The degrowth movement must advocate a social and ecological political economy. Political and economic democracy based on a system of universal public services. Degrowth is a critique of capitalism as a system dependent on continuous economic growth, but also of productivism as the objective of economic activity.
The movement for degrowth must defend a model of social and ecological economy based on the precautionary principle. The economy must aim at providing goods, products and services essential to the well-being of the population within the limits of the biosphere. A model of political economy based on the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of wealth can never be sustainable. Capitalism is monopolistic by default and generates artificial scarcity, commodification is a way of barring access to goods, products, services, as well as spaces, based on the "fairness" of the user-pays concept.
The user pays concept is based on the false assumption of equal access. But a system that generates artificial scarcity prevents access to goods, products and services to the population that does not have the means to acquire them. Natural scarcity arises when products, goods or services do not exist in sufficient quantity to supply the population. Artificial or manufactured scarcity results from an economic system geared towards profit and the logic of market fundamentalism, which considers it preferable to deprive a part of the population of access to essential goods, products and services, rather than lowering the price or distributing them free of charge.
If the degrowth movement lets itself be parasitized, colonized or co-opted by an ecoliberal political consensus, it means the triumph of neoliberal ecofascism. Market fundamentalism, green capitalism, financialization of ecosystem services do not aim to save nature, but to perpetuate plutoligarchy, rentier class, FIRE sector and the interests associated with Anglo-American financial imperialism.
The definancialization of the economy is, in my view, a non-negotiable principle for sustainable degrowth. The degrowth movement must defend the democratization of the economy according to the principles of a social economy and a genuine ecological culture.
Ecoliberal ideology gives me the creeps. The last five decades of liberal democracy are paving the way to fascism based on the neoliberal doctrine. Liberal democracy is responsible for the financialization of the economy and the destruction of the social fabric. The movement for degrowth cannot follow the example of the environmental movement, to the point where we have green parties controlled by warmongers and supporters of the financialization of nature. The success of financial capitalism is the ability to co-opt, colonize, alter and use movements and organizations trusted by the public and turn them into instruments for implementing neoliberal policies.
Technological innovation can contribute significantly to reducing the environmental impact caused by economic activity, but we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the ecoliberal ideology that defends sustainable growth, because for them what really matters is maintaining the current power structure. Technological innovation and increased productivity should serve to reduce working hours, offer universal public services and make society fairer and more ecological.
Unnecessary consumption requires natural resources, produces waste and pollution that can and should be avoided, as there are many goods, products and services that do not contribute anything to the well-being of the population, but exist based on the logic of profit seeking.
The projects supported by the European authorities are based on market solutions with the additional aggravating factor of introducing the financialization of ecosystem services. The core of official green policies is to keep the capitalist system untouched and allow biochemical processes and genetic materials to be converted into financial assets, so property rights over them can be claimed by private entities.
Private property, the pursuit of profit, capital accumulation and the global dominance of finance capital over the real economy, based on the doctrine of market fundamentalism are the pillars of modern liberal democracies. Ecoliberalism does not intend to change this situation, it intends to extend it to everything that can be commodified.
Is Europe reactivating a war economy as part of the project for a greener economy? Cui bono with the revitalization of a war economy?
When there is political will, there are always alternatives. The war economy only interests the plutoligarchs who are willing to do anything to maintain the international order based on the hegemony of western financial and military imperialism. The western plutoligarchy prefers to bring humanity to the brink of a nuclear war, instead of embarking on the diplomatic path to create a new (irreversible) international geopolitical order.
In the temples of capitalism, City of London and Wall Street, the priestly rentier class and the FIRE sector realized that they could explore a much more profitable capitalist strand than industrial capitalism, the financial capitalism, putting into practice the neoliberal doctrine and taking advantage of the modern information technologies.
The liberalization of the economy (globalization) aimed to allow the relocation of production to countries with cheap labor (creation of special trade zones) and the recolonization of the Global South with investment projects for the plunder of natural resources and raw materials.
