Degrowth needs to be worker centric. We can’t be satisfied with just cutting out products in our own lives. We need to free the sweatshop workers in places like Ethiopia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Those people, often kids, work at least 72 hours a week to make our clothes. We need to treat migrant workers better who pick fruits and veggies from sunrise to sunset in California’s summertime heat and work in our slaughterhouses 7 days a week. And we need to shut down the mines in places like Congo. There workers are underground breathing in fumes, handling dangerous equipment and getting maimed.
This is how we can change the world. The engineers can find alternatives that can beat lithium batteries like they have been with sodium ion batteries. Soon, we could even see an electric car that could stand toe to toe with a combustion car and possibly even beat it in the range it has. We can build and better autonomous vertical farms that can bring better cultivated food to our stores. We can reduce meat consumption but not just enough to fulfill the nutrients, amino acid, and mineral needs the body has. We can shift away from having sweat shops by automation with use of renewables like nuclear or solar to power those machines. What I’ve seen is that greedy, selfishness, and the want to keep everything as is are what have kept us from building a world like that. Maybe we don’t even have to get rid of all aspects of capitalism but just rework the parts that have brought exploitation and environmental destruction
Agreed. Now, let's build appropriate, low-energy technology that can be replicated at community scale to produce what we need as locally as possible. Let's build from the ashes, WE will be the ones who build back better, but for real, not just liberal platitudes. ✊
@@russellaustin4988 we help people by advocating for their freedom. We spread the word and let them tell their stories. Boycotts and work stoppages are a step, but they need to be coordinated. See the anti apartheid movement in South Africa for an example.
We are at best 5 years from robot workers... likely sooner. Worker centric won't be feasible 😂 most likely outcome robot pickers are 2 years away... humanity isn't going in that direction and NO ONE can stop capitalism😢 best find a niche that isn't manual labor.
You can of course do what you like. But the problem isn't you getting a gifts for your loved ones, the problem is that those things will be mass produced anyway. You or I can't make any real difference through what we buy, that's buying into the capitalistic idea of how you can be ethical under a system of exploitation. With that said I do not like to buy that many things and people should cut back where they can. But also understand even if the masses do this it won't have real effect until governments step in. But I hope you have a nice holiday with your loved ones, as being with one an other is more important then anything else.
And if more people did the same as you there would be people laid off at Xmas and they'll have a very miserable one indeed as they get into debt then get evicted and made homeless, all because some upper crust liberal wanted to save the environment by degrowing the economy
@@iamthe1234567890 is this what you say or going to say to your kids when you tell them to save? What difference is what I’m doing than anyone who is prioritizing saving. You should sit down and think outside your little box of a mind
@aidandurkan15 thank you big brain the issue isn't the consumer, regardless of what we do how little we consume they will contuine to produce and throw products and food away. The issue lies in large corrupt corporations.
I grew up poor. While visiting my mother in law I was shocked to find out that she had five different gadgets to do one thing: Squeeze out the juice of a lemon. I couldn't stop laughing and instead just used a fork. I think of this every time the subject of over consumption comes up.
Sure, that's kind of silly, but it's her money to waste. No one has any right to tell her she isn't allowed to buy something. Also, degrowth won't just mean there will be less juicing machines, it will also mean a loss of life saving technology like modern agriculture, modern medicine and transportation. If you get rid of these things, millions will die of hunger and disease. This is what degrowth actually looks like. It's effects will be just as disastrous as socialism.
A friend of mine, due to a bad divorce, was prevented from contacting his son for many years. When the son became an adult, he went to see his dad. The dad gave his kid a tour of his home - a lovely place with good light, wood floors and a lot of art the dad and his second wife had made. At the end of the tour the dad asked his son what he thought. His son's response: 'You haven't got many appliances, have you?'
@@Kitkat-986 "Sure, that's kind of silly, but it's her money to waste. No one has any right to tell her she isn't allowed to buy something." Well, if we can all buy and destroy whatever we want, and we have no responsibility to keep our consumption and wastes within the limits of Earth's sustainable carrying capacity (which we are overshooting by 70% annually), then catastrophic ecological and societal collapse is guaranteed.
@@HealingLifeKwikly Degrowth is an ideology about killing as many people as possible in order to achieve holiness. Earth's carrying capacity is a myth. Technology increases Earth's carrying capacity. Degrowth is an evil ideology and every part of it should be rejected utterly.
Sci-fi likes to imagine post scarcity worlds but a lot of people don't realise that we already live in such a world. We have everything we need it's just not distributed evenly
We fundamentally don't live in a post scarcity environment. Unless you have a solution for mining cobalt and lithium in space, as well as transporting it to the bottom of our gravity well, we live in a finite resource system.
My wife and I are definitely part of the commoning current. Growing food sustainably through food forests for our community in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile creating videos educating people about growing food and sustainable living. Not that we'll independently solve anything, but that we might be a part of the solution, while educating those in similar situations to be part of that same solution.
Bravo to you ! one of the few that instead of lazy narcissistic wishing some one else builds utopia for them, you are doing critical steps every day that leads by peaceful example.
Hey, that's awesome! Excellent work you and your wife are doing. I wonder if you could be supported and super-charged if you looked into the One Small Town Contributionism initiative with Michael Tellinger and saw if starting that free and voluntary organization in your community would help. It would cut across many sectors, not just food, also housing, clean energy, healthcare and tourism. But it would be co-owned by all contributing members and never majority controlled by super rich individuals or corporations.
@@Dgnmuse 'Course it is, it just might look different, or just be a different way of tackling the same sort of issue. All of us can start working on building small-scale communities that can start relying on themselves and begin to take action. I can expand more if you're interested.
@@darkblonde4791 Pretty much everyone. We're all accepting the "checks" in the form of cheap products, exotic foods (that doesn't have to mean foreign - if you're eating a Florida orange in Colorado, it counts), fast and convenient transportation (cars and airplanes), etc. The fact that you're using an electronic device to post that reply is a near-guarantee that you've accepted the "checks" in at least some small fashion.
It's unrealistic. If Disney Pixar movies are where you're getting your information from, then it's no wonder you're here with the screeching climate nuts
Distopian fictions are so common and I don't think people need to be scared more. They need to be more hopeful in using their own power. They will give to liberal non solutions and not think about the concequences if you focus on climate distopias.
Our current system rewards growth at all costs with no consideration for sustainability. We need to reward responsible companies somehow while punishing those that scam and exploit their way to success.
Exactly, instead increasing regulatory staff by government that can acceptive to bribery, better way promote these companies that follow all laws and above, all ecology, dignity, union etc. Reality is that in capitalist cutthroat competition company that cuts ecological expenditures cuts benefits cuts on working conditions goes ahead in business and at same time takes bigger share of market by taking out of business honest companies .Easiest way is to outsource factories into low wage countries; China or Indonesia, where ecology laws are very "flexible" and progressive's towards economic growth.
@@phyarth8082Why would any company want to do business under your terms? Union labor cost the consumer more. The EPA already has regulations. Dignity? What is dignity in the workplace? An employee is paid to do a job. So do it.
@@youtubesucks1499 Terms of conscience. Do business without strict rules (self-regulate). In school we have teachers who gives grade because 26 years is age when fully develops brains and conscience comes to life. Business done by adults or every company have older mentor. EPA check about 1% all sites and investigate maybe 20% all claims about misdeeds. FAA and plane crush investigations, if company wants save money on maintenance they can be randomly checked and caught in action of crime. Main FAA purpose is to certificate air planes, not catch mismanagement. In EU is example local EPA gave certificate for water treatment facility ISO standard of ecology, that was fully functional, but company wanted save money on electricity on required stuff of 8 people to run facility, they dumped directly untreated water into sea. Even jobs with high-degree not guarantee that you get that job because someone saving money. "An employee is paid to do a job. So do it". if you get a job.
I think part of the issue is the term "degrowth," itself. It gives people an image in their mind of hardship, toil, lack of technology, and returning to a more primitive state. As Thomas Hobbes might say, a life that is "nasty, brutal and short." So for me, it's not necessarily about degrowth, so much as it is about regrowth. Our society tries to grow in all ways, in the same way that a cancer cell seeks only its growth and reproduction. Instead, we have to be smart about how we grow, where we put our energy, and how to utilize the resources we have. If a body, or a plant, sought only to expand constantly, it would soon consume all of its resources and collapse under its own weight. Instead, it grows steadily -- slowly -- putting more resources where it needs to support itself, and redirecting energy from other parts of its body. Occasionally farmers have to prune trees in the winter so that the energy is put into other parts of the tree where it is more needed. I think we have to do this with our societies, as well. Redirect resources from things like the military, capitalism, or frivolous spending to things like education, better healthcare, and more equitable living for all people. So "degrowth" in the sense that we need some serious pruning on this tree, but in a way that will strengthen the tree as a whole.
This matches quite closely to what economist think how it should work. During times of growth companies grow and use more resources but during a recession the companies that make least efficient use of resources go bankrupt and are essentially "pruned". We just tend to interfere with this system a lot because no one likes recessions. I don't think "degrowth" how some influences describe it can possibly work. It won't just cut the waste but also funds we need for a cleaner power grid and so on. People aren't taking care of the environment when they get poorer every year. If you can't afford to heat your home you are going to start cutting down trees not planing more.
hardship, toil, lack of technology, and returning to a more primitive state. ..... or death and extinction. Most people would rather go extinct than not have netflix, jobs, money and cars. I give us 0% chance of not going extinct in the next 100 years.
Mate have you heard of this bloke called Marx? Really interesting fella. People took him seriously and it led to Lenin and Stalin and collectivisation…long story short millions died because it’s an incomplete theory. But every one touched by the theory thinks that they could do it better. Mao, Castro….millions died. There’s too often a maniacal narcissist masquerading as a benevolent dictator leading these movements. “Degrowth” is communism’s snappy new 21st century face.
@@devluz well, yes, but that's because you're talking about a man-made economy that has no basis in the real world. We can simply change the rules so that people can afford to heat their home. We can print money to pay for a cleaner power grid. These are just rules in a man-made system. If we're attempting de-growth, then the rules will have to change radically, and a complete overhaul of the debt based economic model would be the first step. It doesn't reflect energy use, it doesn't reflect material use, it's simply a terrible barometer (growth, profit and money I mean) of things that actually matter. Money simply measures itself. Those measures are just make believe though, and so we as humans can remove that religious belief of our own choosing. I don't think the dolphins and rabbits will intervene.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has been thinking about this. It's been in my mind for years. It just feels when interacting with other people that you are the only one and they are oblivious to the danger.
In my opinion we are a little too late, but the more people talk about it, the better. I think we should offer degrowth with analogies and not using exactly that term, so more people can think about it and don't close or attack the concept just because of its name
You are not alone buddy. There are few of us, but you are not alone. Unfortunately, I am one of the "doomers" that think it is already too late, not because its too late to do the right thing but its too late to expect that nasty humans will change their nasty habits and thinking and start doing the right thing. It is too late because humans are too selfish and short sighted, too greedy and too ignorant to actually see what is happening and this will inevitably lead to the near term extinction of our species. I give is 40 -50 more years tops.
@@matiasramireznoguez3191 Do you think degrowth could be done community by community, though? If 'degrowth' means a community choosing to set up a collaborative worker co-operative, for the people, by the people, and survey their resources and localize as much production of goods and services as people need, then that can set a precedence for it that other towns can follow. How do you think that would work? Basic format: Establish a town co-operative that is free and voluntary to join. It includes projects and businesses in multiple areas, especially food production and housing (as those are often the main needs and costs for people). The membership requirement is to volunteer at least 3 hours to any of the co-owned businesses and projects, from working at a community garden to cleaning the park to building some stools, to caring for the children or elderly, etc. Everyone's contribution for 3 hours is valued the same, and as such, they get the same sort of rewards. They get a free meal each day they contribute, of the food produced and provided by the co-op members, and each month they get a free basket of goods with other foods, items, gadgets, tools and equipment that the co-operative projects produced. Excess goods, like food, get sold to the non-members in the region for best prices (because the expenses are much lower than a capitalist company has) and all members get an equal profit share, too. Might start out as a simple $50 extra bucks a month, and then grow to $150, then $300, $600, $1200 and so on.
I feel ya. Hard to find people in your community on the same page. Seems like we are all spread out around the world. But I think we need a format that can bring like-minded people together, locally for action, but connect and collaborate globally. Still probably need at least a dozen or so local people on the same page to get started, but that can be done. Reach out to any local organizations related to sustainability, social support and community building, see what comes back. Then educate yourself and others more. Sources like Abby Martin, Caitlin Johnstone, Peter Joseph, Michael Tellinger, Lee Camp, etc. are very reliable and on point.
I don't like degrowth because I don't want millions of people to die of starvation, disease and environmental exposure. Degrowth is nothing more than state enforced poverty.
Absolutely. The strange thing is, I suspect that if they sold the idea properly (or, at all), they'd get a huge number of people supporting them, from all sides of the political spectrum. I don't think people are as wedded to globalism, consumption and stuff as is portrayed, I actually think it would be a massive weight lifted for many people. It's not actually political suicide to offer these things in terms of the voting public, it's suicide in terms of party donations (in other words, the circular effects of the system itself). If we told the public the right story, told them the truth about the future we face, and ask them - as, and like, adults - to unite to face those issues then I believe the response would be positive. Obviously, it can't be done without localism and power passed down to the lowest level. It would also need to be accompanied by fairly radical policies, such as ending mortgages (these are just man made constructs) and entitling people to a home, with a place to grow food (a garden!). It would require ecological expertise to best design communities to maximise their natural resources, such as capturing watershed, pointing homes towards the sun to allow for passive heating and so on. It'll require us to celebrate efficiency, frugality, quality, family and most importantly: recognising limits. It is recognising limits that is actually the key factor here, rather than de-growth. Limits should be built into every decision we make as a community and wider society/nation (if it's a benefit to even have such things). What could that look like? Imagine an application to build a factory to make furniture, where no such thing existed previously. The community would get together and discuss this idea. Who currently makes our furniture? What resources go into that? How much furniture do we actually need? Will building a factory result in us building too much furniture? Will we create a fashion out of furniture and have it replaced every five years? Do we need fossil fuels to power the factory, and plastics to coat the furniture, and packaging to ship to its destination? What is furniture anyway? What are the long term implications, and can we get by without? When I look around my house, I just see things that have been sold to me, and I've been drawn in by that thing. A tiny number of my possessions I actually value or need. I'd happily vote for less. I'm waiting for the politician that tells that story. I don't believe that there are a queue of politicians currently thinking this way, but too frightened to say it due to political suicide though, its just that the story hasn't been told yet, and it maybe isn't allowed to be told within the narrow boundaries of the current system.
