Slow Down – THE DEGROWTH MANIFESTO
There is a surprise best seller in Japan that I think will interest you: Slow Down – THE DEGROWTH MANIFESTO by Kohei Saito. The writer is not a best selling pop nonfiction writer or journalist – he is, surprise, surprise – a philosopher. Even outside Japan they are talking about this book; for example here is the headline from The New Yorker:
Can Slowing Down Save the Planet?
In a best-selling manifesto, the Marxist philosopher Kohei Saito calls us to reject the logic of economic growth and embrace a different kind of plenty.
Before we get into his message let’s consider the really interesting part to this story which I think is this: What is it about the state of Japan/today’s Zeitgeist that a intellectual book written by a Marxist philosopher that is a rant against exponential growth and capitalism would become a best seller? Books saying some version of the same thing have been around for decades and not resonated with the general public; so, what is different now? I think there are 2 parts to the answer:
- It has become obvious to any observant and reflective person that our current behaviour is heading towards disaster, the evidence and experience of many people is such that the reality of ecological overshoot is undeniable.
- Saito puts a new spin on the writings of Marx, claiming that Marx has been misunderstood until now by making this claim: “Marx’s famous book was polished and finished by Friedrich Engels, and the projected second and third volumes were left unfinished – and those volumes, representing as they do “the late Marx,” both accurately reflect the Master’s more considered reflections on capitalism and also provide a desperately-needed ideological lifeline for the 21st century. This misreading, readers are confidently told, has had major consequences. “It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say,” Kohei Saito hyperbolically says, “that this distortion of Marx’s thought resulted in the birth of the monster known as Stalinism and humanity’s ongoing inability to look at the present environmental crisis directly in its hideous face.” [2]
So, without further adieu, here is his punchline:
“This is actually only the beginning,” he writes. “The point of no return is approaching – the point at which a series of rapid changes will occur that will make it impossible to ever return to how things were.” Initially, all these passages about eco-catastrophe might seem out of place in a book so insistently, wonkishly concerned with Marxism and capitalism, but in this telling, the two things share a cause and an enemy: capitalism. In the world of Slow Down, capitalism and its neoliberal defenders are greasing the tracks of the runaway train that’s bearing down on all the rest of us. “If we insist on extending capitalism’s life, we’re dooming ourselves to a descent into barbarism brought about by the chaos of the climate crisis,” Kohei Saito writes. “This is why it’s imperative that we join in solidarity to put the brakes on capital and forge a future of degrowth communism together.” [2]
Now, do I agree with his conclusion? Partly, at best. First, my families experience with communism has been highly negative so I am personally emotionally biased against the kind of state control it has exerted. Second, and even worse, the book says nothing about population degrowth, which for and others – including the Population Institute of Canada which I quote below, is really missing half the problem.
“But how are we going to arrive at a sustainable economy? This is where Saito and I part company. While he advocates for a more equal distribution of wealth, Saito has nothing to say about the size of the human population and how we will manage to share a shrinking and ever more ravaged pie with a consumer base growing by one billion people every dozen years or so. And he looks to Karl Marx for solutions. In an article published on January 9 in Unherd with the title “Green Capitalism is a Con,” Saito writes: “the root cause of climate change is capitalism, and … our current way of life will not only lead to ecological collapse, but in doing so exploit the labour and land of the impoverished Global South.” Inherent in that excerpt are at least two assumptions: Climate change is THE BIG PROBLEM, overriding all other problems, and is primarily driven by capitalism. Our current predicament is all the fault of the rich countries exploiting poor countries.
To whatever extent climate is being impacted by human activities (and there is more scientific debate about this issue than one would glean from the mainstream media), human numbers have a major impact. Those numbers are growing by natural increase only in developing countries, and most rapidly in the least developed countries. Population growth in industrialized Western countries is driven almost entirely by migration from lower-income countries and the newcomers are eager to adopt a higher-consuming lifestyle. New arrivals to Canada and the US on average increase their greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of four over what they were in their country of origin.
In addition, those in lower-income countries who don’t migrate are also eager to consume more, which means using more energy and producing more emissions. It is the combination of rising incomes and population growth in upper middle-income countries (as defined by the UN) that contributed the most to the increase in the total global ecological footprint (EF) between 1961 and 2016. It was “population growth that accounted for ~80% of the increase in the total human EF above what would have accrued had populations remained constant while income/consumption and per capita EFs increased” (Rees 2023, emphasis added). Given continued rapid population growth in many impoverished countries whose people understandably would like to increase their consumption levels, any proposed path forward that doesn’t address population growth won’t take us to sustainability.” [3]
So, what are you and I do? Like all good things that are imperfect, we adopt the bits that work in our situation and that we heartily embrace: in my case, that would mean simplifying my life, live a non high energy lifestyle, unplugging from tech and being slavishly “connected” as much as possible, having grandchildren – but only enough for replacement [at most] and supporting any political party that will move us towards a degrowth economy that focusses on a long term sustainable but high quality economy and way of life. Of course, you will extract the bits from Saito that work in your life, which is as it should be, but, whatever you do, DO SOMETHING! We all know we must change and while we cannot change THE world we can change OUR worlds by just being happier with less stuff and less stress as we help each other out – as all good social primates are supposed to do!
References
- https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-slowing-down-save-the-planet
- https://openlettersreview.com/posts/slow-down-by-kohei-saito
- https://overpopulation-project.com/kohei-saitos-degrowth-manifesto-a-nonviable-solution-to-a-misidentified-problem/
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/734853/slow-down-by-kohei-saito/9781662602368
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