Ecoliberalism is the green facade of neoliberal ecofascism, which will never challenge the established powers, on the contrary, it will support the so-called green growth and discard any solution that implies the definancialization of the economy and implements a social and ecological economy for the common good based on the provision of universal basic services.
The degrowth principle will never work in a market fundamentalist system. What should be produced, or banned, has to come from democratic political choices. People cannot be compelled by necessity (manufactured scarcity) to accept jobs that go against their principles, conscientious objection must be extended to the world of economic activity.
The movement for degrowth must defend the allocation of UBI as a fundamental contribution for society to choose the economic activities that should be discontinued and prohibited without affecting the well-being of citizens.
Ecoliberalism, the promotional cover of green capitalism, defends massive investments in the so-called green transition and the involvement of financial capital in the process. A system that depends on economic growth has to promote economic growth.
The commitment to sustainable innovative technological solutions within the scope of the economy’s decarbonization strategy (ridiculous slogan) aims to maintain the superfluous consumer society as a given. The pursuit of profit and capital accumulation, the primacy of private property and proprietary rights will never be called into question. Financial markets and the financialized economy are a kind of sacred cows, beyond the comprehension of the common citizen, to be worshiped rather than challenged.
The degrowth that no one wants to talk about is the one imposed on the lower working class through rising inflation and political and fiscal austerity measures. This form of real economic degrowth has been practiced for decades without being seriously debated. Green capitalism will make the situation worse because the green transition is not programmed to make society fairer but to guarantee the perpetuation of the privileges of the affluent classes.
The energy transition must take place but oriented towards the implementation of a social and ecological economy, an economy of sobriety. The cult of opulence, luxury and vanity must be penalized rather than idolized. The sobriety society should abound with opportunities for citizens to meet basic needs without having to cause unnecessary suffering or deal with systemic cruelty.
The movement for degrowth must prioritize the reduction of poverty and social inequality, scarcity manufactured by capitalism and the consumption of superfluous and luxury goods, products and services. Other priorities: availability of universal public services, public housing, free public transport and reduced working hours.
The degrowth movement must support the economic development of the so-called Global South. Economic development to meet the needs of the population is fundamental, the problem is the model of development and over-consumption.
The governments and populations of each country need to identify the most strategic sectors of the national economy and design a development plan in which activities that are proven to be harmful to the environment and that require massive imports of raw materials are avoided, unless in cases where this is justified.
“The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.”— Mahatma Gandhi
The economy can produce enough to satisfy human needs without destroying the environment. Society must not tolerate the absurdity of protecting the right of some citizens to own luxury goods and properties in an unparalleled display of ostentation with a disgraceful ecological footprint.
The genuine advocates of abolishing these privileges are not driven by envy. Those who make these statements do not understand that some people do not feel the slightest desire to own this type of goods and privileges. Many people seek socio-professional, economic and financial security because society is merciless towards those who put freedom in the first place . Furthermore, simplicity and frugality with freedom can be the best source of genuine joie de vivre.
Injustice, inequality, manufactured scarcity, unnecessary suffering, uncertainty, cruelty, desensitization, dehumanization, intolerance and commodification inhibit and destroy the natural joy of living. When society becomes a dehumanized reality, individual and collective psycho-affective (biosociocultural) well-being is profoundly affected and people are compelled to make comparisons based on possession and privilege because that is the only form of social recognition that really matters and everyone knows it, even if most avoid talking about it.
The degrowth movement must defend a model of economy and society that values a slower lifestyle. The frenzy must be replaced by the opportunity to savor life. The commodified society offers solutions to all kinds of problems, including the possibility of recovering psycho-emotional balance, physical fitness and spiritual well-being, but as part of a consumer society and not for a society of true well-being.
The underlying mindset makes us look for solutions requiring to adapt to the demands of a dysfunctional system rather than questioning the causes of the problems. We've all been told to complain less and do more. But most of the time, doing more means having to comply with the system we'd like to see changed. But to change the system you need a plan, unity and organization.