There was life before the corporate appetite for endless money growth. It’s been done before. It’s about greed: controlling people, the bottom line, and nothing else.
Well, to push the government to meet the people's needs, the people need to be the ones who organize and co-own more means of production so they can have a better say in how their government funds and supports certain programs or areas. Progressive change comes from the bottom up, not top down. So how about using the One Small Town Contributionism strategy as the bottom up approach? See here: "UBUNTU Contributionism A World Free of Money - by Michael Tellinger 2012" for a overview of the philosophy and check out the website for One Small Town for more.
I’ve asked for a flower bed, flower seeds, and ext. I’m not really asking for things I don’t really need. Of course I need my fun but I asked for things that I would use almost every day. That to me is what presents are, something you appreciate for a long time.
I've done the same. I've asked for things for my ebike that I use everyday, like a basket for the front and a bag to carry the battery when I need it. I've become much more aware of our and my consumerism behaviours and am taking action whenever I can.
Also, when all people don't push each other for "more" money, then everyone won't need more. We just do what is "needed" to fill the basics. The cycle is no longer stressful and only one parent needs to work to pay the bills.
@@sannhik what you’re trying to get at, but that’s not the point here. It could also come out to 50/50 paid work, so for example both parents work 20-25h, and get paid what they need this way
I became a patreon supporter! Thank you for creating these videos and introducing these topics to the world at a critical time. Even before I learned of "solarpunk" and "degrowth" I had already been doing everything I can to consume as little as possible because I care deeply about my impact on the world. Your videos helped me feel validated since I didn't realize there were movements and communities that are sharing a similar path. Realistically, I doubt enough people will be willing to change their way of life -- from the wealthy CEOs to the blue-collar workers just trying to get by -- in order to spare the future generations of immense hardship. However, the more people that are informed and adopt a more equitable, ecologically-minded lifestyle, the more our species will be prepared to adapt to the worst of the climate crises ahead of us.
Oh boy, supporting anti-capitalism thought-police in Paetreon, with capitalism.... Reminds me of protestors trying to save sea turtles with paper straws saying nothing about their disposable iPhones in their hands.
@@HomeEngineer-wm5fg I understand it may seem contradictory or hypocritical to donate money to this channel when reducing such an act to the concept of "capitalism". I also acknowledge you don't think the information shared by the creator is valuable. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Best wishes.
@@sweatyeti Sensible reply. Look, I'll level with you. Anti-capitalism, as it really stands is more honestly and appropriately anti-chronysim. Being anti-capitalist is counter intuitive. Capitalism is the best system until we reach AI golden era where a living wage is paid for with robotic slaves. You need slavery to support traditional "anti-capitalist" asperations and there is a few moral problems with that.
What that sounds like to me is the Shire. And I’m not being silly-the hobbit lifestyle of the lord of the rings is the traditional village lifestyle of the English countryside, built not to grow forever but to endure. I think having small local economies of scale that allow people to get what they need from local businesses and live within their means is the real goal of society. We just need enough people to advocate for it against the cancerous growth model of society that seeks to expand at all costs or die.
@@Praylak Not really-local farms provide shares of their crop for businesses and families, local business and residential zoning encourages close communities and living within our means. It’s not the most sexy form of community, not like a hip urban tech center, but villages in the UK have been chugging along for 700 years with the same model. It’s not a growth model, that’s for sure, and that’s why I think a lot of people would like it.
@lyricalcleric8593 so you're suggesting poverty? The life expectancy in these UK villages for most of those 700 years was like half of what it is today. This video missed the fact that economic growth of the last 50 years has raised a billion people globally out of absolute poverty and another billion out of poverty alltogether and into the middle class. Global median income is $3500 per year, are you seriously suggesting that everybody should make do with $3500 per year and they can live a good life on that amount of money?
@@joebob-p3z Not at all! But if you only believe that there are two extremes-abject poverty or hyper-capitalist consumer suburbia-then you’re engaging in black-or-white thinking and you need to stop doing that. What’s the motto of Strong Towns, the movement here on yt and elsewhere to strengthen our community building? Incremental change over time. We can’t bulldoze Wall Street any more than we can throw billions of dollars at Ethiopia and create a business empire out of thin air. But we can stop supporting drastic overreach in policy making that puts towns into future debt for present growth. We can support community organizing that works on the local level to solve local problems, rather than waiting for national politics to solve local problems (which will never happen). We can do the next largest thing to help our communities, even if it’s just being on a volunteer group or serving on a committee or attending a council meeting and speaking on behalf of mixed-use residential zoning. If you’re going to claim that we shouldn’t all be living in poverty, you might want to take a drive through Appalachia. There’s areas everywhere where people are impoverished, and we may have resources but it costs more and more to access those resources. This rich country costs a lot to live in, and most people are spending half their paycheck just to keep up on rent, if they’re lucky. Get sick or have addiction issues, and you’re out of a home, out of a job, maybe living in your car if that isn’t repoed, and it’s a long way down from there. People freeze to death in the winter here, despite how much money we all supposedly have. Doesn’t help them one bit. We all help out as best we can, but we need more community support. We need council housing for unhoused people, we need food programs from local farms to end food deserts, and we need community-based medical alternatives to drug convictions and drug addiction, absolutely destroying our most at-risk communities. If we want to have these small towns endure, we need to pool our resources for the common good, not just fight amongst ourselves for the scraps from an uncaring system way far away at the state capitol.
@@joebob-p3z3500 could be possible in a world where most of our money weren't going to rent and we had local cooperative food production and common land ownership. If we don't switch to this type of model I think we'll be forced to in the future anyways, (due to economic collapse) so we might as well make the switch intentionally.
I got the confirmation of my salary increase this month so I’m very happy to finally be able to contribute to this channel by becoming a patreon. I started watching your videos as a student and now as an adult into this money driven world full of crisis everywhere I hope people could see there are alternative ways of living. Keep doing what you do!
@@Kitkat-986 "You are benefiting from capitalism yet you advocate for state enforced poverty? Why?" Uhhh, because there are things that matter much more in life than pleasure or wealth, like saving as many people and species as possible (and we need de-growth to do that).
Very good video, but i have one critique , and that is that our so-called "carbon-budget" ran out a long time ago. We are already bound to face 1,5C ° next year.
@77cicero77 so, the nuance is slightly more complex than that. It's based on long term averages of about 10 years. As we accelerate, we are already hitting 1.5, and even LA Nina wvents don't seem to diminish issues nearly as much as they should. So the long and short is, we're going to be in 1.5 before we have data to back this up, because... again, long term averages. But if our short term live data manifests as projected, and we also continue to decarbonize, there's actually layers of impact we don't comprehend, like aerosol data.
I'm sure that's true, I've seen enough climate scientist data to know that we are in the stage of trying to mitigate as much disaster as possible, not prevent it from happening at all. I mean, we are already in a environmental state of ongoing crisis, and capitalism isn't helping. What can we practically do to help? We can't change the entire world, we can only do what we can in our communities, mostly. I mean that's where we can effect the most change, especially if we get more on board. It is important to collaborate across communities and around the world, but then act locally. I believe there are many ways to do that now. One such way is based on the principle of Ubuntu Contributionism by Michael Tellinger called the One Small Town initiative. Feel free to check it out. What do you think? Would it work in your town?
Thank you for putting so much time, energy and creativity into a very well produced and presented video demonstrating the urgency of degrowth. I was particularly impressed at your awareness of the lack of intersectional consideration that many degrowth proponents bake into their plans, leaving women, Neurodivergent, Disabled, and People of the Global Majority out of the picture. I decided to become a patron today, and as I was deciding whether or not to be in economic solidarity, I thought about the value of the positive sense of hope that I felt at the end of your video. If I felt it, then others likely did too. Hope, positivity, and clarity are in short supply these days. If I were to put a value on that feeling, I believe that the cost of $37 or so for a year more than makes up for the positive sense of hope and aspiration that I felt times 12. I want to do my part to share that feeling with others and that means making sure you’re able to survive. May the ancestors bless you.
Very nice, very appreciated. There is not much that really gives people hope since our monetary-market capitalist system is so unjust and unsustainable and those of us who know that are looking for solutions and don't see that many. Channels like this one, plus Second Thought, Moneyless Society, World Beyond Capitalism, TZMOfficialChannel and the great community co-op initiative called One Small Town, based on the philosophy of Ubuntu Contributionism with Michael Tellinger, are other very good ones. Peace and unity, to you and all.
I’m in the last chapter of Jason Hickel’s Less is More, and I haven’t heard a better approach to fixing things than his version of degrowth. As difficult as it would be, it seems like it would be the only justifiable way forward.
@@coolioso808 I'm terrible with my book-marking habits, I underline things that impact me as I am reading them, so the quotes are fairly random and very frequent. But a few that stood out as I flipped through just now were "Growthism is little more than ideology - an ideology that benefits a few at the expense of our collective future" and "researchers found that Nicoyans' [a regional cultural group in Costa Rica] extra longevity is due to something more. Not diet, not genes, but something completely unexpected: community." So far it has been a very insightful book that I will probably read a few more times. It does a very good job of succinctly describing and critiquing capitalism, its origins, and its terrifying trajectory, but a lot of books are good at that. What Hickel's book does best is give you ways to avoid that terrifying future, all relatively easy (easier than civil war, that is). His five-step plan "emergency brake is 1. End planned obsolescence. 2. Cut advertising. 3. Shift from individual ownership to collective usership. 4. End food waste. and 5. Scale down ecologically destructive industries. The first two could be legislated for fairly easily. number 3 is a combination of social change and infrastructure change. 4 depends on the localization of food production and legislating more relaxed quality standards (not in terms of safety but in looks). and 5 is a huge shift.
That's my favourite book. I wish it was more well known. What it doesn't really address is that we really need some form of socialist revolution in order to implement the theories of degrowth in an effective way that can challenge the powerful players under the current capitalist systems. I like that this video makes note of that.
I have always loved your channel. I watch every video have the bell on. I think I might make a patreon to help. One thing I never understood though is how you don't have more subscribers. You always put out top quality videos and have sources included. It's awesome.
While I agree, it would be great if this channel had more subscribers because the content is excellent, I must say I'm impressed with how many subscribers he has, at least, because other channels with similar topics don't have nearly as many. I'm not saying that in jealousy, I don't own those other channels, I just like them and would like to see more collaboration and sharing of ideas when people are on the similar train of thought. Because I'm looking at OCC with over 490 K subscribers, while Moneyless Society and World Beyond Capitalism combined have less than 10 K. Maybe there will be a huge collaborative project some day when Our Changing Climate, Second Thought, Moneyless Society, World Beyond Capitalism, Democracy at Work (with Richard Wolff), TZMOfficialChannel and Michael Tellinger (with One Small Town Contributionism) will all get together for a talk or show. I've already seen collabs with OCC and ST, MoSo and WBC and Richard Wolff. Be great to see Michael Tellinger added in there and Peter Joseph who has Zeitgeist film 4 coming out in March.
I am working on getting my masters in Environmental Management and Policy. I do feel donut economics is a bit less harsh and bit more fluffer than degrowth lol I love the video the way it is structed and how you teach degrowth. Thank you so much! I plan to draw from your video for a literacy review paper I'm writing about overpopulation. After watching your video I feel that our population is big part of that equation and our numbers need to slow down. I was curious on your thoughts should we manage stay alive long enough for net positive energy in fusion to become mainstream and commercial. Do you believe if we do reach a degrowth future would fusion take us from 30 to 100? Possible eliminating ourselves in the process?
It's worse than presented in this video - we've already burnt too much fossil fuel. There isn't a "budget" left. Natural feedbacks have been triggered by the increase in temperature that mean even if we stopped emitting GHGs now, those feedbacks would continue their accelerating release of GHGs. Permafrost thaw and forests dying are two major examples.
@@denisl2760 it’s to late we are already dialed in for at the absolute minimum of 3c by the end of the century live your best life things are going to go south very fast
It's ironic if the stories about the Annunaki are true, it would mean we've done the same thing as the aliens who created us, since they supposedly came here to mine gold they used to help fix or offset the poison damage they did to their atmosphere. It almost makes the legends seem even more plausible since we've walked in their footsteps in an eerily similar way.
Wow this is huge. But as promising as it sounds, I somewhat doubt this will happen in the near future. I mean it's such a huge change to how we'll live I don't think a lot of people will accept it.
The way we live now is a huge change to how we’ve always lived… literally it has only been a few decades at most two centuries that we’ve been living this way. And the effects of climate change will ensure that it is only an exception… sadly
@@Designotherwise Indeed. It's a way of living brutally induced by decades of maketing and Corporate Interest that have done everything in order to determine our psychic desires. Nowadays this has exploded with the Web, with all the psychological ways to induce overconsumption at the individual level, and increase capital accumulation.
I think people are becoming so exhausted earlier in life, overwhelmed by the excess and material abundance contrasted with constant economic precarity, that they will welcome it.
I mean that's great to do on an individual level but the point is that the whole system needs to change, the incentive structures need to change otherwise the vast majority of individuals in that system won't change either by choice or not.
The thing is, we don't have to have less. We need more efficiency and less non added value production. Obsolescence regulations, for instance. BS products that add no real value to society. The massive waste in our productive systems. They would all drive towards degrowth without having to live the simple life... ...having said that, some of the happiest times in my life were when I was much poorer and living with very low consumption. There is something to it.
@@CampingforCool41 yes, I think we just have to embrace the fact that some kind of authority will have to guide and impose this eventual societal change. No spontaneous democratic ballad could ever do it.
