Read the book " The Dawn of Everything " a New Story of Everything by two Davids. Lets not forget that Slavery was normal not so long ago. Where the Wage term came from anyway. From Industrial Age Slaves, free Slaves but still Slaves. A Slave is basicaly someone that cant say No to a system or one who cant have Autonomy from a System.
Climate change is not class war. Socialist party for the disabled and green party for the environment and working poor party for the poll workers like a Starbucks barista are 3 separate things. Conservatives/Republicans have similar problems that they also cannot share our party. Two parties is not enough to represent everybody.
Global warming, may not be such a bad thing, but build a dike for Bangladesh just to be fair. Expecting global warming to end is unrealistic. Telling Americans take a pay cut in there for the living, or telling Indians and Chinese not to become like Americans is unrealistic. Morn important than stop in global warming is preparing for global warming. Do not be like New Orleans and ignoring the impending hurricane Katrina for 30 years.
Americans do not like declining wages. Most Americans have declining inflation adjusted wages if you count inflation accurately at something like 1.5% times CPI. Your Starbucks barista is glamorous because Starbucks hires for female beauty and Glauber, but it must be hard for her to pay for her nice clothes on a Starbucks barista salary. Your Starbucks barista need to pay raise. Environmentalist just want their Starbucks drinks I don’t care much that there a Starbucks barista need to pay raise. Being an environmentalist is a privilege, and it means your moneys been taken care of by somebody else.
It took me a while to realise the whole point of Degrowth was to initiate a discussion about the semantics of growth. What does growth really mean, what should be growing, what shouldn't be etc. The term garners a lot of attention by being controversial, being a negation of an uncritically received wisdom. Otherwise, the debate would be lost in the noise, like many similar critiques of neoliberalism. Admittedly, it would help if they were more explicit about this.
Well the big issue is that many degrowth proponents, including academics, don't actually see it that way. There is a real danger that moralizing about consumption is taking up an outsized portion of left political energy (whatever is left of it), a move that fundamentally can serve no other purpose than further estranging working class people. It is too generous to say that the whole point of degrowth is to simply "start a discussion" when most of the academic articles are written in a prescriptive language. Yes, they do often attach "That doesn't mean degrowing in the global South" but it mostly seems like an afterthought, ignoring the fact that this makes the whole idea moot since the global south is the majority of people. In my view degrowth is putting the cart in front of the horse. The point should be to create a more equal world, where eveyone has access to the same material goods, free time, security, education while preserving the conditions to sustain life (environment, climate, biodiversity, etc..). IF that means Western nations have to adopt a lower standard of consumption in certain areas then so be it but that is an unfortunate side effect of a clear and just purpose, not the actual end goal.
@@Jef_Laenen But leftists are not the only ones weighing into this debate. The problem is that we have a nexus of debate between three main groups. One is dynamic systems theory or complexity theorists and human ecologists, such as Joseph Tainter, The School of Rome, William R. Catton, whose' scientific analysis or theory measures things on a basis of trajectories and history of societies regardless of class. The other is left intellectual degrowthers, who advocate for degrowth but do not necessarily ignore class: Both Jason Hickel and Kohei Saito rely on the "Lauderdale Paradox" of James Maitland, stating that an increase of private wealth is accumulated at the expense of public wealth to generate artificial scarcity. Huber ignores this piece of their argument, for the most part, and is (understandably) more concerned about what impressions any degrowth narrative does ultimately make, and Huber and Leigh Phillips instead prefer emphasizing a narrative that will mobilize the working class, on account of which any degrowth as a rally must be quashed. On top of this, the neoliberal multi-state apparatus wields policy degrowth in their own, faulty bureaucratic ways, often penalizing the middle or lower class, such as ULEZ zones that restrict vehicles in London, and carbon taxes in France that lead to the Yelllow vest protests, while activists get involved and turn everyone off with their anti-oil protests. All of this gets thrown into the blender, and we have a war on the left where any complex degrowth narrative gets labeled as Malthusian, and any bright green growther gets labeled as a techno-optimist. It's really kind of a mess. At least narratively.