We are mentally conditioned to seek solutions within the framework of the system, what to do when the problem is the system itself, as is the case with the current model of society? Economic growth is the dominant dogma, we need to create more wealth to have a bigger pie to share. Most continue to confuse capital accumulation with wealth, but what we really need to satisfy basic needs is true wealth, capital accumulation is a source of power and control.
What should be considered wealth? Money? Or, the essential goods, products and services? In a financialized economy, investment banks, trust companies and asset managers, insurance companies, stock exchanges, financial markets control the economy, for example, the FIRE sector (basically, a rentier class) is responsible for real estate speculation that generates an inflationary spiral in the price of housing and rent.
If we could isolate a country with a financialized economy, it would quickly become evident that the wealth created by the financial sector, which only benefits 10% of the population, is virtual wealth created in a parallel dimension. Essential goods, products and services are produced by the real economy, which could and should have access to public funding to develop productive, socially fair and environmentally sustainable projects, instead of having a financial sector controlled privately plundering the real economy, destroying the fabric of society and trying to control nature.
Unfortunately, we live in a reality where virtual wealth acquires control of real assets through proprietary rights. The current financial system is based on normalizing financial fraud, financial market wizards create virtual wealth by turning everything into financial assets. The real economy and society as a whole are being driven to be completely enslaved by the financial matrix.
Capitalist societies resort to manufactured scarcity to coerce citizens to accept social and work conditions that are at the root of many of the mental health problems faced by our societies. Continuous stress, existential despair, meaninglessness lives, endemic poverty, etc. The mere need to survive turned into torture.
In capitalist economies dominated by neoliberal ideology, the wealth created is channeled upwards, while the working poor and the middle class have been losing purchasing power despite the immense "wealth" produced by the financial sector.
Capitalist economic systems apply the principle of competition to society as a justification for imposing a bottleneck rule on the poorest in accessing essential goods, products and services. For example, housing is an essential need, but the market treats housing as a mere tradable good (commodity) subject to financial speculation inflating the value of homes and rents, increasing the difficulty for poor families to access housing. The real estate market illustrates clearly how the rentier class accumulates wealth without creating value, that is, without adding anything to the real economy. Market controlled access to housing produces artificial scarcity in order to maximize profit. Wealth should be measured by the economy's ability to meet the needs of citizens and not by a monetary metric that benefits the rentier class. The GDP of financialized economies is disconnected from the performance of the real economy and does not serve as a reliable indicator of social well-being.
A degrowth movement that wants to be credible has to be anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-classist. Ecoliberal degrowth means more sacrifices for the working class because the ultimate goal is to protect the plutoligarchy.
The degrowth movement must defend participatory democracy, the definancialization of the economy and a classless society. If we allow ourselves to be fooled by a neo-bourgeois version of degrowth imposed from the top down by an elite of bureaucrats and technocrats aligned with the interests of green capitalism, we will have degrowth in the form of manufactured scarcity imposed on the “inferior” classes, including the useless class (Yuval Noah Harari). The goal is to move towards an ecological macro-economy without growth (steady state economy) based on the precautionary principle.
Neoclassical economists are not willing to put their reputations on the line to defend a degrowth economic paradigm. Nature represents value, nature is an asset. A free nature is anathema in the age of ecosystem services financialization. In the end what is at stake is to preserve the system and defend the interests of capitalist class.
The degrowth movement must defend technological innovation and scientific research that serve a social and ecological economy for a well-being society. Currently, techno-scientific development serves capital accumulation and power concentration, which is the same as saying that science is totalitarian and monopolistic. Scientific research and technological innovation, like all activities motivated by the pursuit of profit, transform economic activity into a destructive force, no matter the color of the facade.
The power imbalance between social classes makes it extremely easy to discredit, isolate and silence dissident voices and ideas, as well as making alternative projects unfeasible. Ecoliberalism will never question capital accumulation and the primacy of private property, it is delusional to believe that the ecoliberal class will implement policies aiming to democratize power relations, abolish class society and dismantle a culture in which nature is perceived as a reservoir of resources to be looted, commodified and transformed into capital.
