Degrowth is TYRANNICALLY IMPOSED POVERTY! This will criminally impose a HITLERIAN EUTHANASIA THROUGH Illiteracy, malnutrition, diseases, lack of decent shelters, lack of mobility, lack of human growth and progress to improve the realization of the unlimited human potential to grow and explore and expand industrialization and agriculture and education and scientific R&D, etc and eventually to REACH THE STARS BY STARTING FIRST WITH THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND EVENTUALLY TO THE STARS AND THEIR SOLAR SYSTEMS!
We Russians will reach for the stars and colonize them while your kind will ROT ON EARTH! After we have reduced the world into nuclear ashes after the Ukrainian war.
Back in my home town there used to be workshops open to the public where all you needed was the raw material while all the tools were provided and mantained by donationas of the people. Could not find anything like this where i live now and i feel like a lot of Diy is impossible since the upfront costs of the tools are insane for a one time use every odd year. So the usership vs ownership point rings very close to home.
I'm working to set something like that up where I live! Public workshop and tools library. Unfortunately it looks like I'll have to fund at least the startup cost out of my own pocket, which means I have some saving up to do first.
As a southern italian who lives in a small village and it's forced to take the car almost every day, it's freaking true everything you said about transport. I have to wake up stupidly early because there is a train every 4 hours and the station is 20 km away from my village so i must take the car. The line is so freaking inefficent because, in order to cut costs, the train stops in every little village everytime and does the long, 2 hours trip instead of the efficient 40 minutes it should take passed it in the quickest railroad. In the north it's a little bit better but the south of Italy has a car culture comparable to the US
Have you heard of One Small Town initiative? Very interesting community development network for communities to build prosperity and abundance through cooperation, collaboration and co-ownership. Free and voluntary, of course!
human, people, love, collaboration and empathy>>>> money, captalism, technology, individualism. i love the ecosystem, we came from it and we have to looove and protect it!!! ♥️
Great video. Not enough material out there about degrowth. Even the keyboard on my phone autocorrects it to "regrowth". Hopefully this movement picks up more traction soon, because i think it's the best solution we have to dealing with climate change.
Idk how much this would make you happy if you hear it, but you guys are literally the first people ive ever subbed to by only watching one video!!! (the Kurzgegsagt video obviouslly) even with really good channels, i usually sub to them after watching at least 3 of their videos, but with everything in that first video i saw, i really do think you guys deserve this small award from me lol
The issue with degrowth is exactly what was critizised here with "growthism", it seems some take it as an eternal formula, a heavenly programme. This is very much propagated by it's branding, if you were to call for the end of wasteful Yachts and reorganizing production to fit social needs, then you will naturally find much less resistance. But when you talk about "scaling down the global north", especially in a period of working class people increasingly struggling to pay for groceries, heat, etc, then really you have noone to blame but yourself. That opposition to degrowth is a genuine and rightful expression of class interest. The vague associations with what is essentially just another obscurantist ideology to replace the current one does not help either, such as phrases like "Living world" or in some groups much starker expressions of such esotericism. This can make it a gateway for far-right authoritarianism either throw a gates type neoliberal overpopulation narrative or via said esotericism, that new age to fascist pipeline is very known.
It's not as complicated as you paint it, the key is to build sustainable societies that cover the very basic needs in basis of the immediate environment that sorrounds them, which means a multitude of solutions that need to base themselves on geography and climatology, the most ignored sciences by corporate leaders... By that very nature, it is not an eternal formula and notions of global north & south will have to die alongside globalization as we know it, which is reaching a twilight on it's own merely going by the demographic collapse on a global scale and the rise of black swan phenomenon such as COVID-19 or the 2021 western north america heat wave... Heck, you mention far-right authoritarianism as if it's some shady possibility, but Donald Trump has already paved the way with the current global north as it's foothold, just look at Macron's current policies in France or De Santis in Florida.. We are heading towards collapse on the current path, that is not even a question, the question should be how to turn global south countries self-sufficient and to balance the population of the global north, countries will have to die in favour of local societies, corporations for a library economy and social classes for a common standard of living... Of course, that won't be easy, but climate fascists sounds way worse.
Seems like a projection of what the progressive altruists espousing degrowth through a variety of means like energy crises, antinatalism, and so on. Ironically, fascism is communism from the end of trade unions forming a federal state apparatus, as opposed to revolution to install a federal state apparatus. Both micromanage everyone's lives, the economy, and what model of reality we operate under. Degrowth seems to be the counter to a consumerist and expansionist materialism which the rich people rule with a eugenicist and communist materialism that the rich people rule. I guess the choice is whether you work in squalor to buy bread at exorbitant prices, or you have to wait in line for your bread stipend; of course, if you didn't wart too much methane into the atmosphere. By Odin, how will the swamp Germans and their swamps cope if add that much more methane into the air as a mountain German? The quick fix here is realising that universalism doesn't work, no one has beaten the pricing problem. Maybe presuming that no one person or group of people will necessarily be able to respond to all problems in all localities is a bridge too far when it comes to intellectual honesty, or that no one has a good idea about what are the preconditions to how things are or are going to be, per intellectual honesty. The quick case in points are the various attempts of authoritarianism via a federal state apparatus through fascism in the case of finance or military spending, through socialism with climatology, or both with medicine. Multilateralisation through mixed representation of a unitary body doesn't seem to work, just ask the Ottomans, Romans, Soviets, British, the Balkans... You will always get blended by some Leninist will-to-power subgroup that decide they can solve the price problem, and are made of finer lay than everyone else. Also, this is still federalism, and universalism. I don't know, having the economy controlled by a federal reserve and a central bank seems ballsy with what is said above. When it'd be better to have easier fail over like in the older times with higher capitalisation rates to hedge against black swans or bank runs, and more regional banks that are more aware of local conditions so as to avoid sub prime lending risk. Or simply ban double booking, deposits are deposits, not applicable for investing; that's what the credit accounts are for. Maybe not so much a trade or finance alliance like the EU, that was definitely not verbatim the trade alliance that the Third Reich wrote about. How about something where the sovereign regions, the demesne, operated primarily on a mostly autonomous basis, and respected each others' self-determination and self-sufficiency, like the HRE, Dutch Republic, Roman Republic. Who knows, I don't know why they were called the Immortal Republics, who could tell me why? In either case it would solve the question of how to titrate the economy (price problem), populations (price problem), because everyone is mutually self-sufficient, stable. I don't care what happens in the global north as long as I'm not dragged into the alliance nightmare that caused WW1 and WW2 because my country imports power electronics from Taiwan, and otherwise, can actually afford dinner every day. Who knows, maybe the environment will be better off if we don't ship US beef to the EU, and send Brazilian beef to the US. And feed both off of wheat from Ukraine or Russian. Maybe, there'd be less brinkmanship between the world and China over Taiwan if China wasn't the factory and main polluter of the world, enacting "late-stage corporate socialism" and the Roman Empire's totally valid solution of expansionism to make up for societal collapse, and Taiwan wasn't literally the only place where high electronics were made, and an ideologically existential threat to China.
I feel you drastically misunderstood what was being said. The groups this would help the *most* are the poorer ones, because the focus is "increasing quality of life" over "increasing an arbitrary metric of the flow of currency". Degrowth is not "stop making and spending money" nor is it about simply going without; it's about, more or less as you put it, "Reorganizing production to fit social needs". Your comment largely reads like someone who heard someone guess at what economic degrowth is about and took it to heart, tbh. Nothing you reference was even a claim in the video that doesn't demonstrate a misunderstanding of what was said.
