De-Growth

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Contents  [hide]  1 Definition 2 Characteristics 3 Discussion 3.1 The Emergence of the Degrowth Movement 3.2 Degrowth and Capitalism 3.3 Historical Sources 3.4 Replacing Degrowth with Altergrowth 4 More Information

Definition

"Degrowth is a call for a radical break from traditional growth-based models of society, no matter if these models are "left" or "right", to invent new ways of living together in a true democracy, respectful of the values of equality and freedom, based on sharing and cooperation, and with sufficiently moderate consumption so as to be sustainable." (http://bollier.org/blog/what-does-degrowth-look)

Characteristics

David Bollier:
"Degrowth is frequently misunderstood, so it is worth reviewing a short piece that Yves-Marie Abraham wrote to clarify the meaning of degrowth as a economic vision." [1]

Yves-Marie Abraham:

• This [degrowth] is not an economic depression, nor a recession, but a decline in the importance of the economy itself in our lives and our societies.

• This is not the decline of GDP, but the end of GDP and all other quantitative measures used as indicators of well being.

• This is not a decline in population size, but a questioning of humanity's self-destructive lifestyle.

• This is not a step backwards, but an invitation to step aside, out of the race in pursuit of excessiveness.

• This is not nostalgia for some golden age, but an unprecedented project to invent creative ways of living together.

• This is not degrowth imposed by the depletion of the biosphere's resources, but a voluntary degrowth, to live better here and now, preserving the conditions necessary for the long-term survival of humanity.

• This is not an end in itself, but a necessary step in the search for models depicting free societies, liberated from the dogma of growth.

• This is not a project of voluntary deprivation and impoverishment, but an attempt to find a “better life,” based on simplicity, restraint, and sharing.

• This is not “sustainable development,” but a rejection of capitalism, no matter if it is “green” or “socially just,” and no matter if it has State-run or private enterprises.

• This is not ecofascism, but a call for a democratic revolution to end our productivist-consumerist model of society.

• This is not voluntary simplicity, but a revolutionary political project that implies the adoption of the principles of voluntary simplicity on the individual level.

• This is not is not an "anti-modern" movement, but a "neo-modern" movement, based on respect for the values of freedom and equality."

(http://montreal.degrowth.org/aboutdegrowth.html)

Discussion

The Emergence of the Degrowth Movement

John Bellamy Foster:
"Almost four decades after the Club of Rome raised the issue of ‘the limits to growth’, the economic growth idol of modern society is again facing a formidable challenge. What is known as ‘degrowth economics’, associated with the work of Serge Latouche in particular, emerged as a major European intellectual movement with the historic conference on ‘economic de-growth for ecological sustainability and social equity’ in Paris in 2008, and has since inspired a revival of radical green thought, as epitomised by the ‘Degrowth Declaration’ in Barcelona in 2010.
Ironically, the meteoric rise of degrowth (décroissance in French) as a concept has coincided over the last three years with the reappearance of economic crisis and stagnation on a scale not seen since the 1930s. The degrowth concept therefore forces us to confront the question of whether degrowth is feasible in a capitalist grow-or-die society – and if not, what it says about the transition to a new society.
According to the website of the European degrowth project (www.degrowth.eu), ‘Degrowth carries the idea of a voluntary reduction of the size of the economic system, which implies a reduction of the GDP.’ ‘Voluntary’ here points to the emphasis on voluntaristic solutions – though not as individualistic and unplanned in the European conception as the ‘voluntary simplicity’ movement in the US, where individuals (usually well-to-do) simply choose to opt out of the high-consumption market model. For Latouche the concept of degrowth signifies a major social change: a radical shift from growth as the main objective of the modern economy, towards its opposite (contraction, downshifting).
...
Degrowth as such is not viewed, even by its proponents, as a stable solution, but one aimed at reducing the size of the economy to a level of output that can be maintained at a steady-state perpetually. This might mean shrinking the rich economies by as much a third from today’s levels by a process that would amount to negative investment (since not only would net investment cease but also not all worn-out capital stock would be replaced).
A steady-state economy, in contrast, would carry out replacement investment but would stop short of new net investment. As Daly defines it ‘a steady-state economy’ is ‘an economy with constant stocks of people and artefacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by low rates of maintenance “throughput” – that, is, by the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy’." (http://www.redpepper.org.uk/degrow-or-die/)

