By Claudius Gr盲bner-Radkowitsch and Birte Strunk

The degrowth movement is a radical attempt to challenge our current economic system, arguing that its excessive focus on economic growth will ultimately harm people and planet. It has recently gained increasing attention, not only because it has found its way into mainstream political debates (see, for example, the at the European Parliament), but also because related research projects have won prestigious international funding awards (see, for example, ). However, as you may have noticed, these events are mainly taking place in the Global North. The concept as such was also originally developed in the Global North. At the same time, the movement is strongly committed to the idea of global justice and a decolonization of relations between the Global North and South.

This begs the question: What is the role of the Global South in the contemporary degrowth discourse? To what extent does the discourse take into account Southern perspectives? Does it think that the South should also degrow, or is Northern degrowth mainly seen as a self-prescription? And to what extent does the degrowth community reflect on the implications of Northern degrowth for the Global South? To answer these questions, we have taken stock of . But before we go into the details of what we found and what we make of it, let us briefly outline what degrowth is all about.

What degrowth is about

Degrowth is both an academic field of study and an activist movement. While it has gained traction largely because of the growing relevance of global climate crises, part of its origins lie in a field that historically had a different focus: namely in culturalist critiques of modernity, questioning Western narratives of progress, development and growth. 

Given its internal heterogeneity, the field is not easy to characterize. Internal debates about the precise meaning of the term “degrowth” – see, for example, this paper on “” and these – do not make this task any easier. Nevertheless, we may be on the safe side if we define degrowth as a scholarly and activist movement that is highly critical of the alleged dependence of global capitalism on economic growth and that aims at a radical transformation towards a more socially just and ecologically sustainable world economy, primarily by breaking the growth dependency of the current system.

Degrowth scholars regularly and rightly point out that many intellectual inspirations and key concepts originated with thinkers from the Global South, but the concept of degrowth as such is a Northern invention of the late 2000s, most commonly associated, in its inception, with the French philosopher Serge Latouche and his subsequent followers. Despite its intellectual origin in the North, the current degrowth discourse understands itself as a global project, explicitly concerned with addressing global injustice. This perspective is evidenced not only by the regular lip service paid to the decolonization of the South, but also by the many references in the literature to post-development contributions. But how exactly do degrowth scholars take into account the Global South?

What role does the Global South play in the academic degrowth discourse? A topical focus on synergies

In a , we conducted a systematic (quantitative and qualitative) review of the academic degrowth literature on the Global South. We wanted to find out: How do degrowth scholars themselves think and write about the relation between degrowth and the South? We identified 52 key publications on the topic, published between 2009 and 2022. The vast majority of these were written by authors affiliated with institutions in the Global North (more information on the methodology used can be found in the and the corresponding ).

Analyzing these publications with respect to the question “How does degrowth relate to the Global South?鈥� suggests the presence of two main narratives: one on synergies between degrowth and the South, and one on challenges. Publications following the synergies narrative emphasize the commonalities between Southern and Northern perspectives on degrowth. Papers following the challenges narrative remain mostly sympathetic to degrowth, but focus on challenges that emerge from thinking about degrowth and the Global South. Interestingly, more than two-thirds of the core papers follow the overall synergies narrative.

Going into further detail, we identified three sub-narratives for each of the two main narratives:

In practice, these sub-narratives were often mixed within single publications. For example, a paper classified following an overall challenges narrative might start with the observation that Southern movements and degrowth can be potential allies (i.e. a synergy argument), but that there is a danger of neocolonial agenda-setting that degrowth needs to deal with to a greater extent (see e.g. or paper).

Interestingly, more than two-thirds of the core papers follow the overall synergies narrative. Among these, the most common argument is that degrowth ideas originate in Southern thinking and can be inspired by Southern practices (see Figure 1). Postcolonial and post-development arguments are also regularly referred to, especially in the more recent papers, and the hope is expressed that if countries in the Global North were to implement degrowth policies, this would be an important step towards the decolonization of countries in the Global South.