There's an equally valid point to be made that the New Age stuff is a gateway to the Ultra woke stuff, which is essentially just Marxist Consciousness applied to the non physical Capital that underpins society. Marxism being mostly a particular amalgam of Gnostic/Hermetic beliefs. Which seem to cyclically bounce back between viewing the material or the world of ideas as the most important locus. But really : To hell with all mystics and those that think their brand of *Special* Knowing gives them more rights. The basic reality of humanity is : we need energy to do things. Very much preferably energy that is easy to dispatch at demand, or life gets harder. Renewables do *not* provide this unfortunately.
The issue today with the middle class struggle in the Global North is not because of scarcity of resources, it's because of deliberate upward wealth redistribution.
New Hyperfocus aquired: Environmental Philosophy If I wasn't living in a dorm right now, I'd be out planting my garden and learning how to sew. But for now, maybe I'll go to the FFF meeting tomorrow. They are quite small in Japan, but I really want to talk to some people that may also like this way of thinking. Tank you for this great content!
But a gardening as a metaphor of saving the climate is a very narrow way of thinking. The future is actually living in a big blocks. They are way more environmental friendly than a house with a garden attached to it.
Organize with your local student associations. Every big modern social revolution had the participation of student groups. Even stuff like the Cuban revolution. So aim big. It's possible.
The „Strong Towns“ movement here in the US is what got me onboard with the idea of degrowth, before I even knew the term. The Strong Towns organization often talks about „the growth ponzi scheme“ in reference to the way we build suburbs in the US, are unable to sustain the infrastructure, and then incentivize more growth with tax breaks in order to get a shot of money to pay for the repair of old infrastructure. This is a financial perspective, where city dollars are used as a stand-in for the collective resources of the community, and it exposes the issues with doing the same thing but „green“.
Can you define what you think socialism is? Because if you think it is government officials sitting around making decisions based on their whims, political interests and flawed ideas of thinking economic growth is the answer to everything, then that's not socialism, at all. How about decentralized community's built on a mutual aid network, a umbrella non-profit cooperative, where people create, produce and service the needs of the people who live there, guided by scientific understanding of what is most sustainable and efficient? That can be done. Zeitgeist: Moving Forward has depicted it, or Culture in Decline with Peter Joseph. It is staring to happen in real life: One Small Town Contributionism communities popping up around the world.
@@coolioso808 Because you can't have an efficient system if it isn't centralized. Not with population densities as high as they are in the modern age. It never works.
Makes sense in principle, particularly the idea of economic optimization rather than economic growth. Though I hold reservations on many of the other radical ideas tied up in degrowth, degrowth itself feels reasonably actionable compared to most.
We are addicted to "stuff". We buy more and more, hoping it will make us happy, but it doesn't. So we buy more. And the cycle of addiction continues. And the world is dying. We need less not more. Great video.
American conservatives: This is the greatest country in the world! People all over the world: Obviously we shouldn't do things like they do in America. I mean, just look at it.
Literally this. When I explain the problems with US medical insurance to Polish people, they go like "OK, but why won't they just go on a waiting list for a public hospital then?"
As much as I don't like the wasteful, mindless consumerism aspect of the west economy, I'm also very suspicious of implementing any planned economy as I grew up in a socialist system under a communist party that ended in a bloody revolution. People were not happy being told what to eat ( coupons that allow you only a certain amount of a certain basic food), how much TV you could watch ( 2 hours each evening), how much space to inhabit ( apartments that you didn't own assigned by the state according to the size of the family), etc. I, myself, am pretty minimalistic in my lifestyle, but it's my personal choice and I get to choose what my needs are. Educating the people towards understanding and voluntarily adopting a minimalist way of life is ok, imposing it sounds like dictatorship and it's going to backfire.
Degrowth is basically communism without the ideology. It doesn't pretend to be about creating some kind of utopia, it just skips straight to state enforced poverty. First world socialists have never faced a real hardship in their lives, that's why they can hold luxury beliefs.
I most people shut down when they hear "degrowth" because they know how much economic growth has improved the world and they don't want to lose out on that improvement. Rebranding to something that focuses on human life satisfaction/happiness/need fulfillment, etc. might be more successful.
great video ! it's awesome to see you guys working together with andrewism and growing the channel, and I just want to say it was very clear and very useful to easily explain degrowth to less politically literate comrades
i watched the Kurzgesagt video, and now i am continuously experiencing deja vu ahaha, i understand why though, thanks for making the important points more bite sized!
This was a very informative video that explains the concept well, and will probably lead me to revise my views on the topic, thanks. I had become quite sceptical of degrowth over the past few years because many of their advocates I've come across make it sound like earth-flavored austerity to be honest. A lot of them are people who don't own much telling other people who don't own much how we should stop commodifying common items, which is gonna sound very tone deaf when many people even in the global north have very obvious and urgent material needs. A lot of them try to pull the emotional strings and have an over-reliance on the concept of community and human relationships, except neoliberalism atomised society so much it became an ancient and abstract concept for many of us, many of us have very unfulfilling family lives, discrimination means many of us can't fit into clear social patterns past or present, and isn't cutting on car and air travel pulling the chord on the few potential real life friendships remaining anyway? So... what's the point? If you don't make it clear it comes with a strong left-wing, intersectional approach(like this channel did very well in this video and previous ones to be honest) it's not gonna be a very liberatory message, except for the already converted and a few Patagonia wearing bros. Fascism is already there and start to understand how to exploit those anxieties so we don't have time to mess around.
Hey I'm new to all this and I was wondering what you meant by the tone deafness of the advocates of degrowth. I figure a lot of them are people who don't own much because embracing the degrowth mindset will lead them to buy less; to me it'd seem incongruent if someone who has a lot of stuff was preaching this. I also don't see why degrowth clashes with the obvious and urgent material needs of the people, because to me it seems that spending less money on useless stuff will leave more room for those material needs. Agree with the rest though, it'll take real change before people start forming proper communities again, at least where I'm from
I've heard some people beginning to throw around the term ecosocialism which, I feel, better describes the idea behind degrowth. It emphasizes the redistribution & new systems of production that will be required for sustainability with nature. It provides me hope that the socialist movement is having a revival & moving beyond the Soviet Union model & its flaws.
This. A lot of people talk about degrowth the way a lot of people talk about minimalism. "Do you *really* need that [vaguely frivolous item]? How dare you spend your own money on something you want!" Is not a valid argument, and while that is absolutely not the original intention of either movement, that's what a lot of people treat it as.
"going from ownership to usership" sounds like more power to the owners then. renting everything, housing, utilities, everything will be subscription based.
What a cool ideology but its still in its teenage years, it needs to mature, a lot. It mixes in a lot of: * Over simplification of the cause of problems * Oversimplification of opposing ideas and portrayal of capitalists as cartoon villains * Naturalism (Something natural is good by definition) * Over optimism about human nature * Baked in altruism and guilt (Does not make for a popular and effective policy) * Large reliance on central authority to solve simple problems (for example the individualist thought that the solution to pricy tools is DIY spaces instead of borrowing from family or neighbors) I hope a lot of progress is done in this direction to refine such ideas to actionable policy that is more realistic than pure feel good ideology, I'll start checking on it from time to time.
@@t3essays Actually it was after two videos but yes. You see movements grow through these phases and there are telltale signs that they are still in the incubation phase. One of the signs is a seriously talking about ideas rooted in anarchism and radical self reliance. The Open source software movement took 20+ years to realize that the world is not going to be changed by git commits and that internet access is a huge humanity spanning effort and no amount of refurbished electronics and growing tomatoes in your back yard is going to do anything about the structure of society. Degrowing is talking about the right ideas but it is still childish, uncompromising and offers solutions disconnected for current processes and institutions. It is easy to ignore the complexity of the real world when such pure ideas exist in the world of ideals. A bus to a remote village can be better for humanity instead of one to a shopping hub. but what if over time it gets used less? do you move it to another village? do you have a committee of bus allocation? and where do you get the resources to operate these busses? what if people living in pastoral remote villages is not degrowing but putting people in huge housing towers saves more energy? do you build huge sky scrapers for housing instead of operating busses? its all very complex and does not fit into nice little boxes.