Degrowth and Capitalism

John Bellamy Foster:
1.
"What is known as “degrowth economics,” associated with the work of Serge Latouche in particular, emerged as a major European intellectual movement in 2008 with the historic conference in Paris on “Economic De-Growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity,” and has since inspired a revival of radical Green thought, as epitomized by the 2010 “Degrowth Declaration” in Barcelona.
Ironically, the meteoric rise of degrowth (décroissance in French) as a concept has coincided over the last three years with the reappearance of economic crisis and stagnation on a scale not seen since the 1930s. The degrowth concept therefore forces us to confront the questions: Is degrowth feasible in a capitalist grow-or-die society—and if not, what does this say about the transition to a new society?
According to the Web site of the European degrowth project, “degrowth carries the idea of a voluntary reduction of the size of the economic system which implies a reduction of the GDP.”4 “Voluntary” here points to the emphasis on voluntaristic solutions—though not as individualistic and unplanned in the European conception as the “voluntary simplicity” movement in the United States, where individuals (usually well-to-do) simply choose to opt out of the high-consumption market model. For Latouche, the concept of “degrowth” signifies a major social change: a radical shift from growth as the main objective of the modern economy, toward its opposite (contraction, downshifting).
An underlying premise of this movement is that, in the face of a planetary ecological emergency, the promise of green technology has proven false. This can be attributed to the Jevons Paradox, according to which greater efficiency in the use of energy and resources leads not to conservation but to greater economic growth, and hence more pressure on the environment.5 The unavoidable conclusion—associated with a wide variety of political-economic and environmental thinkers, not just those connected directly to the European degrowth project—is that there needs to be a drastic alteration in the economic trends operative since the Industrial Revolution. As Marxist economist Paul Sweezy put it more than two decades ago: “Since there is no way to increase the capacity of the environment to bear the [economic and population] burdens placed on it, it follows that the adjustment must come entirely from the other side of the equation. And since the disequilibrium has already reached dangerous proportions, it also follows that what is essential for success is a reversal, not merely a slowing down, of the underlying trends of the last few centuries.”6
Given that wealthy countries are already characterized by ecological overshoot, it is becoming more and more apparent that there is indeed no alternative, as Sweezy emphasized, but a reversal in the demands placed on the environment by the economy. This is consistent with the argument of ecological economist Herman Daly, who has long insisted on the need for a steady-state economy. Daly traces this perspective to John Stuart Mill’s famous discussion of the “stationary state” in his Principles of Political Economy, which argued that if economic expansion was to level off (as the classical economists expected), the economic goal of society could then shift to the qualitative aspects of existence, rather than mere quantitative expansion.
A century after Mill, Lewis Mumford insisted in his Condition of Man, first published in 1944, that not only was a stationary state in Mill’s sense ecologically necessary, but that it should also be linked to a concept of “basic communism…[that] applies to the whole community the standards of the household,” distributing “benefits according to need” (a view that drew upon Marx).
Today this recognition of the need to bring economic growth in overdeveloped economies to a halt, and even to shrink these economies, is seen as rooted theoretically in Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which established the basis of modern ecological economics.7
Degrowth as such is not viewed, even by its proponents, as a stable solution, but one aimed at reducing the size of the economy to a level of output that can be maintained perpetually at a steady-state. This might mean shrinking the rich economies by as much as a third from today’s levels by a process that would amount to negative investment (since not only would new net investment cease but also only some, not all, worn-out capital stock would be replaced). A steady-state economy, in contrast, would carry out replacement investment but would stop short of new net investment. As Daly defines it, “a steady-state economy” is “an economy with constant stocks of people and artifacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by low rates of maintenance ‘throughput,’ that is, by the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy.”8
Needless to say, none of this would come easily, given today’s capitalist economy. In particular, Latouche’s work, which can be viewed as exemplary of the European degrowth project, is beset with contradictions, resulting not from the concept of degrowth per se, but from his attempt to skirt the question of capitalism."

2.
"Latouche tries to draw a distinction between the degrowth project and the socialist critique of capitalism by: (1) declaring that “eco-compatible capitalism is conceivable” at least in theory; (2) suggesting that Keynesian and so-called “Fordist” approaches to regulation, associated with social democracy, could—if still feasible—tame capitalism, pushing it down “the virtuous path of eco-capitalism”; and (3) insisting that degrowth is not aimed at breaking the dialectic of capital-wage labor or interfering with private ownership of the means of production. In other writings, Latouche makes it clear that he sees the degrowth project as compatible with continued valorization (i.e., augmentation of capitalist value relations) and that anything approaching substantive equality is considered beyond reach.
What Latouche advocates most explicitly in relation to the environmental problem is the adoption of what he refers to as “reformist measures, whose principles [of welfare economics] were outlined in the early 20th century by the liberal economist Arthur Cecil Pigou [and] would bring about a revolution” by internalizing the environmental externalities of the capitalist economy.11 Ironically, this stance is identical with that of neoclassical environmental economics—while distinguished from the more radical critique often promoted by ecological economics, where the notion that environmental costs can simply be internalized within the present-day capitalist economy is sharply attacked."