@youtubesucks1499 I'm not. I'm very much on the side of live and let live, honestly. But we all do live our lives within the constraints of the system we currently have.... so, in effect, you're already being forced to live a high consumption life. We are all reliant on it. Why not make the system more efficient and then live however you like (within the bounds of the law and social decency ofc).
Thank you for including Jason Hickel in this video. His book on degrowth 'Less Is More (how degrowth will save the world)' is my favourite book. What this book doesn't really address is that we really need some form of socialist revolution in order to implement the theories of degrowth in an effective way that can challenge the powerful players under the current capitalist systems. I like that you have noted this here! Thanks again for all of your great videos.
I physically cringed when you said “the building has no elevators.” I have been a Socialist for about a decade and, to be painfully frank, socialists forget about disabled people nearly as much as Republicans. The disabled are so often an afterthought if they are even a part of the discussion. :/ Needless to say, it’s been terribly disappointing. And, yeah, that ghost hand with the middle finger in the illustration just begins to demonstrate my frustration.
@@youtubesucks1499 Republicans and pretty much all political parties leave the disabled out of all planning. Of course, Republicans take it one step further by doing everything in their power to make it difficult for disabled people to get any assistance based on the Conservative notion that almost every person applying for disability is lying. Then, even when the disabled person finally gets assistance it’s such a pittance that they are lucky if they don’t end up homeless. Oh, and then there are the anti-homeless bills that Conservatives get their jollies off of. Many disabled people, thanks to the politicians, end up homeless. So, I suppose that at least Socialists only forget disabled folks exist. Maybe Republicans do remember them. Maybe, it’s just that Republicans really enjoy making disabled people suffer.
As a person with a hidden disability, I hear you. All the systems created were done so by healthy, able-bodied people without thought for any other type of person.
By excluding them, mocking them (you didn't see the tRump video?), cutting social security, cutting medicare, cutting anything that is a service to the public and trying to profit off of it instead, raising taxes on the poor while cutting taxes on the rich, allowing charities to serve as tax havens instead of outlawing cash hoarding, weakening the EPA so more of us become disabled from pollution, prioritizing corporate profits over life and health ...on and on you "forget" about our needs when it comes to your greeds. Take personal responsibility for your support of politics that do more harm than good. Greed is horrendous and the evidence is everywhere. @@youtubesucks1499
You know that growth can´t be the solution when you learn that natural desasters are normally the best way to improve the gdp the more destructive the better. If degrowth means producing less stuff that people don´t need and producing more stuff that tends to last longer I am all for it.
I don't see how natural disasters boost the economy. Nobody wins economically, because the people who die, get injured and lose property are less able to work, have lost their property (usually the largest store of wealth that people have) and the public infrastructure of their area is damaged which makes it unappealing for new businesses and residents to come in. Insurance companies don't win because they are suddenly paying out huge amounts in one go (if they don't refuse to pay over some clause or other), and might go bust. The government gets less tax from the affected area and have to find money to spend on reconstruction and immediate relief for the victims.
@@danyoutube7491 I didn´t say economy but good for growth and the gdp. That are seperate things. Of course it is not good for people when their belongings are swept away but when all their things are gone there is a way higher demand to produce and sell things obviously. " Nobody wins economically, because the people who die, get injured and lose property are less able to work, have lost their property (usually the largest store of wealth that people have) and the public infrastructure of their area is damaged which makes it unappealing for new businesses and residents to come in." On the contrary. If people´s livelihoods are destroyed they have a way higher motivation to spend the money they otherwise would have just kept in their bank account or locked away in other assets. Of course that is not good on a personal level but the gdp and growth thrives on that. That´s why the 50`s were the time with the biggest economic growth in the 20th century after WW2. Also explains why the US for example wages a war every five seconds somewhere. A peaceful world without any major interruptions would be pretty bad for the economy. Except you have something like Covid that does only hurt people and their ability to produce and leaves property intact.
You missed the part where the death count of natural disasters falls exponentially in rich countries. Also the part where economic growth raised a billion people out of absolute poverty in the last 50 years, and raised another billion out of poverty altogether and into the middle class
@@joebob-p3z First of all: "You missed the part where the death count of natural disasters falls exponentially in rich countries." I haven´t said that a lot of people had to die just that a lot of destruction has to occur in order for the gdp and growth to go up. You know like when they throw all your Christmas gifts away on Jan 1st when you return them to the store. Second of all: "Also the part where economic growth raised a billion people out of absolute poverty in the last 50 years" Where exactly did I question that? Of course with economic growth it would be absolutely absurd if not some amount of wealth would trickle down. And yes economic growth has benefitted people a lot mainly in China and India. In the short run. But you can´t praise the benefits of growth and a rising gdp and not take into account the amount of destruction that is caused to said people by the effects of that growth namely the climate crisis now and more importantly in the coming future. Forgot about Bangladesh for example last year? And not to mention that the statistic is not completely accurate since it does not account for inflation. It also does not attribute to the effect that in Western countries and in many second world countries said growth had the opposite effect and plunged more people closer to poverty or right into it. The US being the best example for that matter. Those people are not even counted in the statistic as by international standards being poor in the US ist still not poor on a global scale.
I have been watching your videos for a while now and you have gained my respect and admiration. I have noticed a lot of the systems we have in place have focused on globalisation and capitalism wherein local communities have been dismantled to focus on mass production and resource overconsumption. We have destroyed forests to have monoculture and use as grazing for cattle (beef production/dairy industry), collapsed fish populations due to high demand, limited biodiversity due to widescale species extinctions, etc. Economic growth has become so intertwined into consumerism and the GDP that we will soon exhaust all the natural resources we have. We would all have to learn the lessons we have gained from the pandemic, international cooperation is essential in curbing fossil fuel emissions. But I have to be pragmatic, despite all these great initiatives that have been presented in this video, one must be aware that governments and corporations control our current societal systems. The individuals that we have placed on positions of power are lobbied by corporations to maintain the status quo and greenwash the issue to appease the masses. I honestly do not forsee any considerable change in policies within this decade, only when humanity will experience an actual threat to its existence will be make drastic changes and adapt. In the end its very simple, we have to adapt or we go extinct.
Car-centric infrastructure is a terrible mistake that was pushed on by the big 3 automakers in the mid-20th century. It has been consistently promoted by pro-extractivist politicians and those who accept the status quo. Needing a car for work, shopping, and entertainment for those living in the city or a suburban area need not be a thing. Dallas Texas back in the day before my parents were born was a city where you could get anywhere by cable car, bus, bike, or on foot until big auto and big oil lobbying messed things up. Electric cars are no silver bullet. An EV is better than a gas burner in the long term but, the environmental destruction that goes into extracting the minerals, fabricating the semiconductors, plastic trim, body panels, and other components as well as the final assembly of the vehicle is terrible. If I could get to work without a car, I would definitely go car-free or car-lite. Fast Fashion is a terrible idea, it exploits low and middle-income nations for cheaper labor and gentrifying the country as well as causing land, noise, air, and water pollution for making cheap affordable clothing that goes out of style in a new york minute and/or does not hold up over time. Every time you buy a new product whether clothes, furniture, car, decor item, phone, etc. think about the environmental impact of that purchase.
It really seems like the whole patreon is another indication of how the world is going. More and more people are feeling the pinch and even the little things (like a dollar a month) starts to get the axe as we're squeezed for housing, food, and utlities. While I can't financially support, I do make a point to share your videos in discords and social media platforms.
My friends call me an idealist when I talk about this kind of stuff. Then you just go out and say the truth, we could be living in a better world tomorrow, but the politicians and the businessmen wont let us
As long as WE, the people, do not stop buying useless stuff, as long as we do not, massively embrace a life of 'degrowth' of our own free will, the world will continue galloping towards the disaster that we all fear
That was a very skillful presentation... Comprehensive and crucial... It gives me hope that we may yet come to a collective understanding in time to initiate coherent collective action before that becomes impossible in the narrow window of time and resource that we have to make constructive change... Recently my thesis on this is COMMUNITY-BASED BY STRATEGY or RADICAL UTOPIANISM IN A TIME OF COLLAPSE... Keying in on the third solution out of five that you present towards the end. My wrinkle on that is that we can initiate the dialogue with institutions of power by taking advantage of what's left of the freedom in the market to create some community-based options for consumers and workers alike as new venture Capital initiatives that will create connectivity to resource and community instead of profit... That this can be done and that this is the way to get more people on board with the idea that we can reach collective efficiencies Best buy self-organizing into communities of resource and meaning...
the connection between overconsumption and December (holiday season) was always there in my mind but I never thought about over production and how much trash and waste is left over and takes place due to it. just terrible to even think about
Sometimes, I can't help but to think some of the proposed solutions come off as purely ideological. The reason being, people. Most of us will see the benefits of equality for all, but there are those I'm sure, especially those with more reach than is deserved, that don't want to see that happen. Also, provision of allotted green spaces for community residents without gardens to grow food, is often met with Nimbyism. People think it is a good idea, just not anywhere near them where it might spoil their private, individual view. We really need to get over ourselves. All being said, I love this channel!
A friend of a friend had an affair with a married man already with 5 kids of his own, they all went back to Scotland to avoid #6 no dought, she went on welfare, I said you'd better cool all wants/expenses, she says "You mean stagnate", this is 35 yrs ago, but I thought how is that stagnating? One can certainly grow in other areas and she needed to grow some common sense! What a great vid, should be shown at schools! I majored in Sylviculture and re-wild the place but I fought them and the city too, became a stay at home mom, no way were my kids put in daycare, not while I was their mom, my daughter's a biologist, and my son's a nurse! We are STEM! xoxo
Sounds typical of more than 50% of the population here in the UK. The idea of consuming less, recycling and generally just trying to make greener choices is an anathema. People seem to think that politicians will resolve this with ease with no obvious loss in expectation as to what constitutes normality. I think at some point there's going to be a tipping point and we'll be plunged into global turmoil and conflict on a huge scale never seen before and as always it'll be the poorest that suffer.
Thank you for your insightfull videos! They're super informative and in times like this we need people like you to help spread the word around. Thank you!
I work in the marketing industry and get to see this sick festival of consumerism from the inside. From Black Friday to Christmas, it is pure chaos. Clients spend several weeks in blind panic. All just to make a line in a report go up. What a goal. There is so much dishonesty and trickery in marketing, hidden behind the faux-chummy "hey [fname]" facade. You won't find any ethics here, only an insatiable thirst for profit. The whole thing is disgusting to its core and I despise it. I have opted out of Christmas entirely, and it doesn't feel like I'm 'making a stand'. I find it so deeply repulsive that I want no part of it. No gifts, no cards. I hope more people do the same. Don't feed the machine.
As a poor person black Friday is the best time for me to buy goods for next year, I hate the consumerism, too but I can't let it ruin my enjoyment, even as an atheist the community is nice.
@@jjoohhhnn Buying what? What are you so desperate to buy to wait the Black Friday? I never bought anything on Black Friday, in fact, I didn’t bought anything in years. You people need to take your responsibilities, you are destroying the environment and making rich people even more richer.
@ Truee, we do need to worry about our individual carbon footprint and forget that industry makes most of the pollution and most people can't choose how their energy is produced. Unless I die on the Luddite cross, I'm not pure enough.
tl:dr I'm glad you covered these topics. we are fighting an uphill battle against global hegemony and wealth...Degrowth's story risks the opposition co-opting the term/narrative. Focus on environment, equity/democracy, and proletariat prosperity framing. Asset-based > deficit-based, right? I'm in grad school for Environmental Policy and I spend all day everyday fighting with this Dutch econ professor, he's like "HDI and GDP, look!" and otherwise ignores NeoClassical conceptual gaps. He highlights the heterodox economics' conceptual gaps plenty, though I find so many to be illusory. He many times just says "policy makers don't use [Degrowth] because they never have a plan, they are only good at criticizing" and its so funny. His argument 90% of the time is basically that its too hard, or that we don't currently do it. We talk in our cohort a lot about political feasibility and durability of Degrowth. I think that the environmental framing, the justice/equity framing, and perhaps a different name or framing would help. It is politically unpopular right now. The term will be co-opted by opposition, and the story will be that the poor will become poorer and there will be less for all. Like you said, Austerity. It cannot just be the story of less, when so many people feel frustrated. They don't get it, they don't like it, they don't wanna learn more. The story matters here. I'm trying to figure it all out lol but no one wants to teach it to me. They say its a good personal ethic, but its a disastrous policy agenda. I'm not convinced! My institution isn't neoliberal, but Degrowth is still not accepted here. It is a COMPLETELY uphill battle against powerful people decision makers, policy wonks, because Degrwoth require ecosocialism. A combination of the two things most odious to the suits, man lol
Maybe they're against it because economic growth over the last 50 years raised a billion people out of abject poverty, and another billion out of poverty altogether. Global median income is around $3500 per year. You think we should reduce that number? That $3500 per year is too much and humanity would live good lives on less than that?
The core of all these problems is money addiction. Billionaires, 9-8 figure millionaires need to detox cold-turkey but no one will stop them. Our system of endless money supply channeling upwards will never end until the addiction aspect is addressed. If corporations want to keep their "people" status, we need to treat them like the common addict.
@@joebob-p3zno, I think it could go even higher if we ran things more efficiently. That’s degrowth- cutting away the useless stuff and focusing on production that improves the lives of people.
This video spoke my internal dialogue to which i constantly narrate outwards to many. I have learnt some important words/vocab to continue learning and building the essential components to the plan which is very similar to the STUDENT BUILDING. Im surprised more and more individuals or groups of people are thinking of a similar building/community-space based solution of production and circular design. Sorry Im not currently in the position to support, but hope to be in the near future Would love to meet and chat if you ever come to Tokyo :) One Love
You seem to be forgetting the root cause of the necessity for growth. This necessity is just a symptom. The problem itself is two-fold; one side is that our monetary system is a debt-based fiat currency system, and the second factor is that debt grows exponentially (and thus faster than the economy). In practice, this means that every currency unit (dollar, euro, you name it) in circulation is debt, and this debt generates interest; as such, new debt has to be created to pay for the interest, making the pile of debt even larger. There is never enough money in the system to reset the system to zero. This deficit needs to be plugged somehow, and that is where growth comes into play. You need to grow the economic output of the system in order to keep up with the debt side of it. This is why "no growth" brings the system to collapse; there is not enough output to pay the debt plus interest. This can only go on so long by the way - at some point, the interest consumes all and the whole system just implodes.
