Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

Research in degrowth has provided a detailed analysis of the social injustices and ecological unsustainability of a capitalist mode of production predicated on everlasting economic growth. It has also put forward a robust set of policy proposals that could allow us all to live well within planetary boundaries. The politics of a degrowth transition from global capitalism to a pluriverse of alternatives have received far less attention, however. To date, most of the scholarship on strategy for degrowth espouses a multiplicity of approaches described by Wright’s modes of transformation. While this framework situates degrowth within anticapitalist struggles, it fails to provide a clear direction for action. Here, I argue that this strategic indeterminacy results from a failure to acknowledge divergent political tendencies within the degrowth movement. I review the literature on strategy for degrowth as it pertains to state power and a collective agent of change. Many policies for degrowth assume their implementation by a state, but much of the movement’s political orientation follow anarchist positions that reject the use of state power. Despite relying on Marxist theories of the state (Gramsci, Poulantzas) and Marxist strategy (Wright), most strategy for degrowth does not align with Marxist thinking, particularly as pertains to the position of workers as an agent of change. The recognition of divergent political tendencies does not preclude a multiplicity of strategies for degrowth; instead, it creates the theoretical space to develop these strategies, and to catapult degrowth from theory to practice.

Info

Day: 2023-09-01
Start time: 12:30
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-8-3
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Degrowth as a political project?

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