Degrowth aims to reduce the environmental impact of human economic activities by reducing the consumption of natural resources, raw materials and energy, while promoting changes in production models and methods and consumption habits. The distribution of wealth must be done through universal public services, definancialization of the economy, public banking, sovereign currency issuance, including the use of this prerogative to inject money into the economy through the UBI, and a job guarantee program with the reduction of working hours.
Public investment in the real economy, that is, in the production of basic goods, products, services and in the construction of essential infrastructure to meet the needs of the population. Speculation and usury must be outlawed, activities and behaviors that feed on the socio-economic or psycho-emotional vulnerabilities of our fellow citizens must be considered crimes against humanity. The unlimited accumulation of wealth and the primacy of private property pave the way to idolizing sociopaths, psychopaths and unscrupulous opportunists. The ad nauseam repetition of epithets like meritocracy, entrepreneurship, democracy, freedom, free-markets does not change the reality. The problem is systemic, being easier to seduce, pervert and/or subjugate a thousand honest citizens than to rehabilitate an unscrupulous opportunist.
Degrowth policies for a steady state economy must be in the public domain. The myth that an interventionist state is incompatible with civil society initiatives is absurd. The state has the democratic duty to regulate and manage democratic policies for the promotion of a social and ecological economy. The decentralization of power does not mean handing it over to the private sector, but to local communities. It is a fact that our societies lack democratic participation and that makes the lower classes more vulnerable. More participatory democracy and more participatory economics require more political responsibility.
Existing or future leftist parties and organizations must include in their manifesto guidelines for a social and ecological political economy, which means that the economy must meet the basic needs of the population within the limits of the carrying capacity of the biosphere. If we allow ourselves to be deceived by ecoliberal or similar ideas, we will have an increasingly unequal society. Adherents of green capitalism will be strong advocates of increasing the environmental tax burden. The plutoligarchic class will continue to enjoy obscene privileges, while the majority of the population will be sacrificed with draconian austerity policies. Ecoliberalism paves the way for ecofascism and if we do nothing within a few decades we will live under a transhumanist techno-fascist dictatorship.
To be fair, the transition to a social and ecological economy has to be based on anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-classist policies. What is at stake is sharing the burden democratically by promoting a culture for a less consumerist society. We also need to change the educational paradigm “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them”. -Albert Einstein. The left must not present degrowth as a panacea to solve civilizational problems, degrowth is a political instrument to help correct the course of a dysfunctional society model. If we let the ecoliberals lead this process, which is what is happening, the degradation of living conditions will deepen, not only in access to goods, products and services, but also in everything that identifies us as humans.
Most of the solutions presented to solve environmental problems are based on or depend on technological innovation. China is an example of a society with a large-scale economy committed to being a world leader in technological innovation, while maintaining the productivist consumerist economic paradigm, which means that the overshoot problem will be aggravated. Technological innovation at the service of a society of opulence and superfluous consumption is not the way forward, much less the example to be followed by the left. The energy transition based on renewable energies has to be accompanied by a reduction in consumption, because the raw materials have to be extracted or mined somewhere.
Conquering territories, destroying ecosystems, exterminating species in favor of economic growth motivated by the pursuit of profit and the need to feed an insatiable society is something totally irrational. A model of society in which citizens feel entitled to satisfy any kind of whim 24/7 is an arrogant principle. Believing that there shouldn't be limits is a dangerous and delusional idea, limits exist and sooner or later they manifest themselves in the form of catastrophes, pandemics or irreversible changes in biological, climatic and geological systems.
The technological civilization is here to stay and only generalized systemic collapse can dictate its end. Earth is a planet transformed by technology in the insane pursuit of profit and capital accumulation. To control the problem we need to reflect on the connection between the pursuit of profit, capital accumulation, concentration of power and technological innovation. Technological innovation is a source of power, it is no coincidence that many technological innovations arise as the result of scientific research in the military area. In a reality of great power competition, military supremacy is the determining factor to impose an imperialist political and economic-financial order. If we fail to develop a geopolitical order based on cooperation and demilitarization, humanity has no future. The problem is systemic and will not be resolved by merely greening the economy.