Great video. This basically a comment for the algorithm, I have nothing to add but like the video therefore wanna like and comment to boost the video engagement
8:06 When I hear "building up the English channel", my first thought was that there was some grass roots effort to create a land bridge between France and England.
"Not everything is there to make money." This needs to be explained, repeatedly, to the geniuses who think that the government is best run like a business. The job of a government isn't to make money, its job is to serve its citizens.
Got to know this channel because of the Kurzgegsagt video and really liked the video, mainly because it was one of the first times I saw someone from the northen hemisphere (I live in Brazil) being critical about imperialism and colonialism, however, in that same video, I got a bug behind my ear when you guys were talking about the degrowth movement, and I have to say I still feel the same way about it even after this video. First off, I think your diagnosis on the issue in your Kurzgesagt video is perfect. I think you identify perfectly the issues, and have a impressive theoric knowledge about it, but the proposed solution is idealistic. Degrowth is, in my marxist-leninist world-view, an idealistic resolution to crisis of the capital, one that doesn't change the system and expects that the issue just kind of solves itself because we think the world differently; The most revolutionary part of Marx's theory is that he didn't idealize an society, he saw the mechanisms that made capitalism possible. Degrowth, as explained, idealizes an sustainable and healthy capitalism, but that isn't possible. Capitalism depends on the endless exploitation of natural and human resources in order to keep itself going, it needs new markets to expand upon; that's why neo-liberalism came around during the 1970's and is still hard glued to our life view, transforming food, water, health, schools, security and what not into markets; That was noted by Lenin in his book Imperialism - The highest stage of capitalism. The way you describe Degrowth's end-goals is really close to what all actual socialist experience achieved; reduction of inequality, inexistance of homelesness, better life expectancies, satisfaction of human needs, everything not needing to make money, ending planned obsolescence (that only exists because the market needs it), no food waste, reducing work-time, time for people to live their own lives... But degrowth just disregards the ways of getting there. The good news is, it already happened. Not once, not twice, but sometimes. But , it was in a socialist experience. I don't think you guys are ignoring these things because of bad faith; That's something I'd expect Kurzgegsagt to do, honestly. I feel like you guys didn't even consider it an option, and haven't read about it, and I highly recommend to do, get to know more about the socialist experiences that happened around the planet, and to get informed about it in real terms. I'd be more than happy to help out with that, and give y'all research supplies for the future. I am sorry for the long message, and thank you if you read it all ❤
I think they're just explaining the concept and advantages of degrowth as goal, not how to actually achieve it. Seems completely compatible with a Marxist framework to me
@@HamidKarzai It isn't, because Marxist ideology refutes the attempt of creating a society plainly from your ideas, and instead does it by analizing the material conditions of a society. Degrowth idealizes a utopical society without any material condition to reach it. By material, we don't mean goods; we also mean consciousness.
@@AlexandreLMB Ah yes, degrowth is Idealist and not a real solution to capitalism. Did you even watch the video? While it isn’t the only solution, it can be practically achieved by building small, organic communities based on free association and mutual aid that consume less and don’t degrade the environment in the name of capital and the state. It would be idealist if it was a solution achieved through capitalism (like you say) or electoralism, but degrowth is anti-capitalist, and it values community action more than just sitting around and blindly hoping that things will get better. If you want to learn more about degrowth, I recommend you watch Andrewism’s video on degrowth that was made alongside this one, it explains things very clearly. Hope this helps :)
@@someanimeguy4722 I'd warn you to not start any comment of by "Did you even watch the video?" if you are trying to pursuit a healthy debate. Not only did I watch the video as I even acknowledged the points made in the video in my comment, so I reply this by asking; Did you even read my comment? Now, to your comment; It still doesn't make sense. How do you even pursuit the construction of small, organic communities based on free association and mutual aid that consume less and don't degrade when this small community is under a bigger and systemic capitalistic structure? You can't just ignore the material conditions of life and create this small community. And, if degrowth were anti-capitalist as you are saying, then it would just be socialism with another name as I was explaining, due to having the same end-goals. But, as it doesn't seem to want to make a rupture with big systematic changes, it can't be called anti-capitalist. In general, people should be less afraid of the word communism and socialism, as it is literally everything that is described by these "eco-radicalization" or "eco-anarquist" or solar punk or whatever new umbrella term. But the key difference? It already exists, it already was made possible and we know it is good objectively. But the northern hemisphere loves to run anti-communist propaganda and benefit from social-democracy's imperialism.
@@AlexandreLMB well, degrowth technically is socialism/communism/anarchism, and I do agree with you that the global north seldom uses such terms. However, it is a type of socialism applied to the material conditions of the global north. If infinite economic growth on a finite planet causes catastrophe, you need to shape your ideology on dealing with that issue. Also, I don’t think degrowth has been tried before, as the Soviet Union, while it’s economy stagnated, it didn’t treat the environment very well. The draining of the Aral Sea and Chernobyl are the most popular examples, but also the rapid industrialization in the field of fossil fuels, while providing a boost to the Soviet economy, certainly didn’t do wonders for global climate change. Not that other powers like the US and Britain didn’t pollute more, it’s just that the Soviet Union wasn’t good when it came to the environment either. Also, I don’t like “socialist” states like the Soviet Union or pre-capitalist China, because they still were imperialist powers that used the red flag as an excuse to act as the new imperial powers with the new elite that weren’t so different from the capitalist landowners. One of the main features of solarpunk is its anti-state anarchist essence, which in my opinion isn’t revisionist or idealist at all. But I would love to see your thoughts on this. :) (also btw check out Andrews’s channel, he worked alongside the creators of this channel)
less beef industry just means the beef that IS available will be very expensive. Making poor people even "poorer" if they like eating it. But I guess beef is now too priviliged? This obviously goes for a lot of other products. I'm not sure how this will help make life of an individual "better". And the west is mostly an individualistic society.
Awesome comment! Will definitely expand on it in the long vid. For now: individualism and growthism are intimately intertwined, with the former supporting the latter. One of goals of degrowth is to decommodify our everyday relationships and allow for more expression of individuality without the individualism. (E.g. custom-made clothes from a local tailor instead of choosing which logos express your individuality.) And beef has always been privileged - maybe less so in the US with its swaths of, ahem, unused land, but it wasn't until factory farming that regular people would eat red meat daily. And the only reason meat is so cheap right now are subsidies, soil depletion, deforestation and emissions. So, it's our kids who'll end up paying for our burgers. (Please check out the Capitalocene video for how that works.) The reduction is inevitable.
Library economy sounds great, but for now in my country, such things are a distant pipe dream. For now, at least for things like tools and electronics etc, I like to practice what I am calling the garbage economy, IE, pull perfectly usable items from the trash and just, you know, use them. Because people are *constantly* throwing away stuff that doesn't need to be.
That's a 1st world thing... A few days ago, I saw a post (from a Mexican girl who now lives in Germany) where she showed a pair of bicycles that had been thrown in the "garbage" (she couldn't believe it, the bikes were practically new, left next to the garbage, on a street in a residential neighborhood). Obviously that doesn't happen in Mexico, nor in South America, (poor)Asia or Africa. People only throw away things in good condition because they can buy a new one without even needing it.
It is good that content on degrowth is appearing on the internet, but I am still bothered by the fact that very few content creators take the time to explain *how* degrowth is attained, and what happens after it is attained. Yes, there are steps we need to take, and why we need to take them, but what about the problems that we most likely face when taking said steps? For example: Yeah, capitalism is bad and all, but how do you ensure the fair and just distribution of wealth and wellbeing? How do we distribute wealth without infringing on people's freedom? It seems that going from growth to degrowth is just going from capitalism to communism-lite (intelligentsia will be protected this time around).