This process of decolonizing the South through the implementation of degrowth policies in the North may be hindered, however, by structural dependencies between the South and the North, such as asymmetric trade relations, financial dependencies, or simply power hierarchies in the context of international organizations. This argument is the most frequent challenge mentioned in the current literature, yet we found more articles that raise this issue (e.g. or ) than articles that discuss potential solutions to it (e.g. ).

The twin problem of structural dependencies

In fact, these structural interdependencies play a complex role in the degrowth literature: Within the current institutional framework, they are both a motivation for and a potential obstacle to degrowth. On the one hand, the current distribution of economic activities is often to the detriment of countries in the South. The global division of labor tends to exacerbate inequalities and facilitates the externalization of social and environmental costs to countries in the global South (see, for example, ). Indeed, for many degrowth scholars this grim state of affairs is one of the main reasons why they subscribe to the degrowth program in the first place.

On the other hand, however, there is a flip side to this story that lies at the heart of the 鈥渢win problem鈥�: many people in the South are now dependent on the money flows that come from the North as payment for these products, just as they are often dependent on the provision of credit and remittances, the import of products and services for which countries in the South lack either the technological capacity or the patents, or access to currencies issued by countries in the global North.

These dependencies complicate the program of decolonizing the Global South by implementing degrowth in the Global North: attempting to eliminate unequal exchange relations by implementing degrowth in the North could, at least in the short term, create even greater calamities, at least without simultaneously addressing the structural problems at the global level. Thus, while degrowth scholars rightly argue that the existence of exploitative relationships to the detriment of the South should not be used as a fundamental argument against degrowth as such, the question of how exactly to overcome these dependencies in practice is an important one that degrowth scholars have not yet addressed sufficiently.

What is the right level to address the twin problem?

The twin problem relates to a rather fundamental question, not only for degrowth, but for all movements that aim to fundamentally change our socio-economic system: what is the appropriate political strategy to initiate the desired changes, and who are the relevant actors? Traditionally, degrowth shares with many initiatives from the post-development camp an appreciation of bottom-up and interstitial strategies, and a certain skepticism about top-down and state-centered approaches. And while the discourse on political strategy in the degrowth community as a whole has broadened, contributions around bottom-up resistance are currently much more elaborated than contributions around higher-level policy making, especially when it comes to the topic of “Degrowth and the Global South”. However, structural dependencies cannot be easily addressed 鈥� or even understood 鈥� with a sole focus on the local. In our article, we therefore suggest that degrowth scholars could benefit from taking a closer look at the contributions of other radical research programs, especially when it comes to the analytical understanding of the mechanisms underlying structural dependencies.

Inspirations on how to tackle the twin problem

The first contribution that comes to mind in this context is the work of the Marxist political economist Samir Amin on delinking (see also this blog post on Samir Amin’s continuing relevance), which is precisely about how Southern countries can become less dependent on global institutions and Northern countries. Delinking is not about autarky or deglobalization, but about strategies for Southern countries to become more autonomous and independent. This includes, but is not limited to, delineating their own development models (which may or may not include elements of Western development models), reorganizing their production systems, and building South-South cooperation that will allow them to become less dependent on global markets and financial flows (for more details, see, for example, ).

Beyond the issue of delinking, there are a number of strategies for addressing structural dependencies that heterodox economists and critical development scholars have been working on, such as the substitution of North-South trade relations with South-South trade relations (e.g. ), technology transfer to the South combined with sophisticated infant industry protection (e.g, ), the immediate consideration of an unequal distribution of technological capabilities (e.g., ) and persistent historical dependencies (e.g., ), the critical assessment of financial hierarchies (e.g., or ), or the implementation of “civilized trade institutions” on a global scale (e.g., ).

There is an important commonality in all these debates, and we believe that it is a commonality that degrowth scholars share with other radical scholars 鈥� even with those who might themselves be very skeptical of degrowth as such. Namely, the conviction that structures matter. Degrowth and other radical scholars might thus be united in their perspective that, in order to improve living conditions globally, institutional changes in both the North and the South are necessary. The network of global interdependencies makes unilateral change virtually impossible, and it is a great misfortune that the dominant paradigm in economics is particularly ill-suited to identify and critically discuss these structuralist dependencies (for more details see ).

