The degrowth movement proposes a radical reappraisal of the global economy to reduce environmental degradation and reduce social inequality. It has grown greatly over the past decade, and Slow Down is just one of many books to address it \u2013 in its original 2020 Japanese edition, it reportedly sold half-a-million copies. What a pity that it is unconvincing.<\/p>\n
For Saito, a young philosopher, the way to successfully bring about degrowth is simple: \u2018\u2026 we must choose communism. We must overcome our reflex to rely on experts and the state and proceed down the path to self-governance and mutual aid,\u2019 he writes.<\/p>\n
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Overthrowing democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n Saito believes he can already see a \u2018groundswell\u2019 in the American city of Detroit, for instance, with the cultivation of \u2018fruit and vegetables in the streets\u2019. The revolution has begun with urban organic farming, we are told, and will overthrow democracy, which, we learn, is not long for this world. He writes: \u2018In this, [Thomas] Piketty and I are in total agreement\u2019. This may be news to the French economist Piketty.<\/p>\n Long before this passage, however, Saito exhibits delusions of grandeur. In spelling out how his vision of degrowth might become real, the book begins: \u2018I intend to excavate and build upon a completely new, previously unexplored facet of [Karl] Marx\u2019s thought that has been lying dormant for the past 150 years\u2019.<\/p>\n Saito lambasts a number of thinkers for misunderstanding Marx. Even Engels is scolded for overediting him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n In doing so, Saito lambasts a number of thinkers and writers for misunderstanding Marx: the British geographer David Harvey; the co-founder of Novara Media Aaron Bastani; the late French philosopher and sociologist Bruno Latour; the University of California sociologist Kevin Anderson \u2013 they all get it in the neck. Even Friedrich Engels is scolded for over-editing Marx.<\/p>\n Each, it would seem, falls short of Saito himself who, in Slow Down<\/em>, completes what Marx \u2018\u2026 started in Capital by fully theorizing what degrowth communism might look like, creating a major new analysis adequate to this new age\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How austerity generates growth<\/strong><\/p>\n Useful work on degrowth is mentioned, such as the writing of Jason Hickel, author of Less is More<\/em>. Hickel\u2019s explanation is that austerity generates growth by causing scarcity, whereas degrowth would require the provision of an abundance which, in Hickel\u2019s words, would \u2018render growth unnecessary\u2019.<\/p>\n Slow Down<\/em> also has effective lines on climate change, which itself produces scarcity: \u2018Climate change renders water, farmland and habitation scarce. As this scarcity rises, demand rises too, until it surpasses supply and provides a prime opportunity for capitalists to reap huge profits,\u2019 writes Saito.<\/p>\n The book\u2019s framing of the \u201899 per cent\u2019 and the \u20181 per cent\u2019 is problematic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n As to how we get what we need, the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers of 1844 is mentioned, but not how co-operative movements could scale up sufficiently. Spain\u2019s Mondragon Corporation is the world leader in the co-operative movement, but is omitted \u2013 highlighting its success might imply that there is an existing alternative to Saito\u2019s global vision.<\/p>\n Other problems blight Saito\u2019s recipe for a new world order, not least his framing of the \u201899 per cent\u2019 and the \u20181 per cent\u2019. First, the 99 per cent that he describes are not as one. Instead, they range from the poorest souls on Earth to those who are within a whisker of being in the top 1 per cent of the income or wealth distribution.<\/p>\n Second, hardly any of the 1 per cent are the super-rich elite. On a global scale they are likely to include many people that the western readers of this article may know. Nor is it true that, should global warming melt more of the Antarctic ice sheets, the number of people who \u2018\u2026 have to evacuate their current home [will be] in the hundreds of millions\u2019. Climate change will probably allow for regrettable but managed relocation, not mass sudden evacuation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Falsifying the reality of communism<\/strong><\/p>\n Saito\u2019s writing also suffers from its reliance on the thinking of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj \u017di\u017eek. He unquestioningly adopts \u017di\u017eek\u2019s definition that \u2018communism is nothing less than the conscious attempt to reconstruct the commons \u2013 knowledge, nature, human rights, society \u2013 dismantled by capitalism\u2019.<\/p>\n By doing so, Saito may suffer from what the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman said was \u017di\u017eek\u2019s falsifying of the reality of communism. \u2018I am amazed (and angered!) by the widespread tendency to consider \u017di\u017eek a left-wing person,\u2019 Bauman wrote in his final publication.<\/p>\n As an alternative to the erratic Slow Down, try Hickel\u2019s Less is More<\/em> or indeed Bauman\u2019s final book My Life in Fragments<\/em> if you want an understanding of where degrowth might be heading and how hard it is to get there.<\/p>\n
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