Essay by Eric Worrall
These people teach our kids: Swedish Researcher Timothée Parrique singing the praises a virulent new strain of academic Communist ideology.
Economic growth is fuelling climate change – a new book proposes ‘degrowth communism’ as the solution
Timothée Parrique
Researcher in Ecological Economics, Lund University
March 3, 2023 5.09pm AEDTI’m often told that degrowth, the planned downscaling of production and consumption to reduce the pressure on Earth’s ecosystems, is a tough sell. But a 36-year-old associate professor at Tokyo University has made a name for himself arguing that “degrowth communism” could halt the escalating climate emergency.
Kohei Saito, the bestselling author of Capital in the Anthropocene, is back with a new book: Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism. The book is dense, especially for those not fluent in Marxist jargon who, I suspect, care little about whether or not Karl Marx started worrying about nature in his later years.
And yet, the way Saito mobilises Marxist theory to make a plea for “the abundance of wealth in degrowth communism” (the title of the last chapter of his book) is as precise as it is gripping. This is what attracted my attention as an economist working on degrowth: Saito’s attempts to reconcile Marxism with newer ideas around alternatives to economic growth might bring critiques of capitalism to an unprecedented level of popularity.
Economic growth creates scarcity
Saito turns the concept of economic growth on its head. Many people assume that growth makes us richer but what if it did the precise opposite?
Read more: https://theconversation.com/economic-growth-is-fuelling-climate-change-a-new-book-proposes-degrowth-communism-as-the-solution-199572
I used to think Communism, with its famines, purges and abuses, was probably the worst system of government which could be inflicted on people.
Now I know better.
Before you dismiss the idea of Degrowth Communism as too absurd to win traction, consider that it potentially reconciles some outstanding political contradictions on the radical left wing of politics.
We all laugh about greens being Watermelons, but Soviet era Communist labor movement, with its emphasis on industrial production and material wellbeing for the workers (at least according to the brochure), never had an entirely happy marriage with the green movement.
You can see that tension playing out in today’s Australian politics, the struggle between the Australian Labor Government, which wants to preserve the jobs of unionised supporters in the coal mines, and their Green Party junior coalition partners, who want to shut down extractive industries they believe contribute to climate change.
Greens have long toyed with the idea of medieval feudalism dressed up as village scale socialism, but they failed to develop a solid connection, a clean route of succession from 20th century left wing idealogical movements. Such a connection might have provided greens the voting strength to fulfil their visions.
Degrowth Communism may be the missing link they are looking for, the bridge which can connect young green radicals with their radical left wing union activist parents. The core claim, that economic growth is a deceit which has been impoverishing ordinary people, is designed to appeal to people of all ages, to fan feelings of resentment in people who believe they are not receiving their fair share of society’s bounty.
Proponents of Degrowth Communism claim they are building on some of the later writings of Karl Marx, in which Marx apparently expressed dismay at the ecological damage caused by Capitalism, and expressed hope that Communism might be kinder to nature – which provides the succession route, the idealogical bridge which connects the 21st century green movement to 20th century radical Labor movements.
Expect to hear more about “Degrowth Communism” in coming years, I don’t think this idea is about to go away. If proponents of Degrowth Communism succeed in pulling off their re-imagining of the left, if they succeed in renewing the radical left by reconciling radical industrial activism with green communism, they could become even stronger.
If all was healthy and well with humanity there would be no room or need for the lying ‘news’ loops, the mass bureaucratic control freakery, the partisan censorship, the cancellations and the ‘bots’. They tell you all you need to know of our current desperately ill health, our current gutless obsession with control mechanisms, the current hatred of differences of opinion, and of the realities of truth by those who believe they are entitled to tell the rest of us what truth is and demand we believe it or else.
This will not end well for any of us. Just look at the COVID-19 revelations now appearing and shudder until you get that feeling that you will never let such a repetition of idiocy happen again on your watch.
Then there’s reality.
Communist/socialist countries have the worst impact on “the environment” of all nations.
This flows logically, since socialism in all its forms has always been, is, and will always be a failed system economically. And economically poor nations don’t have the resources to give a damn about “the environment.”
A nice anecdote is a business acquaintance who traveled to “Eastern Europe” after the “Iron Curtain” came down in the 1990s. A river flowing through a city he was in had a head of foam on it a foot thick, and the locals said there hadn’t been fish in the river for 40 years.
Marx just making up one more thing to use as an attack on capitalism is as out of touch with reality as the notion that his brainchild would ever be a success in the real world.
In socialism, there is no reward for being productive, and rewarding the unproductive just leads to legions of unproductive people, which is a recipe for economic disaster, not success.