Outlook

In all, we found a range of responses to the question that we asked in the beginning: How does degrowth, as a mainly Northern discourse, relate to the South? We showed that many degrowth contributions highlight the synergies between degrowth thinking and radical thought and action in the South. Moreover, degrowth in the North is often seen as a necessary step to decolonize economies in the Global South, since the current structures of growth-based global capitalism are largely beneficial to the North and detrimental to the South. Nonetheless, as some degrowth contributions have also started to point out: it is precisely because of these structures, that Northern degrowth might not have the desired effects of promoting global justice, at least in the short-term and at least not without radical institutional reforms of international systems of trade, finance, politics and law. How such radical institutional reforms might look like concretely, however, has not been discussed very concretely within the degrowth literature we reviewed. In our , we thus bring together a range of topics and methodologies from other fields of heterodox economics or global studies, which might yield fruitful perspectives if included into a degrowth research program. Only then, we argue, can degrowth effectively address both sides of the twin problem of structural dependency.

Birte Strunk is a PhD candidate in economics at the New School in New York City. Having previously studied economics and philosophy in Maastricht, London, and Vienna, she currently pursues research at the intersection of ecological economics and labor economics, with a focus on inequality and work hours. As part of her PhD, she spent a semester as a visiting research fellow at Harvard University, and she also currently pursues a Masters in philosophy at Fernuniversit盲t Hagen next to her PhD.  She has published on feminist ecological economics, degrowth and philosophy of (plural) economics.

Claudius Gr盲bner-Radkowitsch is Assistant Professor of Pluralist Economics at the Europa-Universit盲t Flensburg (Germany) and Research Associate at the Institute for the Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy (ICAE) of the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria). He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Bremen and has worked on comparative development dynamics in the European Union, the socio-economic implications of green transformations, the determinants and implications of technological change and economic complexity, as well as on the sociological and philosophical foundations of pluralism in the social sciences, including the relation between pluralism and decoloniality. Claudius鈥� X handle is @ClaudiusGrabner

Photo: Mike Langridge.

The current pandemic might temporarily slow down environmentally destructive economic growth. However, claiming that we are dying for sustainability is dangerous. The global sustainability crisis is not just driven by uneconomic growth but also increasing global inequality and social stratification.

Growthmania

Suggesting that  is tempting. Transnational oil corporations have halted production. Oil prices have tumbled. Plans for new oil explorations have been halted. Shale gas companies are folding up. Air travel has plummeted. So has road travel. Consequently, emission levels have dropped. Skies have cleared. Rare and remote species of animals appear to be back in sight. As recently demonstrated , some of this optimism is based on . Others can be questioned for comparing .

Still, humanity seems to have rediscovered its sacrosanct relationship with nature. The ramifications are wide-ranging. Some employers now recognise that work can be done from home. With so many virtual conferences now taking place, it appears that international travel is not so much needed. Maybe not so many people are needed either. Australian philosopher, Peter Singer,  of so many old people who are no longer productive. Perhaps the reduction in unsustainable population growth could also be welcome. A world that is small and serene has come.

Is this a plausible pathway to start the journey described in , first published in 1972?  suggests that whatever the pathway, we must have limits to growth. That is evidently the argument made by political economists such as Ezra Mishan who coined the name 鈥榞rowthmania鈥� in The Costs of Economic Growth, published about a decade before The Limits to Growth.

Growthmania has become even more problematic in recent times.From this perspective, , a major rapture like COVID-19, can disrupt the path of unsustainable growth. Humanity appears to be dying for sustainability.

Over the years, however, the critique of , suggests that . The current socioecological crises are . , as Herman Daly calls it, is only one of them.

Limits to Inequality

Inequality is, perhaps, even more fundamental to the sustainability crisis. For the Global South, addressing inequalities has been the central sustainability challenge. This point was echoed in the famous Brundtland Report which declared that 鈥淭his inequality is the planet鈥檚 main 鈥榚nvironmental鈥� problem鈥�. The report promoted 鈥榮ustainable development鈥� as an antidote. Yet, this idea was, in effect, sustainable economic growth. Such contradiction in ambitions can be seen in  as well.

