygen for us to breathe. We are natural beings, and to preserve 'nature' is to preserve ourselves.
5. Think Internationally
One of the biggest risks of degrowth and climate hazard is that nations will turn inwards, seal their borders and go to war in a desperate attempt to keep growing (or at lest keep their existing riches) at everyone else's expense. Along with this is the hazard that global mega-corporations, which as often as not are intertwined with national governments - will double down on exploitation, trying to screw the last possible riches out of the earth at the expense of everyone's children and grandchildren.
We are indeed seeing both of these things play out, most floridly in the USA but also in our own country - the closure of borders and compulsory detention and expulsion of asylum seekers who end up in limbo in poor countries, the growth of economic nationalism and protectionism, the increased military expenditure around the globe, the fossil fuel industry's long disinformation campaign about climate science which has seen us spectacularly fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
If we want to avoid the mutual destruction that these efforts ultimately led to, we need to resist them through building and supporting strong international institutions. These include the United Nations, which for all its faults is the primary institution fostering cooperation between States and holding back the tide of war, and international NGOs. We need to support international cooperation and action on environmental protection, poverty reduction, human rights, support for refugees and peace-building. All of these things make our world safer and fairer.
For those of us who are people of faith like me, our faith communities provide a powerful avenue through which to do this. There is no shortage of religious nationalists in the world, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish. However, all our faiths have strong international networks and shared beliefs and values across borders, and present multiple opportunities for 'people to people' contact, friendship and cooperation. We need to remind one another of the dimensions of our faiths which teach that all people have value before God, rich or poor, black or white, male or female, wherever they live.
Silver Linings
There is a much circulated cartoon which asks the question, 'what if we create a better world for nothing?' (shown below). In a sense the question is out of order, because it allows that the overwhelming evidence of our ecological crisis somehow leaves room for doubt, which it does not. However, the central point it makes is correct. These changes are not only valuable because they can help us navigate the crisis. They are valuable in many other ways - for relieving poverty and suffering, reducing the risk of war, making us less alone, making our communities better places to live, improving our mental and physical health.
Let's get on with it.
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