The collective West is historically responsible for the current geopolitical chaos, and instead of participating in the creation of a new international geopolitical order for the development of a social and ecological economy, the Western imperialists insist on maintaining the rules-based neocolonialist order at all costs, including the possibility of nuclear annihilation.
The focus should be on the development of a just and egalitarian society based on a political-ideological system that recognizes limits, on consumption, wealth accumulation, private property, inheritance, intellectual property and patent rights.
When there are no limits to the growth of wealth accumulation, there are also no limits to the growth in the number of the left behind. Western societies are heading towards the fascist abyss, because the elites, instead of admitting the need to change the system, make us swallow green capitalism as the solution. A solution that will aggravate social inequality, will not solve the environmental problems and will increase the overshoot and postpones the collapse for a while.
Believing that we can maintain the current civilizational paradigm based on the blind faith in techno-scientism and technological innovation proves how vulnerable the human species is to ideological-cultural delusions.
What should be the top priority is the development of a society with principles and values different from those that currently shape human behavior. To eradicate poverty we need economic development, which is correct, but what kind of economic development? Economic development to satisfy essential needs is one thing and economic growth to accumulate wealth is another. The eradication of poverty involves a fairer distribution of the wealth created, and true wealth is the products, goods and services essential to satisfy society's needs. Capital is not wealth, it is an instrument of power and that is why it is so dangerous and causes so much destruction.
The economy is part of society, as society is part of nature. Structuring the economy to meet the needs of society without destroying nature must be the mission of any system of political economy. The duty of the free market is to extract wealth to be accumulated by the plutoligarchic class.
The ecoliberal class is working hard on the financialization (privatization) of ecosystem services, to make us pay, as with the privatization of universal public services, for the right to access "services" provided by nature. This is yet another fraud set up by the gurus of the financial system, based on the user-pays principle taken to the extreme. The objective is not to save the environment, but to transform nature into financial assets, using the so-called ecosystem services as a reason to tax consumers as yet another source of enrichment for the rentier class and the FIRE sector.
The movement for degrowth must defend the definancialization of the economy. The speculative "economy" should be banned, 90% of the population is harmed by this form of financial parasitism.
The degrowth movement must defend a geopolitical economy based on international cooperation with the aim of: 1- Rationalize the consumption of energy, natural resources and raw materials. 2- Encourage the relocation of production. It makes no sense to import what can be produced locally with identical quality and resource savings. 3- Stimulate technical-scientific cooperation in the search for solutions to implement a steady state economy.
The pursuit of profit distorts the true objective of the economy, which must be to satisfy the basic needs of the population. The idea of having countries that function as factories to supply the world is absurd.
Degrowth aims to question the idea of unlimited growth. The mentors of green capitalism deceive the public with ideas of green mega-projects as a solution to the problem of global warming, without ever questioning the existing societal order and the current political economy system. Carbon dioxide is labeled public enemy and following a recurring pattern, a relentless war is declared against CO2.
The transition to a green economy presented to us does not foresee a radical change in the system that created the problem and the degrowth movement has the obligation to expose the hypocrisy and tricks of a system focused on expanding the scope of financial predation to the core of biological and geoclimatic processes in order to capitalize on them.
One of the roles of the degrowth movement is to challenge preconceived ideas that regulate the way we understand reality and adapt to it. Neoliberalism, market fundamentalism remains the dominant ideology. An ideology that demonizes the role of the State and glorifies the supposed efficiency of markets. The free market assumes that the law of supply and demand makes economies more efficient without ever mentioning that there are no markets free from manipulation.
During the reign of Thatcher-Reagan, the neoliberal doctrine was imposed as the dominant culture for a new era of prosperity. The concept of dominant culture describes the implicit perception patterns that normalize a certain reality conditioning human behavior to adapt to it.