Growthism has taken a strong resurgence. , consequently, blamed the pursuit of sustainable development as the primary reason. Not only has sustainable development come to erode, corrupt and dilute the lofty ideals of 鈥榣imits to growth鈥�; the argument goes, it has also expanded and justified more growthism. The catechists for growth have, accordingly, been enabled to hide behind the poorer world for their own gains. Consequently, 鈥榣imiting growth鈥� has become a major preoccupation of many environmentalists and activists.

Yet, the centrality of inequality  to socio-ecological crises needs to be .  ; not limitless growth. The rising movements around the world are, in fact, against the rise of the 1%, a shorthand for inequality. Thomas Piketty鈥檚 , which has had world-wide acclaim, is on inequality. The MeToo Movement and Black Lives Matter are both about addressing inequality. This demand is theoretically sound. Widely endorsed by , , and , considering the ramifications of Maintaining status is one way of fleshing it out. Analysing the tendencies for  Catch Up, and reflecting on the effects of monopolising Privilege (three crucial indicators of inequality) on the environment can offer even more clarity.

Consider Maintaining Status. Inequality fosters consumerism. The wealthy seek to maintain their status. Temptations to buy more and more set in. When the world is unequal, binge purchases and consumption sustain unsustainable volumes of production meant for the wealthy. At the national level, such processes are quite well-known, but similar comments apply to global inequalities too. Status shapes global consumerism. Among the wealthy countries of the world, there is a race to show position: whether it is spending more on arms, going to space, or building more transportation systems. This desire to succour the leisure class, as , is widespread. However, it is especially pronounced among the very rich countries and the middle-income ones. Yet, maintaining it is bad for the environment. When such a practice becomes rampant, it sets in motion problematic forces of mimicry.

That is one way to explain why catching up is related to maintaining status. So long as inequality persists, the concern among the middle-class and some poorer countries is to seek catching up as progress. Often though, this maintenance of privilege gives world development organisations, usually located in the same wealthy nations, the power to impose these standards on the poorer nations. Catching up becomes development. With this dynamic in place, opportunistic pressures to pollute to similar levels as the wealthy lend themselves. In this process, polluter pays arguments are transformed. They become Western payments for nature, carbon sinks drilled in the Global South apparently save the planet.

Yet, this transfer of land from the South to the North, disguised as a way to ensure 鈥榗atch up鈥�, is, in fact, another way of cementing the monopoly of privilege. Globally, absentee landlord states  and their transnational corporations continue to monopolise the land commons in the Global South. Not only do they control the global value chains and the global commodity chains, they also control the downstream transport and petroleum industries. They make decisions and influence world mineral pricing. They manipulate the demand, and supply of such resources. They transport fossil fuels over long distances. After refinement, they return the waste products to the South. Significant pollution and dispossession arise from this inequality of ownership and control. Increasing rentierism, absentee ownership, dispossession, and systemic environmental accidents arise. These processes attest to the environmental pandemic that arises from unequal property relations.

Within nations, the concentration of land in the hands of a few raises serious concerns. The resulting rent increases generates unsustainable national transformation. Rental increases . Land concentration also explains widespread insecurities. In turn, uncertainties drive . This trend is concerning. Not only does the building sector, dominated by a small powerful hierarchy of transnational corporations and absentee estate developers, generate 30 per cent of global annual emissions, it also consumes .

These inequalities have become more complex with time. So have the ecological crises. Both are . These socio-ecological problems, in turn, create . They tear communities apart. Broken, society cannot be sustainable. When farms are replaced with fences and fences with gates, where the desire for rent drives the pursuit of land, and when more and more land is concentrated in few hands, what is needed is not just sustainability; but a just sustainability.

Beyond Limits to Growth

 The emphasis on growthmania as the central and only problem of sustainability has brought us far, but it can take us no further. Continuing to insist on it prioritises environmental sustainability over social and economic sustainability. Growing inequality and social stratification undermine environmental sustainability. Ecological justice suffers. Placing limits on inequality and stratification is, therefore, . For holistic and fundamental transformation, what is needed is not just sustainability but a just sustainability.

