Let’s put some life into this sub. I don’t think degrowth is possible under capitalism because the imperative to degrow contradicts the capitalist drive for the creation of value (valorization) which must always grow under capitalism’
I’m pretty sure the destruction of value is inconsequential in a capitalist model until you destroy means of production. In fact, I’m pretty sure destroying things would be beneficial to capitalism, because then it would be able to produce useful things again rather than trying to invent new useless shit all the time.
Is it compatible with degrowth though? Well, I’m pretty sure we are already living it. The growth is mostly virtual imo, but the actual riches is decreasing for most people in the west. The growth benefit is going more and more to the privileged, and the poor get their public services slowly decaying because the growth doesn’t go into it.
Which is why I hate this concept of degrowth. Growth as a concept only serve one purpose : it’s an illusion so people can believe capitalism will benefit everyone. But the core problem of capitalism is the asymmetry of power between the capitalists and the workers. And degrowth does nothing against this asymmetry, so a de growing world would only make the life of workers even worse.
Degrowth is perfectly possible IMO withing capitalism. Wars and crisis are mostly about that.
Finally, the biggest problem for ecology is not actually capitalism, it’s consumerism. Consumerism is a consequence of capitalism, but not a necessity of it. What you usually want to solve with degrowth is consumerism.
Wow. First, degrowth isn’t austerity or recession, it’s about focusing on improving human welfare instead of profits. This innately challenges the asymmetry of the workers and owners. Degrowth is also about decreasing work, something inherently challenging to the capitalist mode of production.
Finally, of course capitalism is the problem. Consumerism is a symptom of capitalism, not the root cause of the ecological crisis.
Then it is the worst possible word chosen for this philosophy. You don’t need degrowth to decrease work. And the lack of growth always meant and still means for most people that life is getting shitty, so you will never convince anyone that degrowth is good thing.
“De” in Latin and similar languages means away rather then against, that would be anti. Like in delivery, deliberate, deescaltion and so forth.
I know a few people who choose to work less hours and get paid less, as they value their free time more or took jobs with lower pay, which are more fun to them. It happens all the time in the real world, but intresstingly our political and economic system has a lot of problems with that. Obviously that is a very different situation then having a lot of free time due to being fired. That is basicly the difference between degrowth and a recession. One is exchanging GDP for something of value, the other is a problem in the system.
How would you envision capitalism without consumerism ? I fail to see how capitalism would work without mass consumption.
If I may enter the discussion. I think it’s very very hard but may be possible. Let’s say people only buy new things when it’s something they need and the things itself should work for a long time, like generations. It reduces consumerism, things would only be replaced if something greatly superior appeared. Some things would still be bought so there is still some capitalism but wouldnt be focused on mindless spending in junk. Things would be more expensive but overall we’d have better things.
Capitalism is the question of whom possess the means of production. Consumerism is a lot more than that, it is an ideal for people to find happiness in the accumulation of goods.
Capitalism is a organisation of society. Consumerism is the purpose of this society. You have a different purpose. The fascist purpose is different for example, although not incompatible with consumerism.
Consumerism is particular with capitalism though because it happens naturally. Capitalism doesn’t hold any purpose by itself, but the people who established it were driven by greed. The accumulation of wealth was their ideology. And capitalism is a very good way for that. Which is why it is easy to see them intertwined. But they are both independent IMO.
Not sure I agree with everything, let me rephrase this.
The way I see it, capitalism is a way of organizing an economic system that is based on accumulation of wealth (capital). Instead of sitting idle, capital is injected back into the economy through investment, with the promise of a juicy return on investment (and also, it gives power to those who own capital for they decide who gets investment).
For this juicy ROI to be possible, economic growth is a necessity - you can’t give back more to your lenders if what you did with the investment didn’t generate more value than the investment itself. So economic growth is at the very heart of capitalism.
When the market comes to a saturation point, growth starts to slow down. So you have two options:
- open new markets, expanding the economic sphere (either geographically or in new segments of life)
- make disposable products, through engineering (planned obsolescence) or advertisement (you need the new iPhone, believe me)
In the end, I don’t see consumerism as an ideal for a society, but rather the logical consequence of an economic system reified as an ideal. It doesn’t mean something similar couldn’t exist in another economic model, but I don’t think it can be separated from capitalism.