While I might not agree with everyone of your points or perspectives, you do offer a good balance to more traditional media and I think that can only be good. Considering only one view is rarely constructive.
The parts of this concept make so much sense to me, but I fear that many of the things they aim to change have become so normalized that they are being seen as needs. I.e. I know people that can absolutely not conceive of a life without a car (understandable to some extent) or buying new clothes or phones So how do we make this change in democratic societies when it could take ages to convince the masses that this is the way forward?
'A life without a car (understandable to some extent) or buying new clothes or phones' it depends, I think. I hate that after living 10 years in a city I have to get driving licence after moving back home, bc there is no viable public transportation.
K, was thinking “if we make a company of things that are durable and not planned to break, how do people afford our stuff? It would be too expensive to sell as we are all still poor. Well, we utilize a library economy. It would have to be rent to own or rented I think as you’d have to make money somehow since we do still live under Capitalism. But we gotta fight somehow. I can’t tell you how often I want to use something once but don’t know who to borrow “the thing” from that I’m looking for. I don’t have a few thousand to drop on crappy equipment so my skills stop where the cost come in.
Hello there again. Another wonderful video. I just hope your soup position isn't just "Bad optics" but regardless of that I will continue watching your videos
@@t3essays The think is, I imply the pro-gamer strategy of not having Twitter. Might change that soon though when my ati-cancer suit arrives. Edit: I saw the tweets and to be honest I can't really tell you you are against the protests or not. The only conclusion I made is that you think the organization is... pardon me for my zoomerisom: "SUS"
"scale back ecologically destructive industries", you mentioned healthcare and education earlier. Do you think that making those MRI machines, xray machines which are necessary in hospitals and making medicines is environmentally friendly? As someone from the pharmaceutical industry, I can tell you they are not, also they're all built to last (no planned obsolence or advertising there), in fact much more growth is needed if we want to bring modern medicine and education to the economic south Or all those school supplies, computers, etc..? You focus only on the bad consumerism but growth is not just mac donalds and iphones. Growth is also, new medicines, new therapies, faster production and more efficient distribution of those medicines. Improvements in microchip technology were induced by consumer demand for better, faster computers and phones, yet those same technologies are new used to make hospitals work better and more efficiently. Nowadays, gpu's are used to train AI-models in computational drug design and ai-models are now becoming better at detecting cancers early than skilled educated doctors.. Initially improvements in gpu technology were driven by animation-studios, hollywood, video-games, .. pure growth-driven consumerism, but without it, we wouldn't have the fast, crazily efficient gpu's that allow us to train ai-models for finding better cancer-therapies. How do you want to have continued improvement in technological advancement with this "degrowth" strategy? I'm not against it necessarily. The environment is indeed suffering and we need a solution. But do you want to just give up on technological advancement in microchip technology, medicine, etc? Do we just have to accept that this is the best we can do and make do with what we have? When we finally invent working quantum computers, do we just not advertise or market them and make no attempt at mass-producing them for consumers, knowing that efficient mass production of quantum computers could be a game changer in many scientific research fields? Or if you still intend to able to achieve this quick mass production and mass adoption of new technologies (to be able to make further advanvements in for example medicine) with degrowth, then how?
Did you watch the video, the video which answers the questions that you have? The video specifically designed to explain what degrowth is and should be? It's like you got the idea of degrowth from outside youtube, saw a video titled 'degrowth', and then came to argue about your own idea of degrowth that you saw somewhere else which are completely separate from the ideas presented in the video, ideas which are not even nearly as crazy as you suggest. I'll do you a favour, skip to 5 minutes, there he explains 5 reasonable steps we can take which do not limit your precious consumer industries. If anything, this video suggests ways to make the economy MORE efficient, not less.
Liked only because of Shrek Just kidding, I actually read both doughnut economics and Less is more. They are both absolutely fantastic books (but especially the latter). Great video!
I agree with everything you say but it would have been better to debunk the mandatory "but we can grow the gdp without consumption! Growth can be infinite!" It's very tiresome but it always happens
2:34 uuuhg, i speak a few words of german, at least i speak dutch fluently so i can kind of speak a little german. took me this video to realize kurzgesagt is german for 'kort gezecht' or 'shortly said' (literal translation).
If I buy running shoes and go running a few times a week for a year, I add $75 to the GDP; If I sit around and eat greasy burgers and get a heart attack and spend a week in intensive care, I add $320,000 to the GDP. What is good for the GDP is not necessarily good for people.
Literally found your channel the other day. Time to further my eco-radicalization.
how will you do that?
Read jason hickel book is a good start:)
I assume you're familiar with Our Changing Climate?
That channel was my first intro to the concept of degrowth and ecosocialism.
Degrowth is TYRANNICALLY IMPOSED POVERTY! This will criminally impose a HITLERIAN EUTHANASIA THROUGH Illiteracy, malnutrition, diseases, lack of decent shelters, lack of mobility, lack of human growth and progress to improve the realization of the unlimited human potential to grow and explore and expand industrialization and agriculture and education and scientific R&D, etc and eventually to REACH THE STARS BY STARTING FIRST WITH THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND EVENTUALLY TO THE STARS AND THEIR SOLAR SYSTEMS!
We Russians will reach for the stars and colonize them while your kind will ROT ON EARTH! After we have reduced the world into nuclear ashes after the Ukrainian war.
Back in my home town there used to be workshops open to the public where all you needed was the raw material while all the tools were provided and mantained by donationas of the people.
Could not find anything like this where i live now and i feel like a lot of Diy is impossible since the upfront costs of the tools are insane for a one time use every odd year.
So the usership vs ownership point rings very close to home.
I feel ya. Gotta buy an impact drill to use it like two times 😕
I'm working to set something like that up where I live! Public workshop and tools library. Unfortunately it looks like I'll have to fund at least the startup cost out of my own pocket, which means I have some saving up to do first.
Problem is nowadays people would just steal for themselves or sell it.
@@Chaosdwarft sure, that'll happen from time to time, but I don't think it's gonna be such a problem that it'll ruin the place.
@@DarkPrject it seems like a huge undertaking but i bet people in your comunity will greatly apriciate.
I wish you luck.
As a southern italian who lives in a small village and it's forced to take the car almost every day, it's freaking true everything you said about transport.
I have to wake up stupidly early because there is a train every 4 hours and the station is 20 km away from my village so i must take the car.
The line is so freaking inefficent because, in order to cut costs, the train stops in every little village everytime and does the long, 2 hours trip instead of the efficient 40 minutes it should take passed it in the quickest railroad.
In the north it's a little bit better but the south of Italy has a car culture comparable to the US
Any idea what its like for your neighbors in Sicily?
@@hahaureadmyname i think it's even worse. Less public transport
A used electric car with a water cooled battery is a good compromise
I don't think anybody wants to smell my farts driving to work in the morning.. no thanks
There should be a guy who makes the trains run on time.
These is becoming my favorite channel out there, pls keep it up
Have you heard of One Small Town initiative? Very interesting community development network for communities to build prosperity and abundance through cooperation, collaboration and co-ownership. Free and voluntary, of course!
human, people, love, collaboration and empathy>>>> money, captalism, technology, individualism. i love the ecosystem, we came from it and we have to looove and protect it!!! ♥️
Yes!!!
Found your channel thanks to Vaush. Looking forward to binging everything you have.