3.
"The notion that degrowth as a concept can be applied in essentially the same way both to the wealthy countries of the center and the poor countries of the periphery represents a category mistake resulting from the crude imposition of an abstraction (degrowth) on a context in which it is essentially meaningless, e.g., Haiti, Mali, or even, in many ways, India. The real problem in the global periphery is overcoming imperial linkages, transforming the existing mode of production, and creating sustainable-egalitarian productive possibilities. It is clear that many countries in the South with very low per capita incomes cannot afford degrowth but could use a kind of sustainable development, directed at real needs such as access to water, food, health care, education, etc. This requires a radical shift in social structure away from the relations of production of capitalism/imperialism. It is telling that in Latouche’s widely circulated articles there is virtually no mention of those countries, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, where concrete struggles are being waged to shift social priorities from profit to social needs. Cuba, as the Living Planet Report has indicated, is the only country on Earth with high human development and a sustainable ecological footprint.20
It is undeniable today that economic growth is the main driver of planetary ecological degradation. But to pin one’s whole analysis on overturning an abstract “growth society” is to lose all historical perspective and discard centuries of social science. As valuable as the degrowth concept is in an ecological sense, it can only take on genuine meaning as part of a critique of capital accumulation and part of the transition to a sustainable, egalitarian, communal order; one in which the associated producers govern the metabolic relation between nature and society in the interest of successive generations and the earth itself (socialism/communism as Marx defined it).21 What is needed is a “co-revolutionary movement,” to adopt David Harvey’s pregnant term, that will bring together the traditional working-class critique of capital, the critique of imperialism, the critiques of patriarchy and racism, and the critique of ecologically destructive growth (along with their respective mass movements).
In the generalized crisis of our times, such an overarching, co-revolutionary movement is conceivable. Here, the object would be the creation of a new order in which the valorization of capital would no longer govern society. “Socialism is useful,” E.F. Schumacher wrote in Small is Beautiful, precisely because of “the possibility it creates for the overcoming of the religion of economics,” that is, “the modern trend towards total quantification at the expense of the appreciation of qualitative differences.”
In a sustainable order, people in the wealthier economies (especially those in the upper income strata) would have to learn to live on “less” in commodity terms in order to lower per capita demands on the environment. At the same time, the satisfaction of genuine human needs and the requirements of ecological sustainability could become the constitutive principles of a new, more communal order aimed at human reciprocity, allowing for qualitative improvement, even plenitude.24 Such a strategy—not dominated by blind productivism—is consistent with providing people with worthwhile work. The ecological struggle, understood in these terms, must aim not merely for degrowth in the abstract but more concretely for deaccumulation—a transition away from a system geared to the accumulation of capital without end. In its place we need to construct a new co-revolutionary society, dedicated to the common needs of humanity and the earth." (http://monthlyreview.org/110101foster.php(

Historical Sources

John Bellamy Foster:
"Given that wealthy countries are already characterised by ecological overshoot, it is becoming more and more apparent there is indeed no alternative, as Sweezy emphasised, to a reversal in the demands placed on the environment by the economy. This is consistent with the argument of ecological economist Herman Daly, who has long insisted on the need for a steady-state economy. Daly traces this perspective to John Stuart Mill’s famous discussion of the ‘stationary state’ in his Principles of Political Economy, which argued that if economic expansion was to level off (as the classical economists expected), the economic goal of society could then be shifted to the qualitative aspects of existence, rather than mere quantitative expansion.
A century after Mill, Lewis Mumford insisted in his Condition of Man, first published in 1944, that not only was a stationary state in Mill’s sense ecologically necessary, but that it should be linked to a concept of ‘basic communism . . . applying to the whole community the standards of the household’ and distributing ‘benefits according to need’ (a view that drew upon Marx).
Today this recognition of the need to bring economic growth in the overdeveloped economies to a halt, and even to shrink these economies, is seen as rooted theoretically in Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which established the basis of modern ecological economics.
What is known as ‘degrowth economics’, associated with the work of Serge Latouche in particular, emerged as a major European intellectual movement with the historic conference on ‘economic de-growth for ecological sustainability and social equity’ in Paris in 2008, and has since inspired a revival of radical green thought, as epitomised by the ‘Degrowth Declaration’ in Barcelona in 2010." (http://www.redpepper.org.uk/degrow-or-die/)