Concur with this. And the reason it can grow in the first place is the concept of debt or trust, so that’s kind of the full loop of the modern capitalist paradigm, which in my books is much better than any economic paradigm which does not include the concept of trust. It’s like it adds a whole degree of freedom to economic mobility, which would otherwise cause an economic stalemate where not much gets done (including in terms of food production) due to the stringent requirement that immediate and guaranteed compensation up front is the only way to incentivize people to work. As you said, the pie must grow in order to sustain the system, but the system is also what allows the pie to grow in the first place. And all of this depends on our ability to innovate new ways of extracting ressources or otherwise creating value. It’s a well-oiled machine, and does not depend on a ruling class with specific interests to be upheld. It also has so much inertia that moving away from it recklessly is bound to have disastrous consequences. I think the solution proposed in this video is way too idealistic and naive.
“I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” Sultan Al Jaber, President of COP28 Seems more and more likely, scenario SSP5-8.5 of the IPCC assessment may come to fruition (or at least the higher end of the spectrum). I say enjoy what you can, while you still can; pity the generations to come.
1,5°C represents only 2,3% of the actual "global warming". 93,4% of the warming goes into the ocean and the rest melts ice and warms land masses. If all that warming was in the troposphere, temperatures would be 43.47 times hotter according to a simple rule of 3 calculation. Roughly something like 65,2 °C There's a much more detailed calculation in this paper "Ocean heat uptake and the global surface temperature record" Grantham Institute, Briefing paper No 14, September 2015 Should be easy to find.
@@sixvee5147Change needs to happen now so that future generations can benefit from our actions, not learn from our mistakes. We can't be defeatists about this.
For the past several years , I have become a minimalist qnd an offgrider . My cabin is 20x24 solar powered , and wood head , the wood I get from a city tree service . I love helping the esrth heal .
Great video! A very important topic and some good points. Just a small note, I might be wrong, but it seems you accidentally said that we can replace electric cars with the gas-powered ones.
Ultimately the requirement for growth comes from banking, money being debt and the interest on loans banks take. Because someone takes a risk and provides a "service" by lending you money, taking a interest on that lent amount seems reasonable, until you realize that it leads to requirement for infinite growth. Because if you take out a loan, you must figure out a way to get more money than you loaned, thus you must put it into something that generates more wealth than you put into it and on and on it goes. So banks are ultimately the reason why we have to increase the size of economy and get more and more and more. Because all money is debt, and that debt must be paid back WITH INTEREST. And if all debt was paid back, all the money would be gone and the system would collapse... so debt will never be gone without money being gone and banks being gone... What to do?
Corporate stock buybacks Talk about inflating forces. Wait, was this the comment I meant to reply to? Sigh....I don't have anymore time to correct right now
Birthrates are already falling all over the world. I guess in a few decades that should lead to reduced demand and the degrowth we want. Only way I see any of this happening. I just hope by the time that happens the ruling cohort of people are on the same page.
The whole economic paradigm is based on growth. Banks won't loan in a degrowth scenario, because to pay the loan back for businesses requires growth. It's one of the first things they teach in Econ 102. A world in degrowth is a world in collapse.
But infinite growth isn't possible. This economic paradigm is not sustainable long term. We need a better one, one that at the very least allows stability.
Great video - glad to see this concept has been gaining so much traction over the last decade. As someone in the global south, it kinda irks me to see people associate 'economic growth' with so-called 'progress'. Like, progress for whom? People are worried about 'going back to candle light', but so many countries have regular loadshedding such that, until solar became affordable, many nights *were* spent in candle light. They don't gain the medical, agricultural, electronic, or (seemingly very important to many in the wealthier parts of the world) convenience gains that 'progress' supposedly brings. The fact that *so much footage* of the effects of the climate catastrophe, or of suffering of the world's bottom most labour forces, haven't caused most to reassess that *maybe* their lives are built on a fragile layer of enforced inequitability that eats suffering and spews destruction, and that '...but degrowth sounds scary' is where a lot of the conversation still is is...disappointing.
I'm glad to see my monthly contribution is supporting your consistent and in-depth reporting. Thank you to everyone subscribing to this channel. Signed, an activist who has marched across the county twice for peace and environmental awareness (Los Angeles to Washington, DC., 3000+ miles, 8 months each time). Suffice it to say, I've seen things.
Actions speak louder than words & so far there has been very little action to preserve our planet & biodiversity on it. Eternal growth in a closed system is a pipe dream.
I'd love to hear more about reproductive labor and the feminist current in leftist spaces! I've learned a lot about the other "currents" but I haven't found a lot about that one. It feels like a good way to counter fears of starting a family with how the world is going, which is something I struggle with
For years our family stopped buying new gifts at Christmas. Instead we do re gifting. Any gift or things we have accumulated over the years that we no longer want but are in good condition. We wrap it back up and regift it. We even created a game around where we have to play to win the gifts, we Center the day around games and laughter Not material things
Also I've been seeing gaslighting bits of false information claiming that 1.5 was never the real number, 2° was.... It feels like change is not allowed.
It would probably be a huge investment but I wonder if something like a modular factory that can make a wide variety of products to be made on order rather than made constantly and throwing away ones that don't sell. Maybe another long shot is whatever is made is from recyclable materials that can be reused/repurposed by the same factory.
Ok, let's expand on that idea. You have 360 million people plus 50 million illegals. How are you going to manufacture on demand and what's the distribution plan?
Companies that make made to order products often produce less waste and it allows customization for consumers, like sizing to their actual body measurements, and less production shortcuts like poor stitching that can lead to products lasting longer. The downside for capitalists is production speed, which affects how much a company makes in a quarter. The downside for consumers is they have to have patience to wait for the product to be completed and maybe shipped, and learn to adjust to slow fashion like our ancestors were used to. This is why MTO production is better for the planet and consumers, but it requires an adjustment in consumer mindset and expectations.
I'm glad you pointed out that degrowth is not austerity. That being said, what does it say about us as a society that if someone's struggling to meet their basic needs we tell them, "Scale back, live within your means," but when we as a society are living unsustainably, consuming wildly beyond what our global resources can justify, any call to cut back gets met with, "What, me? You're asking me to live in a cave with a candle! Lowering your standard of living is for lower people, not for me!" So much entitlement. And it's entitlement to make others suffer to protect your standard of living.
@@youtubesucks1499 Dictate how people live as in hand them a script to live their lives by, or dictate how people live as in saying it's wrong to build a society that props up some people's extravagant lifestyles by forcing others to be literal slaves -- even if the slavery happens where we can't see it? The first option is really petty and tyrannical, but I'd argue everyone believes in the second one, at least insofar as is necessary to keep themselves from being enslaved. I think I can tell people not to punch me without being accused of unjustly tyrannizing their fist.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 So, what's stopping people from upwards mobility? It's hard. It requires a life plan. I went from apprentice, to Journeyman, to contractor, to builder and now am working towards becoming a developer. Under your economic system, there is no room or INCENTIVE to grow. Our current economic system allowed me to open 3 businesses and employ 127 people. It took 20 plus years, work, discipline, focus and sheer will to get there. Under your economic ideology, I wouldn't have those opportunities.
@@youtubesucks1499 Many congratulations, man, I'm genuinely happy for you. I'll be looking for an apprenticeship first thing next year, so I hope you believe I totally get and respect that kind of work. That being said, the only reason either of us have been able to pursue these opportunities is because we had the good luck not to be born into child slavery in a cobalt mine. I don't know what you think my economic ideology is, but I'm very much for people having these opportunities to work hard and improve their lives. I just don't believe reaching that level of success should ever justify denying it to others, or that it's okay to require people to succeed in a manner that necessarily robs others of those same opportunities. I'd be perfectly content to live a quiet, simple life of honest hard work and riding a bike to buy groceries. I'd be ashamed if my work ethic ever came down to pushing people stuff I knew they didn't need, that was designed to break and end up in a landfill in a few years, and that I could only make a profit selling them because the guys who made it are living in poverty, in order to buy myself a huge tacky truck and an expensive yearly vacation, also made affordable by how poorly the factory and service workers are paid. I believe there's great wisdom in the words, "but godliness with contentment is great gain," and I hope one day to live in a world that treasures that idea.
"I'm glad you pointed out that degrowth is not austerity" True, it's only austerity if it comes from the Austére region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling degrowth.
Not possible to significantly reduce ommisions without replacing individual vehicles with a massive and near total move to public transportation. That is the only real beginning to significant reductions.
Every time you talk about the shortcomings of capitalism people think you're saying that you are against capitalism. I wish people would acknowledge that there are severe limitations to capitalism and act in accordance.
Since I was 13 I have been fighting for climate change, arguing with others and pushing back. But what I learned through the last 15 years is that it's not science we are lacking, it's not people power, or even a lack of leaders. It's capitalism. We need to dismantle and destroy the system we live in now to save our selves. I see now, that the only way to accomplish the things I have championed my whole life is through political change. More over, nonviolent movements only work when there is a threat of some real action behind it. Aka you deal with us or we hand you off to the people that won't be so nice. Unfortunately the sociopaths that run the world, the ceos, heads of states and so on, do not understand empathy they only respond to threat.
I feel renewed watching this video, but everything crumbles down when I go back to reality and see how deep we are in the hands of capitalists. Thinking about degrowth is utopia (maybe not in a couple hundred of years). I wish it weren't. Socialism is, in theory, the most dignified and humane alternative for society.
Once we realize that all we need is enough to live and every excess is a cost to society, those with excess will naturally let go of their excess. This will benefit the poor, and stop costing the environment
You’re saying what I’ve been saying. We need to build only Tower cities connected to maglev Trains, grow food vertically indoors, eliminate vehicles, weapons, military and everything. Great job. Keep it up.
🍂 What do you think is the most useless industry?
🔗Support OCC on Patreon: www.patreon.com/OurChangingClimate
processed sugar products industries ?
mostly packaged bottle water for sure as 99% of time we just don't need it at all.
Most useless industry would be hedge funds. Literal middle men. 🙄
Marketing, insurance companies, banks, military, gambling, etc.
Finance.
Degrowth needs to be worker centric. We can’t be satisfied with just cutting out products in our own lives. We need to free the sweatshop workers in places like Ethiopia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Those people, often kids, work at least 72 hours a week to make our clothes. We need to treat migrant workers better who pick fruits and veggies from sunrise to sunset in California’s summertime heat and work in our slaughterhouses 7 days a week. And we need to shut down the mines in places like Congo. There workers are underground breathing in fumes, handling dangerous equipment and getting maimed.
This is how we can change the world. The engineers can find alternatives that can beat lithium batteries like they have been with sodium ion batteries. Soon, we could even see an electric car that could stand toe to toe with a combustion car and possibly even beat it in the range it has. We can build and better autonomous vertical farms that can bring better cultivated food to our stores. We can reduce meat consumption but not just enough to fulfill the nutrients, amino acid, and mineral needs the body has. We can shift away from having sweat shops by automation with use of renewables like nuclear or solar to power those machines. What I’ve seen is that greedy, selfishness, and the want to keep everything as is are what have kept us from building a world like that. Maybe we don’t even have to get rid of all aspects of capitalism but just rework the parts that have brought exploitation and environmental destruction
Agreed. Now, let's build appropriate, low-energy technology that can be replicated at community scale to produce what we need as locally as possible. Let's build from the ashes, WE will be the ones who build back better, but for real, not just liberal platitudes. ✊
You can help by not buying any of the products. Like your computer and internet.
@@russellaustin4988 we help people by advocating for their freedom. We spread the word and let them tell their stories. Boycotts and work stoppages are a step, but they need to be coordinated. See the anti apartheid movement in South Africa for an example.
We are at best 5 years from robot workers... likely sooner. Worker centric won't be feasible 😂 most likely outcome robot pickers are 2 years away... humanity isn't going in that direction and NO ONE can stop capitalism😢 best find a niche that isn't manual labor.
My family has decided to not buy each other gifts this year. Not only does it save us money, but we are not giving into consumerism.
Should have done that this year. Maybe I will make that suggestion for next year.
You can of course do what you like. But the problem isn't you getting a gifts for your loved ones, the problem is that those things will be mass produced anyway. You or I can't make any real difference through what we buy, that's buying into the capitalistic idea of how you can be ethical under a system of exploitation.
With that said I do not like to buy that many things and people should cut back where they can. But also understand even if the masses do this it won't have real effect until governments step in. But I hope you have a nice holiday with your loved ones, as being with one an other is more important then anything else.
And if more people did the same as you there would be people laid off at Xmas and they'll have a very miserable one indeed as they get into debt then get evicted and made homeless, all because some upper crust liberal wanted to save the environment by degrowing the economy
@@iamthe1234567890 is this what you say or going to say to your kids when you tell them to save? What difference is what I’m doing than anyone who is prioritizing saving. You should sit down and think outside your little box of a mind
@aidandurkan15 thank you big brain the issue isn't the consumer, regardless of what we do how little we consume they will contuine to produce and throw products and food away. The issue lies in large corrupt corporations.
I hear you but every president is shouting "Economy!" We're not growing fast enough!!! We must lower our interest rate to spur more growth!!
Of course they are it’s in their interest
Of course they are, they subscribe to the capitalist ideology.
because them saying the opposite goes against their donors, the controllers of capital. AKA political suicide
That's usually what the people want, more money and more "stuff": homes, AC, smartphones, cars.
Then we are ruled by idiots…
I grew up poor. While visiting my mother in law I was shocked to find out that she had five different gadgets to do one thing: Squeeze out the juice of a lemon. I couldn't stop laughing and instead just used a fork. I think of this every time the subject of over consumption comes up.
