Degrowth Communism

Oh… did I just scared you? or made this blog post repellent to you? Two words that scream disgust to the most of westerners.

On one side the word “degrowth” which you will immediately translate as impoverishment, being poor, barely meeting ends, etc.. On the other side, the word “communism” which of course you will equalise with Soviet Union.

Sorry to break you readers, neither degrowth has any thing to do with a state of barely surviving (quite the opposite), nor Soviet Union was a communist country (in fact it was dictatorship marketed as communism, Karl Marx is probably rolling in his grave).

Degrowth communism is movement/approach/philosophy/methodology/… focused on saving our planet. I personally learnt about degrowth communism by bumping and then reading the book “SLOW DOWN – How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth” by Kohei Saito.

Without disclosing you too much details from the book I will pick up a few ideas seemingly random to go with the follow of the blog overall idea (i.e., randomness, seemingly wisdom, etc.).

The most prominent is that we need to destroy capitalism, as otherwise capitalism is going to destroy us. I do not think this is news to you, as any rational being (minus economists) are aware that the infinite growth with finite resources is IMPOSSIBLE. Green capitalism (aka green industry), encapsulated in ideas and movements such as Green New Deal, UNs SDGs, etc. is nothing more than greenwashing or buying oldschool catholic indulgences to repent for our everlasting lust for more and chase for perpetual growth. Just to remind you one more time, perpetual growth is not possible, except for human stupidity which does not know limits.

I am aware that for Global North to sustain its imperial mode of living it needs to lower the standard of living for those in the Global South. Global North gets resources from Global South by plundering them and additionally exploiting people of Global South, robbing them from dignity (picture of workers in India wearing cameras on the forehead to train AI comes in mind). Kohei Saito goes really deep in analysing this imbalance. For those who are more aware of this imbalance, unfortunately buying organic cotton t-shirt, reusable bag, termos mug, etc. will not cut it.

What is new to me are the later Marx writings, made in his last years, where he shifted from Eurocentrism and embracing nature, which Kohei goes in great many details and on which he builds theory of Degrowth Communism.

You might ask by now what the heck is this? Kohei puts in front of us 4 possible scenarios for our near future:

1. Climate Maoism (read China approach to solving issues)
2. Climate Fasism (read Elon Musk and his friends fucking up planet and eventually rushing to their bunkers in New Zealand but first taking ABS everything from us)
3. Barbarism (that is when we finally find where their bunkers are and … well figure it out yourself what comes next)
4. Degrowth Communism (the brightest future we can imagine)

Degrowth Communism consists of 5 pillars:

1. Transition to a value-based economy: produce only necessary things critical for us to thrive (not crappy gen AI models) while practising self-restraint (use minimum what you need not more than necessary, you can start this today, you will def. lose weight as bonus)
2. Shortening work hours: when you work less, you do not produce more than needed, we break from being wage-slaves, we spend time helping others, building communities, etc
3. Abolish the uniform division of labour: rotating roles, we exit from restricted standardized forms of working, we learn about entirety. Workers engage in wide variety of tasks and activity.
4. Democratizing the production process: use of open technologies (not frontier closedAI solution comes in mind), social ownership (e.g., co-ops) to managed democratically production as a form of commons.
5. Prioritize essential work: if the above four pillars are put in place, we can terminate so-called bullshit jobs (e.g. marketing) and focus on what is essential such as care for elderly, food production, recycling, etc.

Finally key take away is that it takes only 3.5% of us to join the movement for the actual change to take place. Remember 99% are collateral of 1% of super-rich. It is us and our indifference which allowed them to exploit us and our planet, and we need to fight back.

Read the book… and join me, we have a lot to do!

P.S. I am not planning to edit my writing. I am embracing Jack Kerouac style known as a spontaneous prose.