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Is degrowth possible under capitalism?
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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Degrowth
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How would you envision capitalism without consumerism ? I fail to see how capitalism would work without mass consumption.
If I may enter the discussion. I think it's very very hard but may be possible. Let's say people only buy new things when it's something they need and the things itself should work for a long time, like generations. It reduces consumerism, things would only be replaced if something greatly superior appeared. Some things would still be bought so there is still some capitalism but wouldnt be focused on mindless spending in junk. Things would be more expensive but overall we'd have better things.
You are describing market economy, not capitalism.
Fair enough. Degrowth from capitalism to market economy is more of an obtainable goal
Maybe if everyone had access to roughly the same wealth, market economy could be a good method of balancing economy ?
Yes but it's tough to imagine a path to that.
True. But there has been experiments, especially around melting currencies (is that the correct English name ?).
A recent example (in French, but I guess automatic translators are good enough now ?) : https://monnaie-libre.fr/
Thank you for that, I wasn't aware that was a thing! I'll bookmark that to read later as it seems a bit long! I didn't even know melting currencies were a thing
Such is the power of economic orthodoxy - to trick you into thinking there is no alternative, that economic laws are laws of nature when they are "only" social constructions ...
Capitalism is the question of whom possess the means of production. Consumerism is a lot more than that, it is an ideal for people to find happiness in the accumulation of goods.
Capitalism is a organisation of society. Consumerism is the purpose of this society. You have a different purpose. The fascist purpose is different for example, although not incompatible with consumerism.
Consumerism is particular with capitalism though because it happens naturally. Capitalism doesn't hold any purpose by itself, but the people who established it were driven by greed. The accumulation of wealth was their ideology. And capitalism is a very good way for that. Which is why it is easy to see them intertwined. But they are both independent IMO.
Not sure I agree with everything, let me rephrase this.
The way I see it, capitalism is a way of organizing an economic system that is based on accumulation of wealth (capital). Instead of sitting idle, capital is injected back into the economy through investment, with the promise of a juicy return on investment (and also, it gives power to those who own capital for they decide who gets investment).
For this juicy ROI to be possible, economic growth is a necessity - you can't give back more to your lenders if what you did with the investment didn't generate more value than the investment itself. So economic growth is at the very heart of capitalism.
When the market comes to a saturation point, growth starts to slow down. So you have two options:
In the end, I don't see consumerism as an ideal for a society, but rather the logical consequence of an economic system reified as an ideal. It doesn't mean something similar couldn't exist in another economic model, but I don't think it can be separated from capitalism.
Ok, here a clearer explanation : a saturated market is a good example of capitalism without actual growth. Let's say you have 3 capitalists on a saturated market. The market will not grow, because it's saturated, so they will, in turn, increase their share of the market at the expanse of the other. That's what happens for example with graphic cards.
Capitalism doesn't need growth, as long as someone can lose wealth, someone else can benefit from the loss. Growth merely helps to have less losers if the growth is shared (which doesn't happens naturally). That's why I was describing growth as an illusion for people to believe in capitalism. Capitalism doesn't need growth, growth only allow less losers. But growth doesn't fix anything about capitalism, and you need consumerism to fuel it, which in turns destroy the planet.
I see what you mean, but I think it's true up to a certain point. Without growth, wealth concentration converges to a point where one actor owns everything. This is the perfect recipe for political instability and systemic failure.
It is to some extent. Unrest or even revolutions don't necessarily end capitalism. It rarely does actually.
IMO capitalism is inherently unstable. Capitalism cannot gracefully adapt to unexpected shocks (it will cause economic troubles, many people will have their lives ruined and many will profit from thee chaos), and it causes it's own crisis on a regular basis. I once saw a paper that was arguing that crisis were normal capitalist regime, because since the 19th century there were more periods of crisis than periods of stable growth.