Sure, that's kind of silly, but it's her money to waste. No one has any right to tell her she isn't allowed to buy something. Also, degrowth won't just mean there will be less juicing machines, it will also mean a loss of life saving technology like modern agriculture, modern medicine and transportation. If you get rid of these things, millions will die of hunger and disease. This is what degrowth actually looks like. It's effects will be just as disastrous as socialism.
A friend of mine, due to a bad divorce, was prevented from contacting his son for many years. When the son became an adult, he went to see his dad. The dad gave his kid a tour of his home - a lovely place with good light, wood floors and a lot of art the dad and his second wife had made. At the end of the tour the dad asked his son what he thought. His son's response: 'You haven't got many appliances, have you?'
@@Kitkat-986 "Sure, that's kind of silly, but it's her money to waste. No one has any right to tell her she isn't allowed to buy something." Well, if we can all buy and destroy whatever we want, and we have no responsibility to keep our consumption and wastes within the limits of Earth's sustainable carrying capacity (which we are overshooting by 70% annually), then catastrophic ecological and societal collapse is guaranteed.
@@HealingLifeKwikly Degrowth is an ideology about killing as many people as possible in order to achieve holiness. Earth's carrying capacity is a myth. Technology increases Earth's carrying capacity. Degrowth is an evil ideology and every part of it should be rejected utterly.
As someone already said here, "degrowth will happen naturally and catastrophically soon"
Sci-fi likes to imagine post scarcity worlds but a lot of people don't realise that we already live in such a world. We have everything we need it's just not distributed evenly
It's not distributed properly... so some people don't have enough resources... what would you call that? Maybe....... scarcity?
We fundamentally don't live in a post scarcity environment. Unless you have a solution for mining cobalt and lithium in space, as well as transporting it to the bottom of our gravity well, we live in a finite resource system.
@star3torres the cobalt that makes modern electronics possible. There is a finite supply of everything on earth.
We are far away from a true post-scarsity society with AGI and ASI used the right way it will be possible
The world GDP per capita if only $13,000
My wife and I are definitely part of the commoning current. Growing food sustainably through food forests for our community in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile creating videos educating people about growing food and sustainable living. Not that we'll independently solve anything, but that we might be a part of the solution, while educating those in similar situations to be part of that same solution.
Bravo to you ! one of the few that instead of lazy narcissistic wishing some one else builds utopia for them, you are doing critical steps every day that leads by peaceful example.
Hey, that's awesome! Excellent work you and your wife are doing. I wonder if you could be supported and super-charged if you looked into the One Small Town Contributionism initiative with Michael Tellinger and saw if starting that free and voluntary organization in your community would help. It would cut across many sectors, not just food, also housing, clean energy, healthcare and tourism. But it would be co-owned by all contributing members and never majority controlled by super rich individuals or corporations.
I love this but I wish places like Canada could do it, it’s just not possible in harsher climates.
@@Dgnmuse 'Course it is, it just might look different, or just be a different way of tackling the same sort of issue. All of us can start working on building small-scale communities that can start relying on themselves and begin to take action. I can expand more if you're interested.
That's fine. Trying to force everyone else to give up modern conveniences through government force is not.
Degrowth hits the wall when those who write the checks make the rules.
Sure, but who's accepting checks these days?
@@darkblonde4791it's a figure of speech
@@darkblonde4791 Pretty much everyone. We're all accepting the "checks" in the form of cheap products, exotic foods (that doesn't have to mean foreign - if you're eating a Florida orange in Colorado, it counts), fast and convenient transportation (cars and airplanes), etc. The fact that you're using an electronic device to post that reply is a near-guarantee that you've accepted the "checks" in at least some small fashion.
@@altragYou did the meme lol
Which meme? The "akshully"?@@TheNwr1
this really underscores how WALL-E is one of the most important movies ever
WALL with an E. 🤩
It's unrealistic. If Disney Pixar movies are where you're getting your information from, then it's no wonder you're here with the screeching climate nuts
Distopian fictions are so common and I don't think people need to be scared more. They need to be more hopeful in using their own power. They will give to liberal non solutions and not think about the concequences if you focus on climate distopias.
Our current system rewards growth at all costs with no consideration for sustainability. We need to reward responsible companies somehow while punishing those that scam and exploit their way to success.
Exactly, instead increasing regulatory staff by government that can acceptive to bribery, better way promote these companies that follow all laws and above, all ecology, dignity, union etc. Reality is that in capitalist cutthroat competition company that cuts ecological expenditures cuts benefits cuts on working conditions goes ahead in business and at same time takes bigger share of market by taking out of business honest companies .Easiest way is to outsource factories into low wage countries; China or Indonesia, where ecology laws are very "flexible" and progressive's towards economic growth.
Who scams and exploits their way to success?
@@phyarth8082Why would any company want to do business under your terms?
Union labor cost the consumer more.
The EPA already has regulations.
Dignity? What is dignity in the workplace?
An employee is paid to do a job. So do it.
MLMs, Elon Musk, Nestle, so many@@youtubesucks1499
@@youtubesucks1499 Terms of conscience. Do business without strict rules (self-regulate). In school we have teachers who gives grade because 26 years is age when fully develops brains and conscience comes to life. Business done by adults or every company have older mentor. EPA check about 1% all sites and investigate maybe 20% all claims about misdeeds. FAA and plane crush investigations, if company wants save money on maintenance they can be randomly checked and caught in action of crime. Main FAA purpose is to certificate air planes, not catch mismanagement. In EU is example local EPA gave certificate for water treatment facility ISO standard of ecology, that was fully functional, but company wanted save money on electricity on required stuff of 8 people to run facility, they dumped directly untreated water into sea. Even jobs with high-degree not guarantee that you get that job because someone saving money. "An employee is paid to do a job. So do it". if you get a job.
I think part of the issue is the term "degrowth," itself. It gives people an image in their mind of hardship, toil, lack of technology, and returning to a more primitive state. As Thomas Hobbes might say, a life that is "nasty, brutal and short." So for me, it's not necessarily about degrowth, so much as it is about regrowth. Our society tries to grow in all ways, in the same way that a cancer cell seeks only its growth and reproduction. Instead, we have to be smart about how we grow, where we put our energy, and how to utilize the resources we have. If a body, or a plant, sought only to expand constantly, it would soon consume all of its resources and collapse under its own weight. Instead, it grows steadily -- slowly -- putting more resources where it needs to support itself, and redirecting energy from other parts of its body. Occasionally farmers have to prune trees in the winter so that the energy is put into other parts of the tree where it is more needed. I think we have to do this with our societies, as well. Redirect resources from things like the military, capitalism, or frivolous spending to things like education, better healthcare, and more equitable living for all people. So "degrowth" in the sense that we need some serious pruning on this tree, but in a way that will strengthen the tree as a whole.
This matches quite closely to what economist think how it should work. During times of growth companies grow and use more resources but during a recession the companies that make least efficient use of resources go bankrupt and are essentially "pruned". We just tend to interfere with this system a lot because no one likes recessions.
I don't think "degrowth" how some influences describe it can possibly work. It won't just cut the waste but also funds we need for a cleaner power grid and so on. People aren't taking care of the environment when they get poorer every year. If you can't afford to heat your home you are going to start cutting down trees not planing more.
hardship, toil, lack of technology, and returning to a more primitive state. ..... or death and extinction. Most people would rather go extinct than not have netflix, jobs, money and cars. I give us 0% chance of not going extinct in the next 100 years.
Mate have you heard of this bloke called Marx? Really interesting fella. People took him seriously and it led to Lenin and Stalin and collectivisation…long story short millions died because it’s an incomplete theory. But every one touched by the theory thinks that they could do it better. Mao, Castro….millions died. There’s too often a maniacal narcissist masquerading as a benevolent dictator leading these movements. “Degrowth” is communism’s snappy new 21st century face.
@@devluz well, yes, but that's because you're talking about a man-made economy that has no basis in the real world. We can simply change the rules so that people can afford to heat their home. We can print money to pay for a cleaner power grid. These are just rules in a man-made system. If we're attempting de-growth, then the rules will have to change radically, and a complete overhaul of the debt based economic model would be the first step. It doesn't reflect energy use, it doesn't reflect material use, it's simply a terrible barometer (growth, profit and money I mean) of things that actually matter. Money simply measures itself. Those measures are just make believe though, and so we as humans can remove that religious belief of our own choosing. I don't think the dolphins and rabbits will intervene.
@@ricos1497 exactly. People act like the economy is quantum physics and cannot be changed nor interfered with.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has been thinking about this. It's been in my mind for years. It just feels when interacting with other people that you are the only one and they are oblivious to the danger.
In my opinion we are a little too late, but the more people talk about it, the better. I think we should offer degrowth with analogies and not using exactly that term, so more people can think about it and don't close or attack the concept just because of its name
You are not alone buddy. There are few of us, but you are not alone. Unfortunately, I am one of the "doomers" that think it is already too late, not because its too late to do the right thing but its too late to expect that nasty humans will change their nasty habits and thinking and start doing the right thing. It is too late because humans are too selfish and short sighted, too greedy and too ignorant to actually see what is happening and this will inevitably lead to the near term extinction of our species. I give is 40 -50 more years tops.
@@matiasramireznoguez3191 Do you think degrowth could be done community by community, though? If 'degrowth' means a community choosing to set up a collaborative worker co-operative, for the people, by the people, and survey their resources and localize as much production of goods and services as people need, then that can set a precedence for it that other towns can follow. How do you think that would work?
Basic format: Establish a town co-operative that is free and voluntary to join. It includes projects and businesses in multiple areas, especially food production and housing (as those are often the main needs and costs for people). The membership requirement is to volunteer at least 3 hours to any of the co-owned businesses and projects, from working at a community garden to cleaning the park to building some stools, to caring for the children or elderly, etc. Everyone's contribution for 3 hours is valued the same, and as such, they get the same sort of rewards. They get a free meal each day they contribute, of the food produced and provided by the co-op members, and each month they get a free basket of goods with other foods, items, gadgets, tools and equipment that the co-operative projects produced. Excess goods, like food, get sold to the non-members in the region for best prices (because the expenses are much lower than a capitalist company has) and all members get an equal profit share, too. Might start out as a simple $50 extra bucks a month, and then grow to $150, then $300, $600, $1200 and so on.
I feel ya. Hard to find people in your community on the same page. Seems like we are all spread out around the world.
But I think we need a format that can bring like-minded people together, locally for action, but connect and collaborate globally.
Still probably need at least a dozen or so local people on the same page to get started, but that can be done. Reach out to any local organizations related to sustainability, social support and community building, see what comes back.
Then educate yourself and others more. Sources like Abby Martin, Caitlin Johnstone, Peter Joseph, Michael Tellinger, Lee Camp, etc. are very reliable and on point.
I don't like degrowth because I don't want millions of people to die of starvation, disease and environmental exposure. Degrowth is nothing more than state enforced poverty.
Degrowth also means redistribution from global to local scales. However, it is often considered as “political suicide” by many governments.
Absolutely. The strange thing is, I suspect that if they sold the idea properly (or, at all), they'd get a huge number of people supporting them, from all sides of the political spectrum. I don't think people are as wedded to globalism, consumption and stuff as is portrayed, I actually think it would be a massive weight lifted for many people. It's not actually political suicide to offer these things in terms of the voting public, it's suicide in terms of party donations (in other words, the circular effects of the system itself). If we told the public the right story, told them the truth about the future we face, and ask them - as, and like, adults - to unite to face those issues then I believe the response would be positive. Obviously, it can't be done without localism and power passed down to the lowest level. It would also need to be accompanied by fairly radical policies, such as ending mortgages (these are just man made constructs) and entitling people to a home, with a place to grow food (a garden!). It would require ecological expertise to best design communities to maximise their natural resources, such as capturing watershed, pointing homes towards the sun to allow for passive heating and so on. It'll require us to celebrate efficiency, frugality, quality, family and most importantly: recognising limits. It is recognising limits that is actually the key factor here, rather than de-growth. Limits should be built into every decision we make as a community and wider society/nation (if it's a benefit to even have such things). What could that look like?
Imagine an application to build a factory to make furniture, where no such thing existed previously. The community would get together and discuss this idea. Who currently makes our furniture? What resources go into that? How much furniture do we actually need? Will building a factory result in us building too much furniture? Will we create a fashion out of furniture and have it replaced every five years? Do we need fossil fuels to power the factory, and plastics to coat the furniture, and packaging to ship to its destination? What is furniture anyway? What are the long term implications, and can we get by without?
When I look around my house, I just see things that have been sold to me, and I've been drawn in by that thing. A tiny number of my possessions I actually value or need. I'd happily vote for less. I'm waiting for the politician that tells that story. I don't believe that there are a queue of politicians currently thinking this way, but too frightened to say it due to political suicide though, its just that the story hasn't been told yet, and it maybe isn't allowed to be told within the narrow boundaries of the current system.
Redistribution back to the Lords and Ladies of our future agrarian society.
There was life before the corporate appetite for endless money growth. It’s been done before. It’s about greed: controlling people, the bottom line, and nothing else.
Well, to push the government to meet the people's needs, the people need to be the ones who organize and co-own more means of production so they can have a better say in how their government funds and supports certain programs or areas.
Progressive change comes from the bottom up, not top down.
So how about using the One Small Town Contributionism strategy as the bottom up approach? See here: "UBUNTU Contributionism A World Free of Money - by Michael Tellinger 2012" for a overview of the philosophy and check out the website for One Small Town for more.
Yea cuz the most powerful countries like the US wouldnt be as powerful if you do degrowth
Thanks for putting in great work with these videos. Hope this helps.
I’ve asked for a flower bed, flower seeds, and ext. I’m not really asking for things I don’t really need. Of course I need my fun but I asked for things that I would use almost every day. That to me is what presents are, something you appreciate for a long time.
I've done the same. I've asked for things for my ebike that I use everyday, like a basket for the front and a bag to carry the battery when I need it. I've become much more aware of our and my consumerism behaviours and am taking action whenever I can.
Yes, gifting should be a conscious activity of asking people what they actually need, not just buy gifts out of obligation to a holiday, ECT.
Also, when all people don't push each other for "more" money, then everyone won't need more. We just do what is "needed" to fill the basics. The cycle is no longer stressful and only one parent needs to work to pay the bills.