Just watched this video as a streamer watched it. I came to like the video because I liked it! Great video 🌟🌅
Great video. Not enough material out there about degrowth. Even the keyboard on my phone autocorrects it to "regrowth". Hopefully this movement picks up more traction soon, because i think it's the best solution we have to dealing with climate change.
first to tell you that your thumbnail is 100% based
Thanks! We spent quite a while working it out
I found your channel today, and I honestly love it. Now all I want is a local trans-eco-anarquist collective
so start one yourself?
You seem a great candidate for the first member.
Hello, Vaush viewer who came here because he reacted to this video, welcome to the comment section
Thank you. It feels good to be here.
@@user-pq6si4ol4w welcome to the single best polish leftist channel! Enjoy the english version ^^! These guys really do a great work
Idk how much this would make you happy if you hear it, but you guys are literally the first people ive ever subbed to by only watching one video!!! (the Kurzgegsagt video obviouslly) even with really good channels, i usually sub to them after watching at least 3 of their videos, but with everything in that first video i saw, i really do think you guys deserve this small award from me lol
Ditto
The issue with degrowth is exactly what was critizised here with "growthism", it seems some take it as an eternal formula, a heavenly programme. This is very much propagated by it's branding, if you were to call for the end of wasteful Yachts and reorganizing production to fit social needs, then you will naturally find much less resistance.
But when you talk about "scaling down the global north", especially in a period of working class people increasingly struggling to pay for groceries, heat, etc, then really you have noone to
blame but yourself. That opposition to degrowth is a genuine and rightful expression of class interest.
The vague associations with what is essentially just another obscurantist ideology to replace the current one does not help either, such as phrases like "Living world" or in some groups much starker expressions of such esotericism. This can make it a gateway for far-right authoritarianism either throw a gates type neoliberal overpopulation narrative or via said esotericism, that new age to fascist pipeline is very known.
It's not as complicated as you paint it, the key is to build sustainable societies that cover the very basic needs in basis of the immediate environment that sorrounds them, which means a multitude of solutions that need to base themselves on geography and climatology, the most ignored sciences by corporate leaders...
By that very nature, it is not an eternal formula and notions of global north & south will have to die alongside globalization as we know it, which is reaching a twilight on it's own merely going by the demographic collapse on a global scale and the rise of black swan phenomenon such as COVID-19 or the 2021 western north america heat wave...
Heck, you mention far-right authoritarianism as if it's some shady possibility, but Donald Trump has already paved the way with the current global north as it's foothold, just look at Macron's current policies in France or De Santis in Florida..
We are heading towards collapse on the current path, that is not even a question, the question should be how to turn global south countries self-sufficient and to balance the population of the global north, countries will have to die in favour of local societies, corporations for a library economy and social classes for a common standard of living...
Of course, that won't be easy, but climate fascists sounds way worse.
Seems like a projection of what the progressive altruists espousing degrowth through a variety of means like energy crises, antinatalism, and so on. Ironically, fascism is communism from the end of trade unions forming a federal state apparatus, as opposed to revolution to install a federal state apparatus. Both micromanage everyone's lives, the economy, and what model of reality we operate under.
Degrowth seems to be the counter to a consumerist and expansionist materialism which the rich people rule with a eugenicist and communist materialism that the rich people rule. I guess the choice is whether you work in squalor to buy bread at exorbitant prices, or you have to wait in line for your bread stipend; of course, if you didn't wart too much methane into the atmosphere. By Odin, how will the swamp Germans and their swamps cope if add that much more methane into the air as a mountain German?
The quick fix here is realising that universalism doesn't work, no one has beaten the pricing problem. Maybe presuming that no one person or group of people will necessarily be able to respond to all problems in all localities is a bridge too far when it comes to intellectual honesty, or that no one has a good idea about what are the preconditions to how things are or are going to be, per intellectual honesty.
The quick case in points are the various attempts of authoritarianism via a federal state apparatus through fascism in the case of finance or military spending, through socialism with climatology, or both with medicine.
Multilateralisation through mixed representation of a unitary body doesn't seem to work, just ask the Ottomans, Romans, Soviets, British, the Balkans... You will always get blended by some Leninist will-to-power subgroup that decide they can solve the price problem, and are made of finer lay than everyone else. Also, this is still federalism, and universalism.
I don't know, having the economy controlled by a federal reserve and a central bank seems ballsy with what is said above. When it'd be better to have easier fail over like in the older times with higher capitalisation rates to hedge against black swans or bank runs, and more regional banks that are more aware of local conditions so as to avoid sub prime lending risk. Or simply ban double booking, deposits are deposits, not applicable for investing; that's what the credit accounts are for. Maybe not so much a trade or finance alliance like the EU, that was definitely not verbatim the trade alliance that the Third Reich wrote about.
How about something where the sovereign regions, the demesne, operated primarily on a mostly autonomous basis, and respected each others' self-determination and self-sufficiency, like the HRE, Dutch Republic, Roman Republic. Who knows, I don't know why they were called the Immortal Republics, who could tell me why?
In either case it would solve the question of how to titrate the economy (price problem), populations (price problem), because everyone is mutually self-sufficient, stable. I don't care what happens in the global north as long as I'm not dragged into the alliance nightmare that caused WW1 and WW2 because my country imports power electronics from Taiwan, and otherwise, can actually afford dinner every day.
Who knows, maybe the environment will be better off if we don't ship US beef to the EU, and send Brazilian beef to the US. And feed both off of wheat from Ukraine or Russian. Maybe, there'd be less brinkmanship between the world and China over Taiwan if China wasn't the factory and main polluter of the world, enacting "late-stage corporate socialism" and the Roman Empire's totally valid solution of expansionism to make up for societal collapse, and Taiwan wasn't literally the only place where high electronics were made, and an ideologically existential threat to China.
I feel you drastically misunderstood what was being said. The groups this would help the *most* are the poorer ones, because the focus is "increasing quality of life" over "increasing an arbitrary metric of the flow of currency". Degrowth is not "stop making and spending money" nor is it about simply going without; it's about, more or less as you put it, "Reorganizing production to fit social needs".
Your comment largely reads like someone who heard someone guess at what economic degrowth is about and took it to heart, tbh. Nothing you reference was even a claim in the video that doesn't demonstrate a misunderstanding of what was said.
There's an equally valid point to be made that the New Age stuff is a gateway to the Ultra woke stuff, which is essentially just Marxist Consciousness applied to the non physical Capital that underpins society.
Marxism being mostly a particular amalgam of Gnostic/Hermetic beliefs. Which seem to cyclically bounce back between viewing the material or the world of ideas as the most important locus.
But really : To hell with all mystics and those that think their brand of *Special* Knowing gives them more rights.
The basic reality of humanity is : we need energy to do things. Very much preferably energy that is easy to dispatch at demand, or life gets harder. Renewables do *not* provide this unfortunately.
The issue today with the middle class struggle in the Global North is not because of scarcity of resources, it's because of deliberate upward wealth redistribution.
The size of this channel is criminal. These videos deserve to be getting millions of views.
so promote them
@@acquisitium took the words right out of my mouth :) . Promoting this channel to everyone I knowinterested in the topics covered .
Nice video and nice cameo too, Andrewism is a smart dude!
Your videos are top notch, keep it up! This is fantastic
New Hyperfocus aquired: Environmental Philosophy
If I wasn't living in a dorm right now, I'd be out planting my garden and learning how to sew.
But for now, maybe I'll go to the FFF meeting tomorrow. They are quite small in Japan, but I really want to talk to some people that may also like this way of thinking.
Tank you for this great content!
But a gardening as a metaphor of saving the climate is a very narrow way of thinking. The future is actually living in a big blocks. They are way more environmental friendly than a house with a garden attached to it.
Organize with your local student associations. Every big modern social revolution had the participation of student groups. Even stuff like the Cuban revolution. So aim big. It's possible.
You don't need a garden or "land". Good job ignoring the point.
Great video as always! I shall comment for the algorithm.