As the saying goes, “one who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.”
Not Communism its Fluid Fascism
Call it whatever. Without a clear statement of the dialectics involved you can label it anything. Use a label to gain attention and shift blame. Communism is a historical dialectic between who controls capital and who is exploited by those who control capital. The antithesis is class conflict cycles of evolving anthesis and synthesis arch into the historical apex of unified capital control. The communist Utopia.
It never happened because Hegel’s dialectics are very romantic, weak and highly subjective.,,,,,and as we can see very dangerous.
The earth’s environment and people as the anthesis does not at all fit into the Marxist dialectic
Yet there is a new dialectic between the global environment and dystopia=the masses of humanity.
The synthesis is the elite and their tech and newly empowered eugenics and psychological warfare will free the global environment from dystopia while controlling all the capital and the trajectory of human population. This is not communist. It’s fascist…… 21st century fluid fascism. Depopulating the world of the dystopic human problem for the global environment is squarely fascism. It reeks of master plan, master tech, master elite…master global environment.
“Proponents of Degrowth Communism claim they are building on some of the later writings of Karl Marx, in which Marx apparently expressed dismay at the ecological damage caused by Capitalism, ”.
But of course it’s the communist countries that are totally destroyed.
Mental retardation is the only explanation
Textbook definition of capitalism, socialism, fascism and communism are not useful in the real world.
There are four questions whose answers can define a government / economic system. The questions work better than the standard textbook definitions:
(1) What percentage of GDP is from government spending at all levels?
In the US, that percentage was 34.5% in 2022, and higher in both 2020 and 2021. By my definition any percentage over 33% is socialism. Therefore, US became a socialist nation a few years ago
(2) What is the amount of government control over the private sector?
That determines the level of fascism
(3) What is the amount of government ownership of the means of production? That determines the level of communism.
(4) Can the current economic system be changed by the use of free and fair elections? The answer will “yes” for capitalism and socialism.
Most economies are hybrids.
Communist China, for one example, has a lot of private ownership along with a lot of government ownership of the means of production. That was done, starting in the 1970s, because government ownership and management was not taking Chinese people out of poverty.
Government control of the private sector was not as tight as one would expect under communism. There was pollution, shoddy product ingredients and financial / accounting fraud. Rather than try to prevent those practices, such as trying to prevent pollution, the government would severely punish people who made money with those practices as a warning to others.
A fluid globalized fascist movement does not require a identified leader, a nation or a government. It does not have to be racist, or sexist like 20th century fascism. What it requires is a dialectic, a particular idealized identity. In this case, the idealized identity is a future pristine natural world and the enemy is us the unwashed masses. Fascism is profoundly propagandistic and will seek to maintain narrative enforcement to the degree of the power it has been afforded by the power structures that it seeks to undermine or has already inculcated. It is nihilistic and anti-democratic. Representative power is considered a joke. It is elitist and corporatist.. It’s goal is total obedience to the idealized identity and it’s ultimate synthesis. It does not require geographic boundaries flags or logos. It is anti-free speech and punishing of those who do not fall in line. In the 20th century it was militaristic, today, it is covertly and loosely militaristic in the arena of psychological warfare.. It is far more sophisticated and global than it’s 20th c version.. Stakeholder capitalism fits perfectly. Fascism tends to consolidate stakeholder control of capital and markets in order to plan and execute highly efficient systems of production. This was the capitalistic system of the old fascist guard of the 20th century. Very efficient and very productive. Fluid Fascism does not require a dictator or an imperialistic impetus. What is requires is for people to be afraid and to idealize the idealized identity and believe the dream. It’s highly romantic and has not borne good fruit whenever or where ever it has risen . Eugenics is the key; It is the work of fascism to clean and protect the idealized identity. In the 20th century it targeted various identified people groups. Today it is us….our land, our food, our farms, our cars, the future four families, our future of being unafraid, our human honor, dignity and liberty.
The movement does not line up well with the liberal/conservative dichotomy….. it’s unpredictable and inconsistent. Right now young adults are in love with Marx and so anything Marxist will be read but in this case, the use of term communism is a throw away buzz word.
I think we need to think beyond the Fox news sound bites and somewhat tired categories.
There is no way to know if the fertility rate of 1.3 in the USA in 2019 was caused by eugenics inspired dystopic narrative or not. Fertility rates are very complex phenomena. Yet if the rate falls below 1.0 in 2022 then it would be worth studying the relationship between dystopic narratives and images and the desire to marry and raise families.
People used to pursue academics to grow their intellect and understanding of the natural world. Now it appears academics is a way to destroy all common sense and self reflection.