It they want to. With not as much stress both parents should also have time to be actual parents
When you are still paying off student loan debt into your 40s, a one income household isn't possible no matter the austerity
Do not use the green movement to push for gender roles.
@@sannhwho mentioned gender?
@@sannhik what you’re trying to get at, but that’s not the point here. It could also come out to 50/50 paid work, so for example both parents work 20-25h, and get paid what they need this way
I became a patreon supporter! Thank you for creating these videos and introducing these topics to the world at a critical time. Even before I learned of "solarpunk" and "degrowth" I had already been doing everything I can to consume as little as possible because I care deeply about my impact on the world. Your videos helped me feel validated since I didn't realize there were movements and communities that are sharing a similar path.
Realistically, I doubt enough people will be willing to change their way of life -- from the wealthy CEOs to the blue-collar workers just trying to get by -- in order to spare the future generations of immense hardship. However, the more people that are informed and adopt a more equitable, ecologically-minded lifestyle, the more our species will be prepared to adapt to the worst of the climate crises ahead of us.
Oh boy, supporting anti-capitalism thought-police in Paetreon, with capitalism.... Reminds me of protestors trying to save sea turtles with paper straws saying nothing about their disposable iPhones in their hands.
@@HomeEngineer-wm5fg
I understand it may seem contradictory or hypocritical to donate money to this channel when reducing such an act to the concept of "capitalism". I also acknowledge you don't think the information shared by the creator is valuable.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Best wishes.
@@sweatyeti Sensible reply. Look, I'll level with you. Anti-capitalism, as it really stands is more honestly and appropriately anti-chronysim. Being anti-capitalist is counter intuitive. Capitalism is the best system until we reach AI golden era where a living wage is paid for with robotic slaves. You need slavery to support traditional "anti-capitalist" asperations and there is a few moral problems with that.
What that sounds like to me is the Shire. And I’m not being silly-the hobbit lifestyle of the lord of the rings is the traditional village lifestyle of the English countryside, built not to grow forever but to endure. I think having small local economies of scale that allow people to get what they need from local businesses and live within their means is the real goal of society. We just need enough people to advocate for it against the cancerous growth model of society that seeks to expand at all costs or die.
Yeah its the Shire alright. Total fantasy.
@@Praylak Not really-local farms provide shares of their crop for businesses and families, local business and residential zoning encourages close communities and living within our means. It’s not the most sexy form of community, not like a hip urban tech center, but villages in the UK have been chugging along for 700 years with the same model. It’s not a growth model, that’s for sure, and that’s why I think a lot of people would like it.
@lyricalcleric8593 so you're suggesting poverty? The life expectancy in these UK villages for most of those 700 years was like half of what it is today. This video missed the fact that economic growth of the last 50 years has raised a billion people globally out of absolute poverty and another billion out of poverty alltogether and into the middle class. Global median income is $3500 per year, are you seriously suggesting that everybody should make do with $3500 per year and they can live a good life on that amount of money?
@@joebob-p3z Not at all! But if you only believe that there are two extremes-abject poverty or hyper-capitalist consumer suburbia-then you’re engaging in black-or-white thinking and you need to stop doing that. What’s the motto of Strong Towns, the movement here on yt and elsewhere to strengthen our community building? Incremental change over time.
We can’t bulldoze Wall Street any more than we can throw billions of dollars at Ethiopia and create a business empire out of thin air. But we can stop supporting drastic overreach in policy making that puts towns into future debt for present growth. We can support community organizing that works on the local level to solve local problems, rather than waiting for national politics to solve local problems (which will never happen). We can do the next largest thing to help our communities, even if it’s just being on a volunteer group or serving on a committee or attending a council meeting and speaking on behalf of mixed-use residential zoning.
If you’re going to claim that we shouldn’t all be living in poverty, you might want to take a drive through Appalachia. There’s areas everywhere where people are impoverished, and we may have resources but it costs more and more to access those resources. This rich country costs a lot to live in, and most people are spending half their paycheck just to keep up on rent, if they’re lucky. Get sick or have addiction issues, and you’re out of a home, out of a job, maybe living in your car if that isn’t repoed, and it’s a long way down from there. People freeze to death in the winter here, despite how much money we all supposedly have. Doesn’t help them one bit.
We all help out as best we can, but we need more community support. We need council housing for unhoused people, we need food programs from local farms to end food deserts, and we need community-based medical alternatives to drug convictions and drug addiction, absolutely destroying our most at-risk communities. If we want to have these small towns endure, we need to pool our resources for the common good, not just fight amongst ourselves for the scraps from an uncaring system way far away at the state capitol.
@@joebob-p3z3500 could be possible in a world where most of our money weren't going to rent and we had local cooperative food production and common land ownership. If we don't switch to this type of model I think we'll be forced to in the future anyways, (due to economic collapse) so we might as well make the switch intentionally.
Thanks
I got the confirmation of my salary increase this month so I’m very happy to finally be able to contribute to this channel by becoming a patreon.
I started watching your videos as a student and now as an adult into this money driven world full of crisis everywhere I hope people could see there are alternative ways of living. Keep doing what you do!
You are benefiting from capitalism yet you advocate for state enforced poverty? Why?
@@Kitkat-986 "You are benefiting from capitalism yet you advocate for state enforced poverty? Why?" Uhhh, because there are things that matter much more in life than pleasure or wealth, like saving as many people and species as possible (and we need de-growth to do that).
Interesting I love learning keep making videos I'll keep supporting ❤much love stay safe and stay healthy my friend
Very good video, but i have one critique , and that is that our so-called "carbon-budget" ran out a long time ago. We are already bound to face 1,5C ° next year.
Yes most definitely 1.5 next summer and then on to 1.8 to almost 2.0 by 2030
Yes most definitely 1.5 next summer and then on to 1.8 to almost 2.0 by 2030
@77cicero77 so, the nuance is slightly more complex than that. It's based on long term averages of about 10 years. As we accelerate, we are already hitting 1.5, and even LA Nina wvents don't seem to diminish issues nearly as much as they should. So the long and short is, we're going to be in 1.5 before we have data to back this up, because... again, long term averages. But if our short term live data manifests as projected, and we also continue to decarbonize, there's actually layers of impact we don't comprehend, like aerosol data.
@@SPLICEKNIGHT we are not going to decarbonize that’s wishful thinking
I'm sure that's true, I've seen enough climate scientist data to know that we are in the stage of trying to mitigate as much disaster as possible, not prevent it from happening at all. I mean, we are already in a environmental state of ongoing crisis, and capitalism isn't helping.
What can we practically do to help? We can't change the entire world, we can only do what we can in our communities, mostly. I mean that's where we can effect the most change, especially if we get more on board.
It is important to collaborate across communities and around the world, but then act locally. I believe there are many ways to do that now. One such way is based on the principle of Ubuntu Contributionism by Michael Tellinger called the One Small Town initiative. Feel free to check it out. What do you think? Would it work in your town?
Danke!
Thank you for putting so much time, energy and creativity into a very well produced and presented video demonstrating the urgency of degrowth.
I was particularly impressed at your awareness of the lack of intersectional consideration that many degrowth proponents bake into their plans, leaving women, Neurodivergent, Disabled, and People of the Global Majority out of the picture.
I decided to become a patron today, and as I was deciding whether or not to be in economic solidarity, I thought about the value of the positive sense of hope that I felt at the end of your video.
If I felt it, then others likely did too. Hope, positivity, and clarity are in short supply these days. If I were to put a value on that feeling, I believe that the cost of $37 or so for a year more than makes up for the positive sense of hope and aspiration that I felt times 12.
I want to do my part to share that feeling with others and that means making sure you’re able to survive.
May the ancestors bless you.
Very nice, very appreciated. There is not much that really gives people hope since our monetary-market capitalist system is so unjust and unsustainable and those of us who know that are looking for solutions and don't see that many.
Channels like this one, plus Second Thought, Moneyless Society, World Beyond Capitalism, TZMOfficialChannel and the great community co-op initiative called One Small Town, based on the philosophy of Ubuntu Contributionism with Michael Tellinger, are other very good ones.
Peace and unity, to you and all.
This comment has to be satirical
@@robithesir I honestly doubt it, but it is hard to be sure :D
Thanks!
I’m in the last chapter of Jason Hickel’s Less is More, and I haven’t heard a better approach to fixing things than his version of degrowth. As difficult as it would be, it seems like it would be the only justifiable way forward.
You can start the change now, and stop using any electronic devide to save electricity.
The right way isnt always the easiest I guess
I've wanted to read that book for a while now. What do you think so far? Can you give any highlights or good points you've picked up?
@@coolioso808 I'm terrible with my book-marking habits, I underline things that impact me as I am reading them, so the quotes are fairly random and very frequent. But a few that stood out as I flipped through just now were "Growthism is little more than ideology - an ideology that benefits a few at the expense of our collective future" and "researchers found that Nicoyans' [a regional cultural group in Costa Rica] extra longevity is due to something more. Not diet, not genes, but something completely unexpected: community." So far it has been a very insightful book that I will probably read a few more times. It does a very good job of succinctly describing and critiquing capitalism, its origins, and its terrifying trajectory, but a lot of books are good at that. What Hickel's book does best is give you ways to avoid that terrifying future, all relatively easy (easier than civil war, that is). His five-step plan "emergency brake is 1. End planned obsolescence. 2. Cut advertising. 3. Shift from individual ownership to collective usership. 4. End food waste. and 5. Scale down ecologically destructive industries. The first two could be legislated for fairly easily. number 3 is a combination of social change and infrastructure change. 4 depends on the localization of food production and legislating more relaxed quality standards (not in terms of safety but in looks). and 5 is a huge shift.
That's my favourite book. I wish it was more well known. What it doesn't really address is that we really need some form of socialist revolution in order to implement the theories of degrowth in an effective way that can challenge the powerful players under the current capitalist systems. I like that this video makes note of that.
谢谢！
I have always loved your channel. I watch every video have the bell on. I think I might make a patreon to help. One thing I never understood though is how you don't have more subscribers. You always put out top quality videos and have sources included. It's awesome.
While I agree, it would be great if this channel had more subscribers because the content is excellent, I must say I'm impressed with how many subscribers he has, at least, because other channels with similar topics don't have nearly as many. I'm not saying that in jealousy, I don't own those other channels, I just like them and would like to see more collaboration and sharing of ideas when people are on the similar train of thought.
Because I'm looking at OCC with over 490 K subscribers, while Moneyless Society and World Beyond Capitalism combined have less than 10 K.
Maybe there will be a huge collaborative project some day when Our Changing Climate, Second Thought, Moneyless Society, World Beyond Capitalism, Democracy at Work (with Richard Wolff), TZMOfficialChannel and Michael Tellinger (with One Small Town Contributionism) will all get together for a talk or show.
I've already seen collabs with OCC and ST, MoSo and WBC and Richard Wolff. Be great to see Michael Tellinger added in there and Peter Joseph who has Zeitgeist film 4 coming out in March.
I am working on getting my masters in Environmental Management and Policy. I do feel donut economics is a bit less harsh and bit more fluffer than degrowth lol I love the video the way it is structed and how you teach degrowth. Thank you so much! I plan to draw from your video for a literacy review paper I'm writing about overpopulation. After watching your video I feel that our population is big part of that equation and our numbers need to slow down. I was curious on your thoughts should we manage stay alive long enough for net positive energy in fusion to become mainstream and commercial. Do you believe if we do reach a degrowth future would fusion take us from 30 to 100? Possible eliminating ourselves in the process?
It's worse than presented in this video - we've already burnt too much fossil fuel. There isn't a "budget" left. Natural feedbacks have been triggered by the increase in temperature that mean even if we stopped emitting GHGs now, those feedbacks would continue their accelerating release of GHGs. Permafrost thaw and forests dying are two major examples.
I believe the heat is fixing to really start getting intense with the next few years, wetbulb conditions will be seen all over the globe
things are indeed looking like barbarism will be the future, but one cannot give up or else that fate is truly sealed.
sure, but that's no excuse to give up and and allow the problem to get even worse
@@denisl2760 it’s to late we are already dialed in for at the absolute minimum of 3c by the end of the century live your best life things are going to go south very fast
It's ironic if the stories about the Annunaki are true, it would mean we've done the same thing as the aliens who created us, since they supposedly came here to mine gold they used to help fix or offset the poison damage they did to their atmosphere.
It almost makes the legends seem even more plausible since we've walked in their footsteps in an eerily similar way.
謝謝！
If we're not even able to make the most basic sacrifices, now, I can't help but feel that the future will be pretty grim.
Killing millions through state enforced poverty is not an ethical solution to save the tree frogs.
Wow this is huge. But as promising as it sounds, I somewhat doubt this will happen in the near future. I mean it's such a huge change to how we'll live I don't think a lot of people will accept it.
The way we live now is a huge change to how we’ve always lived… literally it has only been a few decades at most two centuries that we’ve been living this way. And the effects of climate change will ensure that it is only an exception… sadly
@@Designotherwise Indeed. It's a way of living brutally induced by decades of maketing and Corporate Interest that have done everything in order to determine our psychic desires. Nowadays this has exploded with the Web, with all the psychological ways to induce overconsumption at the individual level, and increase capital accumulation.
They won't the good thing is collapse will eventually force our hand and hopefully allow us to do things differently.
I think people are becoming so exhausted earlier in life, overwhelmed by the excess and material abundance contrasted with constant economic precarity, that they will welcome it.
Its a real reach, but it may be possible only after the collapse.
Degrowth, to me, means reducing my demands and living a very simple (low-footprint) life.
I mean that's great to do on an individual level but the point is that the whole system needs to change, the incentive structures need to change otherwise the vast majority of individuals in that system won't change either by choice or not.
The thing is, we don't have to have less. We need more efficiency and less non added value production. Obsolescence regulations, for instance. BS products that add no real value to society. The massive waste in our productive systems. They would all drive towards degrowth without having to live the simple life...
...having said that, some of the happiest times in my life were when I was much poorer and living with very low consumption. There is something to it.