The „Strong Towns“ movement here in the US is what got me onboard with the idea of degrowth, before I even knew the term. The Strong Towns organization often talks about „the growth ponzi scheme“ in reference to the way we build suburbs in the US, are unable to sustain the infrastructure, and then incentivize more growth with tax breaks in order to get a shot of money to pay for the repair of old infrastructure. This is a financial perspective, where city dollars are used as a stand-in for the collective resources of the community, and it exposes the issues with doing the same thing but „green“.
Love seeing the variation in content. Keep it up!
For solar punk and good neighbourly relationships 🇨🇿🤝🇵🇱
2:30 the problem isn't the car or the train, the problem is that people needed to get to work. If you want degrowth then you need less trains too
This channels awesome the Quality is just fantastic so underrated
love the andrewism cameo
Hearing Andrewism at the beginning made me smile.
What a fantastic video, thank you man
I'm of the opinion that mixed economies are the way of the future.
Pure capitalism is self-destructive, and pure soialism is dreadfully inefficient.
Can you define what you think socialism is? Because if you think it is government officials sitting around making decisions based on their whims, political interests and flawed ideas of thinking economic growth is the answer to everything, then that's not socialism, at all.
How about decentralized community's built on a mutual aid network, a umbrella non-profit cooperative, where people create, produce and service the needs of the people who live there, guided by scientific understanding of what is most sustainable and efficient? That can be done. Zeitgeist: Moving Forward has depicted it, or Culture in Decline with Peter Joseph.
It is staring to happen in real life: One Small Town Contributionism communities popping up around the world.
@@coolioso808 Because you can't have an efficient system if it isn't centralized. Not with population densities as high as they are in the modern age.
It never works.
Makes sense in principle, particularly the idea of economic optimization rather than economic growth.
Though I hold reservations on many of the other radical ideas tied up in degrowth, degrowth itself feels reasonably actionable compared to most.
We are addicted to "stuff". We buy more and more, hoping it will make us happy, but it doesn't. So we buy more. And the cycle of addiction continues. And the world is dying. We need less not more. Great video.
American conservatives: This is the greatest country in the world!
People all over the world: Obviously we shouldn't do things like they do in America. I mean, just look at it.
Literally this. When I explain the problems with US medical insurance to Polish people, they go like "OK, but why won't they just go on a waiting list for a public hospital then?"
Thanks!
THIS should have millions of views instead of the watered down self-centered libleft stuff Breadtube has become...
I'm all for self sustainable, stable and balanced economy. But degrowth sounds more like a theme than a real solution though.
You can say the same thing about growth - then degrowth would be a nuanced set of criticism of it
@@t3essays Touché.
I agree. Degrowth is idealistic.
@@AlexandreLMB lol. And what is infinite growth?
@@AlexandreLMBthat because we believe it will be unreal to overthrow capitalism
7 minutes is great. Where do I put in the request for the 1.5 hour version thanks.
Patreon😁 No, it's coming, but probably something more in the 30-40 min range.
As much as I don't like the wasteful, mindless consumerism aspect of the west economy, I'm also very suspicious of implementing any planned economy as I grew up in a socialist system under a communist party that ended in a bloody revolution. People were not happy being told what to eat ( coupons that allow you only a certain amount of a certain basic food), how much TV you could watch ( 2 hours each evening), how much space to inhabit ( apartments that you didn't own assigned by the state according to the size of the family), etc. I, myself, am pretty minimalistic in my lifestyle, but it's my personal choice and I get to choose what my needs are. Educating the people towards understanding and voluntarily adopting a minimalist way of life is ok, imposing it sounds like dictatorship and it's going to backfire.
If i may ask you, where did you grow up?
Romania, Eastern Europe.
Degrowth is basically communism without the ideology. It doesn't pretend to be about creating some kind of utopia, it just skips straight to state enforced poverty. First world socialists have never faced a real hardship in their lives, that's why they can hold luxury beliefs.
Glad to see you alongside andrewism. Keep up the good work, gentlefolks.
Takk!
I most people shut down when they hear "degrowth" because they know how much economic growth has improved the world and they don't want to lose out on that improvement. Rebranding to something that focuses on human life satisfaction/happiness/need fulfillment, etc. might be more successful.
great video ! it's awesome to see you guys working together with andrewism and growing the channel, and I just want to say it was very clear and very useful to easily explain degrowth to less politically literate comrades
i watched the Kurzgesagt video, and now i am continuously experiencing deja vu ahaha, i understand why though, thanks for making the important points more bite sized!
Honestly, cut marketing will solve 70% of the 5 steps just by influencing the others
Learning about degrowth I stumbled across Participatory Economics and now I’m fascinated by it.
This was a very informative video that explains the concept well, and will probably lead me to revise my views on the topic, thanks.
I had become quite sceptical of degrowth over the past few years because many of their advocates I've come across make it sound like earth-flavored austerity to be honest. A lot of them are people who don't own much telling other people who don't own much how we should stop commodifying common items, which is gonna sound very tone deaf when many people even in the global north have very obvious and urgent material needs. A lot of them try to pull the emotional strings and have an over-reliance on the concept of community and human relationships, except neoliberalism atomised society so much it became an ancient and abstract concept for many of us, many of us have very unfulfilling family lives, discrimination means many of us can't fit into clear social patterns past or present, and isn't cutting on car and air travel pulling the chord on the few potential real life friendships remaining anyway? So... what's the point?
If you don't make it clear it comes with a strong left-wing, intersectional approach(like this channel did very well in this video and previous ones to be honest) it's not gonna be a very liberatory message, except for the already converted and a few Patagonia wearing bros. Fascism is already there and start to understand how to exploit those anxieties so we don't have time to mess around.
Hey I'm new to all this and I was wondering what you meant by the tone deafness of the advocates of degrowth. I figure a lot of them are people who don't own much because embracing the degrowth mindset will lead them to buy less; to me it'd seem incongruent if someone who has a lot of stuff was preaching this. I also don't see why degrowth clashes with the obvious and urgent material needs of the people, because to me it seems that spending less money on useless stuff will leave more room for those material needs. Agree with the rest though, it'll take real change before people start forming proper communities again, at least where I'm from
I've heard some people beginning to throw around the term ecosocialism which, I feel, better describes the idea behind degrowth. It emphasizes the redistribution & new systems of production that will be required for sustainability with nature. It provides me hope that the socialist movement is having a revival & moving beyond the Soviet Union model & its flaws.
This. A lot of people talk about degrowth the way a lot of people talk about minimalism. "Do you *really* need that [vaguely frivolous item]? How dare you spend your own money on something you want!" Is not a valid argument, and while that is absolutely not the original intention of either movement, that's what a lot of people treat it as.
much love! thanks for all you do and all who support
Impressive. Real cool.
Very informative, thanks!
Great video, bless
"going from ownership to usership"
sounds like more power to the owners then. renting everything, housing, utilities, everything will be subscription based.
this is your best use of memes to illustrate the point yet
This video has a really good thumbnail
What a cool ideology but its still in its teenage years, it needs to mature, a lot.
It mixes in a lot of:
* Over simplification of the cause of problems
* Oversimplification of opposing ideas and portrayal of capitalists as cartoon villains
* Naturalism (Something natural is good by definition)
* Over optimism about human nature
* Baked in altruism and guilt (Does not make for a popular and effective policy)
* Large reliance on central authority to solve simple problems (for example the individualist thought that the solution to pricy tools is DIY spaces instead of borrowing from family or neighbors)
I hope a lot of progress is done in this direction to refine such ideas to actionable policy that is more realistic than pure feel good ideology, I'll start checking on it from time to time.
Dude, did you just say that the field needs to mature a lot based on a 7-minute video?🤨
@@t3essays Actually it was after two videos but yes.