@@Jef_Laenen This sound like you're in agreement with most of what is being proposed by the degrowth crowd, but you have issues with the coms. Which is debatable, but fair. I have more issues with the left splitting hairs over things, instead of uniting around the vast majority of things we have in common.
@@FrankReif I actually don't so that's probably my bad for not communicating well. My main point is that talking about growth, pro or against is just besides the point. You can argue that maybe degrowth is actually not concerned with growth but that's beyond steelmanning the argument when you look at what advocates actually propose. All I'm saying is that growth is irrelevant when compared to equality. I'm not against it as a possible consequence but I don't find it useful as a guiding principle. Totally agree with needing more cohesion on the left, in that regard I think degrowth ideas are also more of a dividing force than a uniting one.
@@EvanWells1 I completely agree about the complete mess and lack of cohesion here. I think in many ways these differences are partly because of apples and oranges comparisons. Matt Huber and Leigh Phillips are largely unconcerned with morality because in their mind that has no strategic value (which I tend to agree with). And that completely goes against those remaining leftist currents that still have some political power (identity, inclusion) that seem almost exclusively concerned with morality as a driving principle. Pontificating about a "good" way to live (less greedy) instead of figuring out how to actually stop this truck from driving off a cliff. The academic post modern left will keep coming up with new answers for the problems in our world ("it's racism/ it's empire/ it's sexism/it's greed/it's totalitarianism") to avoid revisiting class. Jason Hickel is actually more nuanced sometimes but he will call it "economic democracy", I think that alone shows the moment we are in. We already have words for economic democracy but those have become complete poison. People like Saito answer to an imaginative need for a non-dystopian vision of the future while Huber and Phillips answer to a need for actual strategy and power.
I did not at all expect to see my professor in my recommendations feed
Nobody has worked out for sure whether or not climate change improvement of the north is more than offset by the negatives of change being change.
Read the book " The Dawn of Everything " a New Story of Everything by two Davids. Lets not forget that Slavery was normal not so long ago. Where the Wage term came from anyway. From Industrial Age Slaves, free Slaves but still Slaves. A Slave is basicaly someone that cant say No to a system or one who cant have Autonomy from a System.
Climate change is not class war.
Socialist party for the disabled and green party for the environment and working poor party for the poll workers like a Starbucks barista are 3 separate things.
Conservatives/Republicans have similar problems that they also cannot share our party.
Two parties is not enough to represent everybody.
Global warming, may not be such a bad thing, but build a dike for Bangladesh just to be fair.
Expecting global warming to end is unrealistic. Telling Americans take a pay cut in there for the living, or telling Indians and Chinese not to become like Americans is unrealistic.
Morn important than stop in global warming is preparing for global warming. Do not be like New Orleans and ignoring the impending hurricane Katrina for 30 years.
Americans do not like declining wages. Most Americans have declining inflation adjusted wages if you count inflation accurately at something like 1.5% times CPI.
Your Starbucks barista is glamorous because Starbucks hires for female beauty and Glauber, but it must be hard for her to pay for her nice clothes on a Starbucks barista salary.
Your Starbucks barista need to pay raise.
Environmentalist just want their Starbucks drinks I don’t care much that there a Starbucks barista need to pay raise. Being an environmentalist is a privilege, and it means your moneys been taken care of by somebody else.
How much money do you have? Working class do not put climate above economy.
It took me a while to realise the whole point of Degrowth was to initiate a discussion about the semantics of growth. What does growth really mean, what should be growing, what shouldn't be etc. The term garners a lot of attention by being controversial, being a negation of an uncritically received wisdom. Otherwise, the debate would be lost in the noise, like many similar critiques of neoliberalism. Admittedly, it would help if they were more explicit about this.
