It’s not that radical, we lived with less than this for tens of thousands of years before the industrial revolution.
This sounds nice for someone in a developed country who has all they need, and is only satisfying their wants. But for most of the world, economic development is a necessity and a lifesaver. Child mortality is reduced, life expectancy and education level increased, child labor decreased, as a country’s economy grows. This is not a fringe right-wing idea. This is the very real effect of economic growth in developing countries, i.e. most of the world.
Degrowthers often seem to forget that applying their ideas will literally kill millions in developing countries, by preventing the economic developments that would have saved them.
FWIW, I am not a fan of unbridled capitalism either but think that it is important to consider science in important matters like this and not just go with gut feeling. That applies to both fascism and degrowth.
I think a more fair take is that we need growth in underdeveloped places and degrowth in highly developed places. It’s less about changing the total economic output and more about changing how that output is distributed.
No, it’s about how much carbon we are putting I to the atmosphere. Pretty simple issue actually.
Degrowth addresses that, contrary to your opinion. Degrowth in the global north provides the space for the global south to properly develop, something that has been systematically denied to them in many places by western powers through unequal exchange and neocolonialism.
Its often includes with a more holistic approach to restructuring society. Degrowth is only a part of the puzzle a lot of radicals are advocating for in order to combat climate change. A lot of proponents of degrowth also call for a solarpunk style of city planning, decentralized/libertarian (real libertarian) politics and plenty more
The article is, in my opinion, purposely mischaracterizing the degrowth movement. I would say degrowth is more a natural reaction to the excesses of capitalism than movement about addressing climate change.
Isn’t the former very naturally part of the latter though ? And doesn’t the article also raise that point as well? Fundamentally it’s an idea that often gets interpreted through both those lenses because it could help with both conflicts, which is also what by definition is it’s purposely trying to accomplish, the first explicitly and the second is implicit in
… within planetary boundaries.
This connection I think should be embraced because climate change is more attractive as a topic to most people than critiques of capitalism but obviously one leads naturally into the other. Saying that degrowth aims to address climate change is more just a description of partial content rather than a mischaracterization and the body of the article tries reasonably to explain other parts as well, less work and better well being are right there in the title, both not a dishonest description of other parts of the philosophy.
After all no one that accepts degrowth as a concept would answer the question “Should we degrow to combat climate change ?” with a “No” All answers would be “yes and …” or “yes but …”
At the end of the day Vice writing will never be perfect but nowadays for genpop media outlets it tries much harder than most to paint an honest picture of the world, and calling this article a mischaracterization seems to me a little harsh, if you’ve never heard of it the article certainly could honestly teach and spark interest for a this “new” way of thinking, and you need just one word to google to get more rigorous explanation if you wanted it.
How about we do two things
Like how about we work less and we immediately and totally nationalize energy and agriculture haha just a thought haha (fireflies are going extinct haha)
Way ahead of you, energy has already been nationalized here for a long time.
This will go the same way the “Green New Deal” did. It will scare the ruling class, the ruling class will send its media minions to demonize it, and nothing will change.
no actually, you forgot the final step of “loudly and blindly double down”
You mean like destroying new light bulbs and rolling coal to trigger the wokes?
If the phone were 5% lighter that would be an actual improvement. Instead phones get heavier and thinner and bigger. So overall the experience diminishes as they try to be tablets.
Protip: if you want your movement to gain any political traction, don’t call it the degrowth movement
What would you call it? Its kinda like the “defund police” thing. If they called it “reallocate police resources” opposition to the movement would just use the stronger “defund police” language as a cudgel to smear it. It’s best to own it and educate
Pro tip: any one telling you the problem with your movement is the optics, doesn’t actually care about the objectives of thst movement
I care very much for this objective, I just think you’ll never convince the dumber people with a name they’d immediately perceive as very negative
This has extremely strong “defund the police is not a good slogan” energy.
Also i don’t view people who share my position yet are not yet aware or educated yet on why they should stand in solidarity with the rest of their class as “the dumber people.”
That kind of language and outlook isn’t something i view favorably. Its ar best borderline ableist, and conveys a sense that you veiw yourself as superior to those you should be in solidarity with.
If you do care about these issues then i suggest a little self crit on this