You see movements grow through these phases and there are telltale signs that they are still in the incubation phase.
One of the signs is a seriously talking about ideas rooted in anarchism and radical self reliance.
The Open source software movement took 20+ years to realize that the world is not going to be changed by git commits and that internet access is a huge humanity spanning effort and no amount of refurbished electronics and growing tomatoes in your back yard is going to do anything about the structure of society.
Degrowing is talking about the right ideas but it is still childish, uncompromising and offers solutions disconnected for current processes and institutions.
It is easy to ignore the complexity of the real world when such pure ideas exist in the world of ideals.
A bus to a remote village can be better for humanity instead of one to a shopping hub. but what if over time it gets used less? do you move it to another village? do you have a committee of bus allocation? and where do you get the resources to operate these busses?
what if people living in pastoral remote villages is not degrowing but putting people in huge housing towers saves more energy? do you build huge sky scrapers for housing instead of operating busses? its all very complex and does not fit into nice little boxes.
Good work, as always! Hope this vid will get in recommendations someday!
Great Channel, Poland Good, Degrowth better, random comment to boost the video yeeeee
I'm in, now how do we get everyone else in, given the problem that the establishment is the establishment? Thanks for the great channel!
spread the word its a long battle
Like for GTO edit... and, you know, the great work on the video and research.
Thanks! Why was this comment marked as spam lol
I had it as an animated background for my phone for like a year lmao, door would be closed when the phone is closed and would whip open when unlocked.
@@AlexDenton0451 that's amazing and p clever hahaha
Great video.
This basically a comment for the algorithm, I have nothing to add but like the video therefore wanna like and comment to boost the video engagement
I love your content so much, keep up everything you're doing
Fantastic contribution! Thank you
I love your vids they are so wholesome and funny (I found your channel through the kurzgeszagt video :D 💜)
Your videos are very informative, love them good sir!
8:06 When I hear "building up the English channel", my first thought was that there was some grass roots effort to create a land bridge between France and England.
Great video! I'd love to learn more on the topic of the Polish economic reforms on the nineties. Get well soon!
I'm so glad I found your channel, love it
"Not everything is there to make money." This needs to be explained, repeatedly, to the geniuses who think that the government is best run like a business. The job of a government isn't to make money, its job is to serve its citizens.
Got to know this channel because of the Kurzgegsagt video and really liked the video, mainly because it was one of the first times I saw someone from the northen hemisphere (I live in Brazil) being critical about imperialism and colonialism, however, in that same video, I got a bug behind my ear when you guys were talking about the degrowth movement, and I have to say I still feel the same way about it even after this video.
First off, I think your diagnosis on the issue in your Kurzgesagt video is perfect. I think you identify perfectly the issues, and have a impressive theoric knowledge about it, but the proposed solution is idealistic.
Degrowth is, in my marxist-leninist world-view, an idealistic resolution to crisis of the capital, one that doesn't change the system and expects that the issue just kind of solves itself because we think the world differently; The most revolutionary part of Marx's theory is that he didn't idealize an society, he saw the mechanisms that made capitalism possible. Degrowth, as explained, idealizes an sustainable and healthy capitalism, but that isn't possible. Capitalism depends on the endless exploitation of natural and human resources in order to keep itself going, it needs new markets to expand upon; that's why neo-liberalism came around during the 1970's and is still hard glued to our life view, transforming food, water, health, schools, security and what not into markets; That was noted by Lenin in his book Imperialism - The highest stage of capitalism.
The way you describe Degrowth's end-goals is really close to what all actual socialist experience achieved; reduction of inequality, inexistance of homelesness, better life expectancies, satisfaction of human needs, everything not needing to make money, ending planned obsolescence (that only exists because the market needs it), no food waste, reducing work-time, time for people to live their own lives... But degrowth just disregards the ways of getting there. The good news is, it already happened. Not once, not twice, but sometimes. But , it was in a socialist experience.
I don't think you guys are ignoring these things because of bad faith; That's something I'd expect Kurzgegsagt to do, honestly. I feel like you guys didn't even consider it an option, and haven't read about it, and I highly recommend to do, get to know more about the socialist experiences that happened around the planet, and to get informed about it in real terms.
I'd be more than happy to help out with that, and give y'all research supplies for the future.
I am sorry for the long message, and thank you if you read it all ❤
I think they're just explaining the concept and advantages of degrowth as goal, not how to actually achieve it. Seems completely compatible with a Marxist framework to me
@@HamidKarzai It isn't, because Marxist ideology refutes the attempt of creating a society plainly from your ideas, and instead does it by analizing the material conditions of a society. Degrowth idealizes a utopical society without any material condition to reach it. By material, we don't mean goods; we also mean consciousness.
@@AlexandreLMB Ah yes, degrowth is Idealist and not a real solution to capitalism. Did you even watch the video? While it isn’t the only solution, it can be practically achieved by building small, organic communities based on free association and mutual aid that consume less and don’t degrade the environment in the name of capital and the state. It would be idealist if it was a solution achieved through capitalism (like you say) or electoralism, but degrowth is anti-capitalist, and it values community action more than just sitting around and blindly hoping that things will get better. If you want to learn more about degrowth, I recommend you watch Andrewism’s video on degrowth that was made alongside this one, it explains things very clearly. Hope this helps :)
@@someanimeguy4722 I'd warn you to not start any comment of by "Did you even watch the video?" if you are trying to pursuit a healthy debate. Not only did I watch the video as I even acknowledged the points made in the video in my comment, so I reply this by asking; Did you even read my comment?
Now, to your comment; It still doesn't make sense. How do you even pursuit the construction of small, organic communities based on free association and mutual aid that consume less and don't degrade when this small community is under a bigger and systemic capitalistic structure? You can't just ignore the material conditions of life and create this small community.
And, if degrowth were anti-capitalist as you are saying, then it would just be socialism with another name as I was explaining, due to having the same end-goals. But, as it doesn't seem to want to make a rupture with big systematic changes, it can't be called anti-capitalist.
In general, people should be less afraid of the word communism and socialism, as it is literally everything that is described by these "eco-radicalization" or "eco-anarquist" or solar punk or whatever new umbrella term. But the key difference? It already exists, it already was made possible and we know it is good objectively. But the northern hemisphere loves to run anti-communist propaganda and benefit from social-democracy's imperialism.
@@AlexandreLMB well, degrowth technically is socialism/communism/anarchism, and I do agree with you that the global north seldom uses such terms. However, it is a type of socialism applied to the material conditions of the global north. If infinite economic growth on a finite planet causes catastrophe, you need to shape your ideology on dealing with that issue. Also, I don’t think degrowth has been tried before, as the Soviet Union, while it’s economy stagnated, it didn’t treat the environment very well. The draining of the Aral Sea and Chernobyl are the most popular examples, but also the rapid industrialization in the field of fossil fuels, while providing a boost to the Soviet economy, certainly didn’t do wonders for global climate change. Not that other powers like the US and Britain didn’t pollute more, it’s just that the Soviet Union wasn’t good when it came to the environment either. Also, I don’t like “socialist” states like the Soviet Union or pre-capitalist China, because they still were imperialist powers that used the red flag as an excuse to act as the new imperial powers with the new elite that weren’t so different from the capitalist landowners. One of the main features of solarpunk is its anti-state anarchist essence, which in my opinion isn’t revisionist or idealist at all. But I would love to see your thoughts on this. :) (also btw check out Andrews’s channel, he worked alongside the creators of this channel)
less beef industry just means the beef that IS available will be very expensive. Making poor people even "poorer" if they like eating it. But I guess beef is now too priviliged? This obviously goes for a lot of other products. I'm not sure how this will help make life of an individual "better". And the west is mostly an individualistic society.
