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2024-09-15
Finished listening to the audiobook a couple days ago. The first 90% or so was fantastic. Hickel explores a central paradox of the capitalist economy: dependent as it is on near-constant growth, it also depends on creating perennial scarcity in order to reproduce its own conditions. Put another way: universal freedom and abundance - the things we're often told will come about because of capitalism - are not in fact possible under capitalism, because in the absence of artificial scarcity, capitalism cannot function. On the other hand, he argues, a degrowth economy represents a path to human flourishing and abundance, while reducing our ecological impact to a level that doesn't exceed planetary boundaries - in other words, to a level that's within Earth's capability to absorb/regenerate.
Hickel also spends a good amount of time addressing questions of justice and responsibility when it comes to addressing the climate crisis we're in. Granted, I'm relatively new to degrowth, so I won't pretend to be aware of a *lot* of critiques, but Hickel makes sure to show how degrowth can be achieved in ways that are compatible with (and indeed can be a boon to) things like the labour movement, and decolonization, for example.
From my perspective, it's a wonderful vision and his overall argument seems solid. This is a worthwhile read/listen, and recommend that people do so.
It was just the last section that I couldn't find a way to get on board with. Partly because it felt like an unnecessary veering off into philosophical idealism, and mostly because I'd already heard a pretty convincing critique of similar formulations of the "rights of nature"; for example, the idea of conferring something like personhood status - almost a kind of human rights, maybe - onto a river or forest. Now, obviously I don't think we should go around pouring pollutants into creeks, or razing old growth to build highways willy nilly. Strong environmental protections are a must. But I do end up siding with what Žižek has put forward on this point: there's something dishonest, and presumptuous, to claim that we can, say, 'represent' a river in a court of law. In fact, by pretending that we can speak on behalf of an ecosystem, we're not only reinforcing the underlying idea that we know what's best for the river, we're doing so precisely with the pretense of *not* elevating ourselves to that position of authority - after all, we're simply explaining things from the river's perspective!
It's tough, because it's something that sounds noble, and I broadly agree with the sentiment. But here's the thing. Sohei Kaito, in 'Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth' shows how Marxism, especially in light of Marx's later writings, is not simply 'capitalism without capitalists', does not require eternally increasing production, and is in fact consistent with a degrowth economics. It's an excellent synthesis. Meanwhile, in this final section of his otherwise brilliant book, Hickel seems to undercut his message (to be fair, only slightly!) by suggesting that our response to a culture of dominion over nature should be to claim to speak on nature's behalf. Which, in a way, feels more like the other side of the same coin, rather than a radically new way to relate to the ecological systems we are part of.
At any rate, in the end I'm actually glad Hickel had this part in his book, because otherwise I might not have been tempted to write about 'Less Is More', and (hopefully!) introduce it to someone who might not otherwise read it.