If there is any useful analytical lesson from COVID-19, it is that our  need to be holistic and our analysis . Without these transdisciplinary approaches and transformation in , we risk overlooking just sustainabilities and reifying environmentalism.

Thus, if more research is needed on COVID-19, it should not only be on finding a vaccine and empirically ascertaining its effects on economic growth. Although important, what is urgent is research on sustainability and COVID-19 within the context of limits to inequality.

Franklin Obeng-Odoom leads  research theme. He teaches in , and he is the author of .

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Drs. Kaisa Korhonen-Kurki, Michiru Nagatsu, Jussi T. Eronen, and Andreas Exner for excellent feedback. Voices for Sustainability team deserve special thanks for their patience and constructive suggestions.

Photos by  from . This post was first published on the blog.

The newest book by Giorgos Kallis, one of the most prolific degrowth advocates is entitled Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care. It is a short and accessible read which contains some important and unconventional arguments. In what follows, I will first briefly summarize the core arguments of the book, which promises to provoke important discussions on the matter of limits and subjects. Then I will reflect on the fuzziness of the primarily cultural conceptualization of capitalism, and argue that neither self-limitation nor degrowth qualifies as a mode of production, such that they could constitute an alternative to capitalism.

Rereading Malthus: Limits or Scarcity?

The first chapter of Limits puts forth a rather unusual reading of Malthus. According to Kallis, Malthus was not a prophet of limits, but rather one of growth who simply 鈥渋nvoked the specter of limits to justify inequality and call for growth鈥� (p.16). Two premises put the engine of growth in motion: the principle of population (the notion that our ability to produce children is always greater than our ability to produce for survival) and the principle of scarcity which derives from the preceding principle (the idea that our numbers are great and wants are unlimited, and hence we are always constrained by scarcity).

Since a happy nation for Malthus is one where population grows, the suffering caused by scarcity is the necessity that mothers invention, which is the source of increases to productivity and growth. The theological premise that 鈥減opulating the earth at a geometric rate is what our nature, and God, call for […]鈥� is crucial for understanding that Malthus was not against population growth. He merely approached suffering as a 鈥渄ivine providence鈥�, a necessary price to be paid for growth. In other words, for Father Malthus, torment is the source of industriousness. Hence his political agenda to abolish all Poor Laws: 鈥淚nequality is inevitable, but it is not bad […] It is the motor of growth鈥� (p.20).

Based on this interpretation that distinguishes Malthus himself from neo-Malthusianism, Kallis formulates a critique of Malthus that is essentially different from the conventional one: 鈥淢althus was not wrong because he underestimated technology and growth鈥�, rather he 鈥渨as wrong because he did not want to entertain the idea that we could limit our numbers and be happy鈥� (p.25-6).

According to this reading, Malthus is not the founding father of limits to resources, but of unlimited subjects, namely homo economicus. Given the claim that Malthus鈥檚 greatest contribution to economic ideology is scarcity (and not limits), in the second chapter of his book Kallis reinterprets the relationship between Malthus and modern mainstream economic theory as not one of rupture, but rather of continuity.

For Kallis, neoclassical economics is Malthusian in essence insofar as it is founded on unlimited human wants (the assumption of nonsatiation) and universal scarcity. Limits of food in Malthus became limits of time in neoclassical economics, making the study of Robinson Crusoe鈥檚 isolated life on his island free of social relations and the concept of the opportunity cost the bedrock of microeconomic theory. Still, by relegating Malthus and his theory to the pre-history of modern economic theory, mainstream economic ideology tries to distinguish itself from Malthus, and the capitalist world of abundance from the pre-capitalist world of shortages and famines (p.41).

Limits as Self-Limitation

The Limits to Growth sort of environmentalism is also founded on an inverted logic that prioritizes growth, which would come to an end unless the environment is preserved. Hence, the best-case scenario is to be achieved by slowing down growth in a way that would allow the economy to carry the greatest number of people. The counterpart of this type of environmentalism in mainstream economics is thus reframing the question to an optimization problem within environmental scarcity constraints (p.44-47).