Well the big issue is that many degrowth proponents, including academics, don't actually see it that way. There is a real danger that moralizing about consumption is taking up an outsized portion of left political energy (whatever is left of it), a move that fundamentally can serve no other purpose than further estranging working class people. It is too generous to say that the whole point of degrowth is to simply "start a discussion" when most of the academic articles are written in a prescriptive language. Yes, they do often attach "That doesn't mean degrowing in the global South" but it mostly seems like an afterthought, ignoring the fact that this makes the whole idea moot since the global south is the majority of people.
In my view degrowth is putting the cart in front of the horse. The point should be to create a more equal world, where eveyone has access to the same material goods, free time, security, education while preserving the conditions to sustain life (environment, climate, biodiversity, etc..). IF that means Western nations have to adopt a lower standard of consumption in certain areas then so be it but that is an unfortunate side effect of a clear and just purpose, not the actual end goal.
@@Jef_Laenen But leftists are not the only ones weighing into this debate. The problem is that we have a nexus of debate between three main groups. One is dynamic systems theory or complexity theorists and human ecologists, such as Joseph Tainter, The School of Rome, William R. Catton, whose' scientific analysis or theory measures things on a basis of trajectories and history of societies regardless of class. The other is left intellectual degrowthers, who advocate for degrowth but do not necessarily ignore class: Both Jason Hickel and Kohei Saito rely on the "Lauderdale Paradox" of James Maitland, stating that an increase of private wealth is accumulated at the expense of public wealth to generate artificial scarcity. Huber ignores this piece of their argument, for the most part, and is (understandably) more concerned about what impressions any degrowth narrative does ultimately make, and Huber and Leigh Phillips instead prefer emphasizing a narrative that will mobilize the working class, on account of which any degrowth as a rally must be quashed. On top of this, the neoliberal multi-state apparatus wields policy degrowth in their own, faulty bureaucratic ways, often penalizing the middle or lower class, such as ULEZ zones that restrict vehicles in London, and carbon taxes in France that lead to the Yelllow vest protests, while activists get involved and turn everyone off with their anti-oil protests. All of this gets thrown into the blender, and we have a war on the left where any complex degrowth narrative gets labeled as Malthusian, and any bright green growther gets labeled as a techno-optimist. It's really kind of a mess. At least narratively.
@@Jef_Laenen This sound like you're in agreement with most of what is being proposed by the degrowth crowd, but you have issues with the coms. Which is debatable, but fair. I have more issues with the left splitting hairs over things, instead of uniting around the vast majority of things we have in common.
@@FrankReif I actually don't so that's probably my bad for not communicating well. My main point is that talking about growth, pro or against is just besides the point. You can argue that maybe degrowth is actually not concerned with growth but that's beyond steelmanning the argument when you look at what advocates actually propose. All I'm saying is that growth is irrelevant when compared to equality. I'm not against it as a possible consequence but I don't find it useful as a guiding principle. Totally agree with needing more cohesion on the left, in that regard I think degrowth ideas are also more of a dividing force than a uniting one.
@@EvanWells1 I completely agree about the complete mess and lack of cohesion here. I think in many ways these differences are partly because of apples and oranges comparisons. Matt Huber and Leigh Phillips are largely unconcerned with morality because in their mind that has no strategic value (which I tend to agree with). And that completely goes against those remaining leftist currents that still have some political power (identity, inclusion) that seem almost exclusively concerned with morality as a driving principle. Pontificating about a "good" way to live (less greedy) instead of figuring out how to actually stop this truck from driving off a cliff. The academic post modern left will keep coming up with new answers for the problems in our world ("it's racism/ it's empire/ it's sexism/it's greed/it's totalitarianism") to avoid revisiting class. Jason Hickel is actually more nuanced sometimes but he will call it "economic democracy", I think that alone shows the moment we are in. We already have words for economic democracy but those have become complete poison.
People like Saito answer to an imaginative need for a non-dystopian vision of the future while Huber and Phillips answer to a need for actual strategy and power.