@@CampingforCool41 yes, I think we just have to embrace the fact that some kind of authority will have to guide and impose this eventual societal change. No spontaneous democratic ballad could ever do it.
@@user-vc5zt9ci12Who are you to tell someone else how to live?
@youtubesucks1499 I'm not. I'm very much on the side of live and let live, honestly. But we all do live our lives within the constraints of the system we currently have.... so, in effect, you're already being forced to live a high consumption life. We are all reliant on it. Why not make the system more efficient and then live however you like (within the bounds of the law and social decency ofc).
I hope this help
Thank you for including Jason Hickel in this video. His book on degrowth 'Less Is More (how degrowth will save the world)' is my favourite book.
What this book doesn't really address is that we really need some form of socialist revolution in order to implement the theories of degrowth in an effective way that can challenge the powerful players under the current capitalist systems. I like that you have noted this here!
Thanks again for all of your great videos.
I physically cringed when you said “the building has no elevators.” I have been a Socialist for about a decade and, to be painfully frank, socialists forget about disabled people nearly as much as Republicans. The disabled are so often an afterthought if they are even a part of the discussion. :/ Needless to say, it’s been terribly disappointing. And, yeah, that ghost hand with the middle finger in the illustration just begins to demonstrate my frustration.
As a Republican, how do we forget about the disabled?
@@youtubesucks1499 Republicans and pretty much all political parties leave the disabled out of all planning. Of course, Republicans take it one step further by doing everything in their power to make it difficult for disabled people to get any assistance based on the Conservative notion that almost every person applying for disability is lying. Then, even when the disabled person finally gets assistance it’s such a pittance that they are lucky if they don’t end up homeless. Oh, and then there are the anti-homeless bills that Conservatives get their jollies off of. Many disabled people, thanks to the politicians, end up homeless. So, I suppose that at least Socialists only forget disabled folks exist. Maybe Republicans do remember them. Maybe, it’s just that Republicans really enjoy making disabled people suffer.
As a person with a hidden disability, I hear you. All the systems created were done so by healthy, able-bodied people without thought for any other type of person.
@@BS-detector So what employer won't accommodate you?
I know several people with disabilities that get jobs and work.
By excluding them, mocking them (you didn't see the tRump video?), cutting social security, cutting medicare, cutting anything that is a service to the public and trying to profit off of it instead, raising taxes on the poor while cutting taxes on the rich, allowing charities to serve as tax havens instead of outlawing cash hoarding, weakening the EPA so more of us become disabled from pollution, prioritizing corporate profits over life and health ...on and on you "forget" about our needs when it comes to your greeds. Take personal responsibility for your support of politics that do more harm than good. Greed is horrendous and the evidence is everywhere. @@youtubesucks1499
You know that growth can´t be the solution when you learn that natural desasters are normally the best way to improve the gdp the more destructive the better.
If degrowth means producing less stuff that people don´t need and producing more stuff that tends to last longer I am all for it.
I don't see how natural disasters boost the economy. Nobody wins economically, because the people who die, get injured and lose property are less able to work, have lost their property (usually the largest store of wealth that people have) and the public infrastructure of their area is damaged which makes it unappealing for new businesses and residents to come in. Insurance companies don't win because they are suddenly paying out huge amounts in one go (if they don't refuse to pay over some clause or other), and might go bust. The government gets less tax from the affected area and have to find money to spend on reconstruction and immediate relief for the victims.
@@danyoutube7491 I didn´t say economy but good for growth and the gdp. That are seperate things. Of course it is not good for people when their belongings are swept away but when all their things are gone there is a way higher demand to produce and sell things obviously.
" Nobody wins economically, because the people who die, get injured and lose property are less able to work, have lost their property (usually the largest store of wealth that people have) and the public infrastructure of their area is damaged which makes it unappealing for new businesses and residents to come in."
On the contrary. If people´s livelihoods are destroyed they have a way higher motivation to spend the money they otherwise would have just kept in their bank account or locked away in other assets. Of course that is not good on a personal level but the gdp and growth thrives on that.
That´s why the 50`s were the time with the biggest economic growth in the 20th century after WW2. Also explains why the US for example wages a war every five seconds somewhere. A peaceful world without any major interruptions would be pretty bad for the economy. Except you have something like Covid that does only hurt people and their ability to produce and leaves property intact.
You missed the part where the death count of natural disasters falls exponentially in rich countries. Also the part where economic growth raised a billion people out of absolute poverty in the last 50 years, and raised another billion out of poverty altogether and into the middle class
@@joebob-p3z First of all:
"You missed the part where the death count of natural disasters falls exponentially in rich countries."
I haven´t said that a lot of people had to die just that a lot of destruction has to occur in order for the gdp and growth to go up. You know like when they throw all your Christmas gifts away on Jan 1st when you return them to the store.
Second of all:
"Also the part where economic growth raised a billion people out of absolute poverty in the last 50 years"
Where exactly did I question that? Of course with economic growth it would be absolutely absurd if not some amount of wealth would trickle down. And yes economic growth has benefitted people a lot mainly in China and India. In the short run. But you can´t praise the benefits of growth and a rising gdp and not take into account the amount of destruction that is caused to said people by the effects of that growth namely the climate crisis now and more importantly in the coming future. Forgot about Bangladesh for example last year?
And not to mention that the statistic is not completely accurate since it does not account for inflation. It also does not attribute to the effect that in Western countries and in many second world countries said growth had the opposite effect and plunged more people closer to poverty or right into it. The US being the best example for that matter. Those people are not even counted in the statistic as by international standards being poor in the US ist still not poor on a global scale.
Same here. My current job literally feeds the consumerism industry so I'd gladly lose my job if it means that overconsumption dies.
We all need to do more individually and collectively. Very well explained concepts here.
Collectivism is Slavery
"The world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed" - Mahatma Gandhi
People don't need antibiotics, those who want to live healthy lives are just being greedy.
I have been watching your videos for a while now and you have gained my respect and admiration. I have noticed a lot of the systems we have in place have focused on globalisation and capitalism wherein local communities have been dismantled to focus on mass production and resource overconsumption. We have destroyed forests to have monoculture and use as grazing for cattle (beef production/dairy industry), collapsed fish populations due to high demand, limited biodiversity due to widescale species extinctions, etc. Economic growth has become so intertwined into consumerism and the GDP that we will soon exhaust all the natural resources we have. We would all have to learn the lessons we have gained from the pandemic, international cooperation is essential in curbing fossil fuel emissions.
But I have to be pragmatic, despite all these great initiatives that have been presented in this video, one must be aware that governments and corporations control our current societal systems. The individuals that we have placed on positions of power are lobbied by corporations to maintain the status quo and greenwash the issue to appease the masses. I honestly do not forsee any considerable change in policies within this decade, only when humanity will experience an actual threat to its existence will be make drastic changes and adapt. In the end its very simple, we have to adapt or we go extinct.
Watching this while I draw my friend a Christmas present :)
Car-centric infrastructure is a terrible mistake that was pushed on by the big 3 automakers in the mid-20th century. It has been consistently promoted by pro-extractivist politicians and those who accept the status quo. Needing a car for work, shopping, and entertainment for those living in the city or a suburban area need not be a thing. Dallas Texas back in the day before my parents were born was a city where you could get anywhere by cable car, bus, bike, or on foot until big auto and big oil lobbying messed things up. Electric cars are no silver bullet. An EV is better than a gas burner in the long term but, the environmental destruction that goes into extracting the minerals, fabricating the semiconductors, plastic trim, body panels, and other components as well as the final assembly of the vehicle is terrible. If I could get to work without a car, I would definitely go car-free or car-lite. Fast Fashion is a terrible idea, it exploits low and middle-income nations for cheaper labor and gentrifying the country as well as causing land, noise, air, and water pollution for making cheap affordable clothing that goes out of style in a new york minute and/or does not hold up over time. Every time you buy a new product whether clothes, furniture, car, decor item, phone, etc. think about the environmental impact of that purchase.
It really seems like the whole patreon is another indication of how the world is going. More and more people are feeling the pinch and even the little things (like a dollar a month) starts to get the axe as we're squeezed for housing, food, and utlities. While I can't financially support, I do make a point to share your videos in discords and social media platforms.
I was wondering how soon after COP28 we'd get a new OCC video
Cop28?
@@Igknightonyeah, COP28 in Dubai.
@@GregorMcIntosh idk what that is
@@Igknighton it was the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference
Climate record smashed at COP28, over 2500 fossil fuel lobbyists were there.
My friends call me an idealist when I talk about this kind of stuff. Then you just go out and say the truth, we could be living in a better world tomorrow, but the politicians and the businessmen wont let us
As long as WE, the people, do not stop buying useless stuff, as long as we do not, massively embrace a life of 'degrowth' of our own free will, the world will continue galloping towards the disaster that we all fear
Thanks for doing what you do! I'm now a Patreon supporter!
That was a very skillful presentation... Comprehensive and crucial... It gives me hope that we may yet come to a collective understanding in time to initiate coherent collective action before that becomes impossible in the narrow window of time and resource that we have to make constructive change... Recently my thesis on this is COMMUNITY-BASED BY STRATEGY or RADICAL UTOPIANISM IN A TIME OF COLLAPSE... Keying in on the third solution out of five that you present towards the end. My wrinkle on that is that we can initiate the dialogue with institutions of power by taking advantage of what's left of the freedom in the market to create some community-based options for consumers and workers alike as new venture Capital initiatives that will create connectivity to resource and community instead of profit... That this can be done and that this is the way to get more people on board with the idea that we can reach collective efficiencies Best buy self-organizing into communities of resource and meaning...
the connection between overconsumption and December (holiday season) was always there in my mind but I never thought about over production and how much trash and waste is left over and takes place due to it. just terrible to even think about
I don't like waste either, but state enforced poverty will make everything worse.
Sometimes, I can't help but to think some of the proposed solutions come off as purely ideological. The reason being, people. Most of us will see the benefits of equality for all, but there are those I'm sure, especially those with more reach than is deserved, that don't want to see that happen.
Also, provision of allotted green spaces for community residents without gardens to grow food, is often met with Nimbyism. People think it is a good idea, just not anywhere near them where it might spoil their private, individual view.
We really need to get over ourselves.
All being said, I love this channel!
I don’t understand what you mean. Solutions are purely ideological? Isn’t that the point? What, in your opinion, is a solution that isn’t ideological?
A friend of a friend had an affair with a married man already with 5 kids of his own, they all went back to Scotland to avoid #6 no dought, she went on welfare, I said you'd better cool all wants/expenses, she says "You mean stagnate", this is 35 yrs ago, but I thought how is that stagnating? One can certainly grow in other areas and she needed to grow some common sense! What a great vid, should be shown at schools! I majored in Sylviculture and re-wild the place but I fought them and the city too, became a stay at home mom, no way were my kids put in daycare, not while I was their mom, my daughter's a biologist, and my son's a nurse! We are STEM! xoxo
Sounds typical of more than 50% of the population here in the UK. The idea of consuming less, recycling and generally just trying to make greener choices is an anathema. People seem to think that politicians will resolve this with ease with no obvious loss in expectation as to what constitutes normality. I think at some point there's going to be a tipping point and we'll be plunged into global turmoil and conflict on a huge scale never seen before and as always it'll be the poorest that suffer.
its nice to see people talking about ending the "infinite growth fallacy".
Thank you for your insightfull videos! They're super informative and in times like this we need people like you to help spread the word around. Thank you!
I work in the marketing industry and get to see this sick festival of consumerism from the inside. From Black Friday to Christmas, it is pure chaos. Clients spend several weeks in blind panic. All just to make a line in a report go up. What a goal.
There is so much dishonesty and trickery in marketing, hidden behind the faux-chummy "hey [fname]" facade. You won't find any ethics here, only an insatiable thirst for profit. The whole thing is disgusting to its core and I despise it.
I have opted out of Christmas entirely, and it doesn't feel like I'm 'making a stand'. I find it so deeply repulsive that I want no part of it. No gifts, no cards. I hope more people do the same. Don't feed the machine.
As a poor person black Friday is the best time for me to buy goods for next year, I hate the consumerism, too but I can't let it ruin my enjoyment, even as an atheist the community is nice.
@@jjoohhhnn
Buying what? What are you so desperate to buy to wait the Black Friday? I never bought anything on Black Friday, in fact, I didn’t bought anything in years. You people need to take your responsibilities, you are destroying the environment and making rich people even more richer.
@ Truee, we do need to worry about our individual carbon footprint and forget that industry makes most of the pollution and most people can't choose how their energy is produced. Unless I die on the Luddite cross, I'm not pure enough.
tl:dr I'm glad you covered these topics. we are fighting an uphill battle against global hegemony and wealth...Degrowth's story risks the opposition co-opting the term/narrative. Focus on environment, equity/democracy, and proletariat prosperity framing. Asset-based > deficit-based, right?
I'm in grad school for Environmental Policy and I spend all day everyday fighting with this Dutch econ professor, he's like "HDI and GDP, look!" and otherwise ignores NeoClassical conceptual gaps. He highlights the heterodox economics' conceptual gaps plenty, though I find so many to be illusory. He many times just says "policy makers don't use [Degrowth] because they never have a plan, they are only good at criticizing" and its so funny. His argument 90% of the time is basically that its too hard, or that we don't currently do it. We talk in our cohort a lot about political feasibility and durability of Degrowth. I think that the environmental framing, the justice/equity framing, and perhaps a different name or framing would help. It is politically unpopular right now. The term will be co-opted by opposition, and the story will be that the poor will become poorer and there will be less for all. Like you said, Austerity. It cannot just be the story of less, when so many people feel frustrated. They don't get it, they don't like it, they don't wanna learn more. The story matters here. I'm trying to figure it all out lol but no one wants to teach it to me. They say its a good personal ethic, but its a disastrous policy agenda. I'm not convinced!
My institution isn't neoliberal, but Degrowth is still not accepted here. It is a COMPLETELY uphill battle against powerful people decision makers, policy wonks, because Degrwoth require ecosocialism. A combination of the two things most odious to the suits, man lol
Maybe they're against it because economic growth over the last 50 years raised a billion people out of abject poverty, and another billion out of poverty altogether. Global median income is around $3500 per year. You think we should reduce that number? That $3500 per year is too much and humanity would live good lives on less than that?