The common point that unites the Limits to Growth framework with the mainstream economic approach is the attribution of limits to an external space. The third chapter develops the crux of Kallis鈥檚 argument, his alternative conception of limits as arising from self-limitation. This means defining one鈥檚 own limits rather than limiting one鈥檚 self under given external constraints. This is a crucial step forward insofar as it politicizes the question of limits, escapes the fetters of socially blind quantification, and gives priority to the qualitative: 鈥淏y thinking of limits as something objective out there, we disguise that they are ultimately about us and our own wants, thereby reproducing the Malthusian view that nature doesn鈥檛 let us do everything we want to鈥� (p.60).

The 鈥榠nternalization鈥� of limits and its perception as primarily a political question has an immediate corollary: by which subjects and through what processes will limits be defined? Kallis is well aware that 鈥淸d]emocracy is at odds with capitalism鈥� because unlimited expansion is incontestable (p.55).

This is the point where the argument in the book (and, frankly, in the degrowth literature) starts to become elusive for me. According to Kallis, real autonomy is achieved by questioning the wants fueling the system that destroys the environment (p.59). I think a fundamental misconception of capitalism is at play here. The capitalist system is not driven by wants (or demand; also not by supply, or investment, for that matter), but rather by the pursuit of profit.聽聽

Does Culture Drive Growth?

First, the attribution of expansion under capitalism to wants rather than the relentless quest for profit on the part of capital bears the risk of turning the ecological problem into a moral question of taming our desires.

In fact, in the fourth chapter of the book, which is titled A Culture of Limits, Kallis contrasts today鈥檚 Western culture, fixed with 鈥渓imitless accumulation 鈥� of power and riches鈥� (p.77) with that of the ancient Greeks, supposedly a culture of limits, and avoidance of excess and hubris. The whole chapter reads as though the Western culture, its behavioral norms, and the prevalence of bad morals is driving us to the edge of the abyss. One yearns to ask the author for an explanation of the relations and mechanisms in and through which this so-called Western culture has evolved to what it is. Unless Kallis believes that Western culture is intrinsically destructive, it is worth exploring its embeddedness in the totality of social relations (including class society and production for profit) which make up capitalism as a mode of production. This is particularly evident in a time when 鈥榣imitless accumulation of power and riches鈥� has attained a universal character, irrefutably overriding cultural idiosyncrasies. The matter is not one of cultures (or clash thereof), but the essence of capital, namely accumulation.聽

Second, Kallis puts his finger on a vital question when he warns against the de-politicizing narrative based on the idea that an external threat, planetary crises, and so forth are threatening 鈥渁 collective us鈥� (p.63). The truth is that responsibility varies wildly across classes and country groups in a way that mimics the horizontal (geographic) and vertical (within country) inequalities and hierarchies specific to capitalism as a world system. From this, Kallis derives the following conclusion: real democracy is all about having a conversation on defining our own limits, what kind of a world we want to live in, and how we are going to construct it (p.64).聽

However, there is a clear dissonance between these two statements. Those with political and economic power not only contributed in an immensely disproportionate way to the cumulative damage inflicted to our ecology, but also benefited from it, while those with least responsibility and power bear the greatest risk.

Framing the problem solely as one of democracy disguises its class character. In the context of such a clash of interests, democracy in its bourgeois form, confined to the political sphere and deliberately kept away from the economic Holy Land enclosed by private property, would be of no help.

Kallis seems to be aware that we have to go beyond bourgeois democracy to make any progress. It is otherwise impossible to achieve the objectives discussed in depth in the degrowth literature, such as establishing an economic system that prioritizes well-being over accumulation, use values over exchange values, a controlled and coordinated shortening of the working day, or 鈥渁t times [鈥 not to develop what can be developed鈥� (p.73).

Is Degrowth a Mode of Production?

We have to be careful when setting the principles of the problem: capitalism is a mode of production that is primarily driven not by growth, but competition for profit where individual capitals are compelled to cut costs and increase scale. Growth is an outcome, not the motive of this process. And it has nothing to do with morals or personal intentions of capitalists who direct resources so as to make the highest possible profits and stay competitive.