The TINA dogma imposed during the reign of Thatcher-Reagan has to be deconstructed once and for all so that we can focus on democratizing the economy and dignifying the lives of the common citizenry. It is time for the productivity gains achieved with technological innovation be used to implement a social and ecological economy.
Inter-generational solidarity is one of the structural pillars for a welfare society. Caring for all those who need social support, in childhood, old age, illness or any other situation of vulnerability is the cornerstone for just and fair society. The professional work in the area of social assistance must essentially be done by genuinely motivated people who must be duly rewarded and socially recognized.
The role of the family and the community continues to be extremely important, the children should grow up with the feeling of belonging to a living community, contrasting with the current social atomization culture.
Sovereign currency must be created by the national treasury and used to fund universal basic services, social security, UBI, guaranteed employment program, construction and maintenance of essential infrastructure, public housing and all the rest required for a functional steady state economy.
A network of public banks with the aim of financing the needs of the real economy, that is, individual, collective or community projects that contribute to a social and ecological economy.
The International bank transfers must be regulated in a way that respects national sovereignty.
A predatory, neocolonialist and imperialist financial system like the one that exists must be eliminated. Financial markets are arguably the worst man-made system, dominated by a plutoligarchy rentier class enslaving the humanity.
We have to create a banking, monetary, financial and tax system that is simple, transparent, fair, functional and democratic. “Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws.” - Mayer Amschel Rothschild. This quote illustrates the role of money in controlling society. The creation and management of money is vital and letting that power fall into the hands of the private sector is fatal.
Issuing currency requires just a few strokes on a computer keyboard. This is how more than 95% of the money in circulation is created, in most cases by private banks. The UBI is a way for governments to put money into circulation in the real economy. Inflation can be controlled by increasing taxation, which is how money is destroyed to "cool down" the economy. Combating inflation can also be done by imposing restrictions on the consumption of superfluous goods, products and services, especially imported ones.
The relocation of the economy must be a priority. Public, cooperative and social banks must create lines of credit available to citizens and communities to invest in productive (non-speculative) projects and economic activities based on short cycles of production and consumption.
A social and ecological economy must give citizens more freedom to choose a different professional path, because not all citizens feel fulfilled dedicating their entire existence to a single career or activity and, instead of being penalized, they should have the possibility of having different experiences as a way of giving meaning and purpose to their lives.
UBI helps citizens to have more freedom to choose non-monetized activities, develop more creative projects and seek to give more meaning and purpose to their existence. For reasons of equity in the sharing of tasks that are considered less desirable it may be necessary to draw up a democratic plan to regulate some civic and social obligations. There has to be a balance between individual freedom and the need to meet the needs of the community. The social and ecological economy requires the contribution of each one of us so that we can all have a more dignified existence in a fairer society.
In financialized neoliberal economies, the working poor have long lived in degrowth mode, austerity is a political instrument to enforce manufactured scarcity. It is simply impossible to make a transition to a more ecological and just society while maintaining the current power structure. The degrowth movement must advocate for a participatory economy and the imposition of a ceiling on the accumulation of wealth and property. An economy with limits is a society with a future.
The neoliberal regime imposed as the rules-based international order by the Anglo-American financial imperialism transformed the vast majority of sovereign countries into vassals of the globalized capital.
Open economies, foreign investment, unrestricted capital circulation, market liberalization result in loss of sovereignty. National governments are prevented from taking protectionist measures for fear of capital flight, currency devaluation, collapse of the banking system, worsening financing conditions, political isolation and economic sanctions.
A political-ideological movement for a political economy based on sobriety has to go through cooperative agreements between countries for a society of sufficiency. The purpose of the idea of degrowth is not to impede development, but to avoid excess and waste, the culture of sobriety aims to make citizens aware that the consumerist culture cannot continue on the terms we are used to. More cooperation and less competition, demilitarization and definancialization of the economy.
The degrowth movement must be based on the implementation of a social and ecological political economy. Green capitalism is adding more gasoline to the fire and a productivist socialist political economy following the model of a westernized consumer society is equally wrong. The idea of degrowth is, above all, the awareness of the need to build an ecological society.