The core of all these problems is money addiction. Billionaires, 9-8 figure millionaires need to detox cold-turkey but no one will stop them. Our system of endless money supply channeling upwards will never end until the addiction aspect is addressed. If corporations want to keep their "people" status, we need to treat them like the common addict.
@@joebob-p3zno, I think it could go even higher if we ran things more efficiently. That’s degrowth- cutting away the useless stuff and focusing on production that improves the lives of people.
Thank you for your hard work making theses videos!😊
You really are doing a fantastic job with this channel. Keep up the good work comrade
Hey, thanks for another great video. I jumped on the Patreon 😊
Note the $1 option wasn't available, which might stop others 🤔
This video spoke my internal dialogue to which i constantly narrate outwards to many. I have learnt some important words/vocab to continue learning and building the essential components to the plan which is very similar to the STUDENT BUILDING. Im surprised more and more individuals or groups of people are thinking of a similar building/community-space based solution of production and circular design.
Sorry Im not currently in the position to support, but hope to be in the near future
Would love to meet and chat if you ever come to Tokyo :)
One Love
You seem to be forgetting the root cause of the necessity for growth. This necessity is just a symptom.
The problem itself is two-fold; one side is that our monetary system is a debt-based fiat currency system, and the second factor is that debt grows exponentially (and thus faster than the economy). In practice, this means that every currency unit (dollar, euro, you name it) in circulation is debt, and this debt generates interest; as such, new debt has to be created to pay for the interest, making the pile of debt even larger. There is never enough money in the system to reset the system to zero. This deficit needs to be plugged somehow, and that is where growth comes into play. You need to grow the economic output of the system in order to keep up with the debt side of it. This is why "no growth" brings the system to collapse; there is not enough output to pay the debt plus interest. This can only go on so long by the way - at some point, the interest consumes all and the whole system just implodes.
Concur with this. And the reason it can grow in the first place is the concept of debt or trust, so that’s kind of the full loop of the modern capitalist paradigm, which in my books is much better than any economic paradigm which does not include the concept of trust. It’s like it adds a whole degree of freedom to economic mobility, which would otherwise cause an economic stalemate where not much gets done (including in terms of food production) due to the stringent requirement that immediate and guaranteed compensation up front is the only way to incentivize people to work.
As you said, the pie must grow in order to sustain the system, but the system is also what allows the pie to grow in the first place. And all of this depends on our ability to innovate new ways of extracting ressources or otherwise creating value.
It’s a well-oiled machine, and does not depend on a ruling class with specific interests to be upheld. It also has so much inertia that moving away from it recklessly is bound to have disastrous consequences. I think the solution proposed in this video is way too idealistic and naive.
I suffered a debilitating loss. The amount of brain cells that were killed from the puddle deep logic in this video is... depressing.
You didn't grasp why we need to shrink an economy that is too big to fit Earth's limits?
I strongly recommend “Less is More” by Jason Hickel. Great introduction and in depth detail about degrowth.
“I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” Sultan Al Jaber, President of COP28
Seems more and more likely, scenario SSP5-8.5 of the IPCC assessment may come to fruition (or at least the higher end of the spectrum). I say enjoy what you can, while you still can; pity the generations to come.
For those of us with children, that’s not possible.
1,5°C represents only 2,3% of the actual "global warming".
93,4% of the warming goes into the ocean and the rest melts ice and warms land masses.
If all that warming was in the troposphere, temperatures would be 43.47 times hotter according to a simple rule of 3 calculation. Roughly something like 65,2 °C
There's a much more detailed calculation in this paper "Ocean heat uptake and the global
surface temperature record" Grantham Institute, Briefing paper No 14, September 2015
Should be easy to find.
How did we allow a CEO of a fossil fuel company to be the president of COP28? Like this has to be a bad joke
@thomaslarsen5743 It is a sad reality. I hope the coming generations learn from the mistakes of their ancestors.
@@sixvee5147Change needs to happen now so that future generations can benefit from our actions, not learn from our mistakes. We can't be defeatists about this.
The question is; why should we care?
The answer? But we DO care.
For the past several years , I have become a minimalist qnd an offgrider . My cabin is 20x24 solar powered , and wood head , the wood I get from a city tree service .
I love helping the esrth heal .
Thanks! Would love to know how someone with writing, 2D and 3D motion graphics skills could get involved!
Great video! A very important topic and some good points. Just a small note, I might be wrong, but it seems you accidentally said that we can replace electric cars with the gas-powered ones.
yep, i noticed that also....a little oopsy there
I admire your ambition to push for positive change in the world.
Ultimately the requirement for growth comes from banking, money being debt and the interest on loans banks take. Because someone takes a risk and provides a "service" by lending you money, taking a interest on that lent amount seems reasonable, until you realize that it leads to requirement for infinite growth. Because if you take out a loan, you must figure out a way to get more money than you loaned, thus you must put it into something that generates more wealth than you put into it and on and on it goes.
So banks are ultimately the reason why we have to increase the size of economy and get more and more and more.
Because all money is debt, and that debt must be paid back WITH INTEREST.
And if all debt was paid back, all the money would be gone and the system would collapse... so debt will never be gone without money being gone and banks being gone...
What to do?
Corporate stock buybacks
Talk about inflating forces.
Wait, was this the comment I meant to reply to? Sigh....I don't have anymore time to correct right now
That video was pure quality, thank you so much for all the work and ideas you are providing
Birthrates are already falling all over the world. I guess in a few decades that should lead to reduced demand and the degrowth we want. Only way I see any of this happening. I just hope by the time that happens the ruling cohort of people are on the same page.
The whole economic paradigm is based on growth. Banks won't loan in a degrowth scenario, because to pay the loan back for businesses requires growth. It's one of the first things they teach in Econ 102. A world in degrowth is a world in collapse.
But infinite growth isn't possible. This economic paradigm is not sustainable long term. We need a better one, one that at the very least allows stability.
Absolutely! Brilliant video!
Great video - glad to see this concept has been gaining so much traction over the last decade.
As someone in the global south, it kinda irks me to see people associate 'economic growth' with so-called 'progress'. Like, progress for whom?
People are worried about 'going back to candle light', but so many countries have regular loadshedding such that, until solar became affordable, many nights *were* spent in candle light. They don't gain the medical, agricultural, electronic, or (seemingly very important to many in the wealthier parts of the world) convenience gains that 'progress' supposedly brings. The fact that *so much footage* of the effects of the climate catastrophe, or of suffering of the world's bottom most labour forces, haven't caused most to reassess that *maybe* their lives are built on a fragile layer of enforced inequitability that eats suffering and spews destruction, and that '...but degrowth sounds scary' is where a lot of the conversation still is is...disappointing.
Finally! People are talking about this! I was afraid I was just an angry man shouting in the clouds
Just another angry communist like Bernie Sanders.
Degrowth is state enforced poverty. If you want a preview of it, look at Africa. That's the end result of degrowth. Hunger, disease and violence.
I'm glad to see my monthly contribution is supporting your consistent and in-depth reporting. Thank you to everyone subscribing to this channel. Signed, an activist who has marched across the county twice for peace and environmental awareness (Los Angeles to Washington, DC., 3000+ miles, 8 months each time). Suffice it to say, I've seen things.
I have no issue giving up quality of life so many of the poorest can raise theirs
Great rundown ❤
Very cool! I like the idea of Degrown ecospheres.
Truly awesome video. Well thought out. It is true wisdom. Well thought. Thank you. Keep it coming
Let's organize.
Actions speak louder than words & so far there has been very little action to preserve our planet & biodiversity on it. Eternal growth in a closed system is a pipe dream.
Love the content. I think it'd be great to see you work with other creators too like Second Thought.
Second thought is a facist please find better political content creators.
@@Ark4life68 glad you had someone else in mind. Super helpful
@@Ark4life68you literally have your definitions reversed 🤣 Second Thought has done a video about how fascism is not socialism.
I'd love to hear more about reproductive labor and the feminist current in leftist spaces! I've learned a lot about the other "currents" but I haven't found a lot about that one. It feels like a good way to counter fears of starting a family with how the world is going, which is something I struggle with
For years our family stopped buying new gifts at Christmas.
Instead we do re gifting. Any gift or things we have accumulated over the years that we no longer want but are in good condition.
We wrap it back up and regift it.
We even created a game around where we have to play to win the gifts, we Center the day around games and laughter
Not material things
Also I've been seeing gaslighting bits of false information claiming that 1.5 was never the real number, 2° was.... It feels like change is not allowed.
once more - what a clever, well made video. thank you!
It would probably be a huge investment but I wonder if something like a modular factory that can make a wide variety of products to be made on order rather than made constantly and throwing away ones that don't sell. Maybe another long shot is whatever is made is from recyclable materials that can be reused/repurposed by the same factory.
Ok, let's expand on that idea.
You have 360 million people plus 50 million illegals.
How are you going to manufacture on demand and what's the distribution plan?
Companies that make made to order products often produce less waste and it allows customization for consumers, like sizing to their actual body measurements, and less production shortcuts like poor stitching that can lead to products lasting longer. The downside for capitalists is production speed, which affects how much a company makes in a quarter. The downside for consumers is they have to have patience to wait for the product to be completed and maybe shipped, and learn to adjust to slow fashion like our ancestors were used to. This is why MTO production is better for the planet and consumers, but it requires an adjustment in consumer mindset and expectations.
I'm glad you pointed out that degrowth is not austerity. That being said, what does it say about us as a society that if someone's struggling to meet their basic needs we tell them, "Scale back, live within your means," but when we as a society are living unsustainably, consuming wildly beyond what our global resources can justify, any call to cut back gets met with, "What, me? You're asking me to live in a cave with a candle! Lowering your standard of living is for lower people, not for me!"
So much entitlement. And it's entitlement to make others suffer to protect your standard of living.
Why are you wanting to dictate how people live?
@@youtubesucks1499
Dictate how people live as in hand them a script to live their lives by, or dictate how people live as in saying it's wrong to build a society that props up some people's extravagant lifestyles by forcing others to be literal slaves -- even if the slavery happens where we can't see it? The first option is really petty and tyrannical, but I'd argue everyone believes in the second one, at least insofar as is necessary to keep themselves from being enslaved. I think I can tell people not to punch me without being accused of unjustly tyrannizing their fist.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 So, what's stopping people from upwards mobility?
It's hard. It requires a life plan.
I went from apprentice, to Journeyman, to contractor, to builder and now am working towards becoming a developer.
Under your economic system, there is no room or INCENTIVE to grow.
Our current economic system allowed me to open 3 businesses and employ 127 people. It took 20 plus years, work, discipline, focus and sheer will to get there.
Under your economic ideology, I wouldn't have those opportunities.
@@youtubesucks1499
Many congratulations, man, I'm genuinely happy for you. I'll be looking for an apprenticeship first thing next year, so I hope you believe I totally get and respect that kind of work.
That being said, the only reason either of us have been able to pursue these opportunities is because we had the good luck not to be born into child slavery in a cobalt mine. I don't know what you think my economic ideology is, but I'm very much for people having these opportunities to work hard and improve their lives. I just don't believe reaching that level of success should ever justify denying it to others, or that it's okay to require people to succeed in a manner that necessarily robs others of those same opportunities. I'd be perfectly content to live a quiet, simple life of honest hard work and riding a bike to buy groceries. I'd be ashamed if my work ethic ever came down to pushing people stuff I knew they didn't need, that was designed to break and end up in a landfill in a few years, and that I could only make a profit selling them because the guys who made it are living in poverty, in order to buy myself a huge tacky truck and an expensive yearly vacation, also made affordable by how poorly the factory and service workers are paid. I believe there's great wisdom in the words, "but godliness with contentment is great gain," and I hope one day to live in a world that treasures that idea.
"I'm glad you pointed out that degrowth is not austerity"
True, it's only austerity if it comes from the Austére region of France, otherwise it's just sparkling degrowth.
Not possible to significantly reduce ommisions without replacing individual vehicles with a massive and near total move to public transportation. That is the only real beginning to significant reductions.
Yessir!!! That's what we like to hear💯
Individual austerity needs to be practiced too though.
Not to forget, with a plant based food system.
and whats wrong with animal based food system or even better mixed- plants and animals
@@gerardrycharski8246 If you search our world in data / environmental impact of food production you can read all about it.
@@gerardrycharski8246 You can read about it on our world in data / environmental impact of our food production.
@@gerardrycharski8246 Animal agriculture is the leading cause of biodiversity loss and many more issues.
Thank you for the thoughtful work
so Solarpunk, i love it!
Every time you talk about the shortcomings of capitalism people think you're saying that you are against capitalism. I wish people would acknowledge that there are severe limitations to capitalism and act in accordance.
Since I was 13 I have been fighting for climate change, arguing with others and pushing back. But what I learned through the last 15 years is that it's not science we are lacking, it's not people power, or even a lack of leaders. It's capitalism. We need to dismantle and destroy the system we live in now to save our selves.
I see now, that the only way to accomplish the things I have championed my whole life is through political change. More over, nonviolent movements only work when there is a threat of some real action behind it. Aka you deal with us or we hand you off to the people that won't be so nice.
Unfortunately the sociopaths that run the world, the ceos, heads of states and so on, do not understand empathy they only respond to threat.
Socialist models that exist are also based on industrial civilization. Yes we need new forms of governance, brand new eco centric ones.
OCC's next video is on Eco-socialism, right up your alley! @@timeenoughforart
I feel renewed watching this video, but everything crumbles down when I go back to reality and see how deep we are in the hands of capitalists. Thinking about degrowth is utopia (maybe not in a couple hundred of years). I wish it weren't. Socialism is, in theory, the most dignified and humane alternative for society.
Once we realize that all we need is enough to live and every excess is a cost to society, those with excess will naturally let go of their excess.
This will benefit the poor, and stop costing the environment
You’re saying what I’ve been saying. We need to build only Tower cities connected to maglev Trains, grow food vertically indoors, eliminate vehicles, weapons, military and everything. Great job. Keep it up.