When Kallis writes that 鈥済rowth is a particular need of capitalism 鈥� a system that requires a compounding of profits鈥� (p.36), he seems to be well aware of the systemic nature of this problem. Yet he keeps diverting to culture as the primary realm of struggle. In fact, the degrowth literature at large swings like a pendulum between these two takes: at times it focuses on structural limits pertaining to capitalism (that in fact make degrowth impossible), and at other times, it retreats to a moral critique.

The distinction between boundary (or, limit 鈥� Grenze) and barrier (Schranke) found in Marx鈥檚 Grundrisse and Capital is illuminating in this context. In the process of its expansion, capital turns every boundary into a barrier, an obstacle to be surmounted. This has two corollaries. First, capitalist growth cannot be questioned without challenging capitalism itself. Steady-state or degrowing capitalism is an oxymoron. Second, degrowth is not a substitute for capitalism, but rather a framework that aims to overturn only one constitutive element of the system.聽

The logical implication of advocating for an economic system that dispenses with the profit motive and accumulation, and puts instead well-being and use values to the center is to challenge the capitalist market economy. Only under social ownership of the means of production can we extend democracy to the realm where resources are allocated and limits are defined, what Kallis perceives as 鈥榬eal democracy鈥�. Yet the degrowth literature at large becomes timid before the task of confronting capitalism as a mode of production, instead it continuously problematizes its symptoms.

The final chapter of Limits discusses the limits of the book鈥檚 approach. Here, Kallis notes that self-limitation cannot be conceptualized as a narrow project of individual or small-group change 鈥� it must be a universal political ambition. As such, it requires the involvement of 鈥渢he working class and all those who live within limits that are not of their own choosing鈥� (p.102).聽

This is a crucial point since the question of the subject haunts one鈥檚 mind while reading the book. Who is to be addressed? Who could challenge the relentless expansion of capital and thereby the capitalist system in its totality? Workers and capitalists have different perceptions of their selves, have different tools and powers at their disposal, and employ substantially different capacities when it comes to defining limits. And, above all, they have different interests!

Recognizing this fissure means to admit the contentious nature of the matter, and undermines the idea of the limitation of a universal self. If we take carbon emissions as an example, it is absurd to talk about the capacity for and necessity of self-limitation for a considerable portion of the global population who barely consume and emit anything. From this viewpoint, it is not a matter of collective self-limitation, but primarily the dethroning and limitation of those with political and economic power. Hence, an undifferentiated, abstract 鈥榳e鈥� cannot assume the role of the subject of this change, but the exploited and oppressed. A radical change in the human-environment relationship is not likely to occur without a concurrent change in the human-human relationship.

A final word on degrowth itself: I totally agree that questioning capitalist growth is vital today to expose its destructive character as well as the fact that it comes at the expense of working people鈥檚 living standards. Moreover, a planned and coordinated degrowth of energy consumption (and output) in advanced countries in the short-to-medium-term is necessary at least to avoid runaway climate change. Yet, this is not to say that degrowth should be applied to all spheres of the economy as well as all social classes even in advanced countries. An increase in the living standards of the poor and working classes through expanded provision and decommodification of essential goods and services is the best way for political mobilization to beat back the expansion of capital in the immediate short-run.

We need not lock ourselves into the false dichotomy of 鈥榞rowth vs. degrowth鈥� where subjectivities, and the social and material content are barely perceptible. Once degrowth is institutionalized, it can easily become as socially blind as capitalist growth. Kallis himself seems to sense this when he, inspired by Le Guin鈥檚 The Dispossessed, mentions the risk associated with permanently renewing an initial commitment (p.112).

Hence, what is at stake is not replacing the straitjacket of growth (of capital) with that of degrowth, but abolishing the social relation of capital, turning the issues of 鈥済rowth/degrowth of what?鈥�, 鈥渁t what cost?鈥�, 鈥渦nder which circumstances?鈥� into political questions. Avoiding ecological collapse is more closely linked to the emancipation of the working classes than it appears.

G眉ney I艧谋kara is a a Clinical Assistant Professor in Liberal Studies at New York University.