Awesome comment! Will definitely expand on it in the long vid. For now: individualism and growthism are intimately intertwined, with the former supporting the latter. One of goals of degrowth is to decommodify our everyday relationships and allow for more expression of individuality without the individualism. (E.g. custom-made clothes from a local tailor instead of choosing which logos express your individuality.)
And beef has always been privileged - maybe less so in the US with its swaths of, ahem, unused land, but it wasn't until factory farming that regular people would eat red meat daily. And the only reason meat is so cheap right now are subsidies, soil depletion, deforestation and emissions. So, it's our kids who'll end up paying for our burgers. (Please check out the Capitalocene video for how that works.) The reduction is inevitable.
@@t3essays is it though like do you think everybody will stop eating meat like will people agree to that
Library economy sounds great, but for now in my country, such things are a distant pipe dream. For now, at least for things like tools and electronics etc, I like to practice what I am calling the garbage economy, IE, pull perfectly usable items from the trash and just, you know, use them. Because people are *constantly* throwing away stuff that doesn't need to be.
That's a 1st world thing... A few days ago, I saw a post (from a Mexican girl who now lives in Germany) where she showed a pair of bicycles that had been thrown in the "garbage" (she couldn't believe it, the bikes were practically new, left next to the garbage, on a street in a residential neighborhood). Obviously that doesn't happen in Mexico, nor in South America, (poor)Asia or Africa. People only throw away things in good condition because they can buy a new one without even needing it.
What do you think about Murray Bookchin's and Abdullah Öcalan's philosophy?
Cannot wait to tell everyone I know about solarpunk!
Just found this channel and this is a very informative video! Well done!
It is good that content on degrowth is appearing on the internet, but I am still bothered by the fact that very few content creators take the time to explain *how* degrowth is attained, and what happens after it is attained. Yes, there are steps we need to take, and why we need to take them, but what about the problems that we most likely face when taking said steps?
For example: Yeah, capitalism is bad and all, but how do you ensure the fair and just distribution of wealth and wellbeing? How do we distribute wealth without infringing on people's freedom?
It seems that going from growth to degrowth is just going from capitalism to communism-lite (intelligentsia will be protected this time around).
While I might not agree with everyone of your points or perspectives, you do offer a good balance to more traditional media and I think that can only be good. Considering only one view is rarely constructive.
Awesome video. Thanks:)
the little character is cute
also dank vid thank you!
Good work
i wish your ideas spread fast
I love this channel.
The parts of this concept make so much sense to me, but I fear that many of the things they aim to change have become so normalized that they are being seen as needs.
I.e. I know people that can absolutely not conceive of a life without a car (understandable to some extent) or buying new clothes or phones
So how do we make this change in democratic societies when it could take ages to convince the masses that this is the way forward?
'A life without a car (understandable to some extent) or buying new clothes or phones' it depends, I think. I hate that after living 10 years in a city I have to get driving licence after moving back home, bc there is no viable public transportation.
An informational video with strong meme game has nothing but my utmost respect
Still don't get how to grant decent life quality to people in poor countries without a huge growth in energy production and consumption
brilliant stuff keep on keeping on please :))
Interesting. Sounds like the term re-prioritization might be a better word
Where dos the clip at 2:48 come from? I swear I've seen it somewhere before
Hope your cold feels better soon!
5:47 What's the issue with energy efficient housing? Geniune question
I think he meant energy inefficient housing. I heard the same thing but perhaps the thick accent made it sound different.
K, was thinking “if we make a company of things that are durable and not planned to break, how do people afford our stuff? It would be too expensive to sell as we are all still poor. Well, we utilize a library economy. It would have to be rent to own or rented I think as you’d have to make money somehow since we do still live under Capitalism. But we gotta fight somehow. I can’t tell you how often I want to use something once but don’t know who to borrow “the thing” from that I’m looking for. I don’t have a few thousand to drop on crappy equipment so my skills stop where the cost come in.
Hello there again. Another wonderful video. I just hope your soup position isn't just "Bad optics" but regardless of that I will continue watching your videos
Hi, thanks for your support!💖 It's not, we wrote some points from it in a twitter thread the other day
@@t3essays The think is, I imply the pro-gamer strategy of not having Twitter. Might change that soon though when my ati-cancer suit arrives.
Edit: I saw the tweets and to be honest I can't really tell you you are against the protests or not. The only conclusion I made is that you think the organization is... pardon me for my zoomerisom: "SUS"
god this video rules.
Lovely video
"scale back ecologically destructive industries", you mentioned healthcare and education earlier. Do you think that making those MRI machines, xray machines which are necessary in hospitals and making medicines is environmentally friendly? As someone from the pharmaceutical industry, I can tell you they are not, also they're all built to last (no planned obsolence or advertising there), in fact much more growth is needed if we want to bring modern medicine and education to the economic south
Or all those school supplies, computers, etc..?
You focus only on the bad consumerism but growth is not just mac donalds and iphones. Growth is also, new medicines, new therapies, faster production and more efficient distribution of those medicines.
Improvements in microchip technology were induced by consumer demand for better, faster computers and phones, yet those same technologies are new used to make hospitals work better and more efficiently.
Nowadays, gpu's are used to train AI-models in computational drug design and ai-models are now becoming better at detecting cancers early than skilled educated doctors..
Initially improvements in gpu technology were driven by animation-studios, hollywood, video-games, .. pure growth-driven consumerism, but without it, we wouldn't have the fast, crazily efficient gpu's that allow us to train ai-models for finding better cancer-therapies.
How do you want to have continued improvement in technological advancement with this "degrowth" strategy? I'm not against it necessarily. The environment is indeed suffering and we need a solution. But do you want to just give up on technological advancement in microchip technology, medicine, etc? Do we just have to accept that this is the best we can do and make do with what we have?
When we finally invent working quantum computers, do we just not advertise or market them and make no attempt at mass-producing them for consumers, knowing that efficient mass production of quantum computers could be a game changer in many scientific research fields?
Or if you still intend to able to achieve this quick mass production and mass adoption of new technologies (to be able to make further advanvements in for example medicine) with degrowth, then how?
Did you watch the video, the video which answers the questions that you have? The video specifically designed to explain what degrowth is and should be? It's like you got the idea of degrowth from outside youtube, saw a video titled 'degrowth', and then came to argue about your own idea of degrowth that you saw somewhere else which are completely separate from the ideas presented in the video, ideas which are not even nearly as crazy as you suggest. I'll do you a favour, skip to 5 minutes, there he explains 5 reasonable steps we can take which do not limit your precious consumer industries. If anything, this video suggests ways to make the economy MORE efficient, not less.
Kim Kitsuragi is back!
Swell vid chaps
Degrowth means clean air, clean water and LESS WORK!! YAY!!
Sometimes the better solution is the simpler one.
You can't build an empire and destroy a planet unless you work really hard. Chill out, save yourself and the planet.@@DrizzyB
Liked only because of Shrek
Just kidding, I actually read both doughnut economics and Less is more. They are both absolutely fantastic books (but especially the latter).
Great video!
fair
oooh got me there!
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
Dovakin, the Thomasborn - famous champion of ecology and balanced consumption
I agree with everything you say but it would have been better to debunk the mandatory "but we can grow the gdp without consumption! Growth can be infinite!" It's very tiresome but it always happens
This channel shall create new Ted Kaczynskis.
and this is wonderful
2:34 uuuhg, i speak a few words of german, at least i speak dutch fluently so i can kind of speak a little german.
took me this video to realize kurzgesagt is german for 'kort gezecht' or 'shortly said' (literal translation).
If I buy running shoes and go running a few times a week for a year, I add $75 to the GDP; If I sit around and eat greasy burgers and get a heart attack and spend a week in intensive care, I add $320,000 to the GDP. What is good for the GDP is not necessarily good for people.