Replacing Degrowth with Altergrowth

Audun:
"t I was thinking a bit about degrowth and what it implies. This might have been discussed to death other places, or on this list before I joined it, but I'll post it anyway. This isn't a deep analysis, it's just some random thougths I got after reading this list and related things. While it seems rather clear that it is impossible to do anything about climate change or resource depletion without a degrowth strategy, degrowth doesn't sound like the recipe you'd expect in the face of an economic crisis. Saying "you need to consume less" to someone who just lost their job... that's not how you win their hearts and minds, but that's what degrowth sounds like. Wouldn't it be better to talk about a positive counterstrategy. We're taugth to think that "growth is good", arguing against that is difficult. People want "growth", because growth is what puts food one the table (as we do grow food). Also degrowth says a lot about what we're against, but not so much about what we want. It is kind of similar to the semantic discussion about the "anti-globalisation" movement. A global movement against globalisation was kind of counter-intuitive, so we started to talk about "alter-globalisation" instead. So one could change from the anti-growth "degrowth" to the more positive "alter-growth"? Altergrowth implies that the current growth regime isn't working, but that it is possible to develop alternatives. Of course, to some degrowth'ers it might be bad to talk about growth as anything good at all (?), but I think it is difficult to challenge capitalism if we don't plan to transcend it. We can't create any post-capitalist world without changing our whole system of production. A post-capitalist world must be something more than a return to "simpler ways of living" which is what we get with a post-apocalyptic world. Struggles against capitalism must aim for more than destroying the institutions of capitalism, it must create new institutions that are better. If the new institutions aren't better, why replace the ones we have. Communism and socialism was popular in the 20th century because it promised something better than capitalism, capitalism (the West) won against the communists (the East) because it delivered something better. An anti-capitalist strategy must go beyond capitalism on the level of production, not only oppose it with idealism and promises of utopias. New institutions need to grow economically/socially/politically/ecologically if they are to replace capitalism, (i.e. "seeds need to grow") hence altergrowth. While degrowth/altergrowth may imply alot of things, I think that one important aspect of an anti-capitalist strategy is commonism (http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-1/commonism/). The commons as an alternative to both markets and state opens the way for actual new institutions of production that go beyond capitalism, in other words altergrowth is common growth. I think talking about common growth opens up some spaces strategically and tactically. At least it allows us to say "we'll manage if we stick together; come on lets build something new" to someone who just lost their job. All slogans and semantics so far, but do anyone have any thoughts about this? Is this reinventing the wheel, or does a semantic change allow for better tactics and strategies?" (https://groups.google.com/group/socialwar-energy-climatewar/browse_thread/thread/c3a8ae576e970b2e?hl=en)

More Information

Full Degrowth Bibliography via http://montreal.degrowth.org/about_library.html#bibliography
See also: Proceedings of the Conference on Economic De-Growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, 1, 2
Fabrice, F., 2008. Conceptual roots of degrowth [online]. 1st international conference on economic de-growth for ecological sustainability and social equity, 18–19 April 2008 Paris. Available online: http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/themes/R%E9sum%E9s/Flipo%20F%20Degrowth_18apr08_EN.pdf
System Innovation and a New ‘Great Transformation’: Re-embedding Economic Life in the Context of ‘De-Growth’ [2]
Via [3]:

• Sustainable de-growth: Mapping the context, criticisms and future prospects of an emergent paradigm, Joan Martínez-Alier (a), Unai Pascual (b), Franck-Dominique Vivien (c) and Edwin Zaccai (d), Ecological Economics, Volume 69, Issue 9, 15 July 2010, Pages 1741-1747 [Note: This is a good overview, some say even a history, of degrowth thinking - Bob T..]

• Environment versus growth — A criticism of “degrowth” and a plea for “a-growth”, Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, Ecological Economics, Article in Press

• In defence of degrowth, Giorgos Kallis, Ecological Economics, Forthcoming

• Questioning economic growth, Peter Victor, Nature, Vol.468 #18 pp. 370-371

• Editorial: Degrowth, Serge Latouche, Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) pp. 519-522

• Economic de-growth vs. steady-state economy, Christian Kerschner, Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) pp. 544–551

Retrieved from "?title=Degrowth&oldid=68757"

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• Movements
• Ecology
• Economics
• Post-Growth

Manuel Castells

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Manuel Castells in 2012

Manuel Castells (Spanish: Manuel Castells Oliván; born 1942, Hellín, Albacete, Spain) is a Spanish sociologist especially associated with research on the information society, communication and globalization.
The 2000–09 research survey of the Social Sciences Citation Index ranks him as the world’s fifth most-cited social science scholar, and the foremost-cited communication scholar.^[1]

Contents [hide] 1 Life 2 Theory 3 Publications 4 References 5 External resources

[edit] Life

Manuel Castells was raised primarily in Barcelona. Although from a conservative family, he was politically active in the student anti-Franco movement, an adolescent political activism that forced him to flee Spain for France. In Paris, at the age of twenty, he completed his degree studies, then progressed to the University of Paris, where he earned a doctorate in sociology. At the age of twenty-four, Dr Castells became an instructor at the University of Paris, from 1967 to 1979; first at the Paris X University Nanterre (where he taught Daniel Cohn-Bendit), who fired him because of the 1968 student protests, then at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, from 1970 to 1979.
Subsequently in 1979, in the US, the University of California, Berkeley appointed him to two professorships; Professor of Sociology, and Professor of City and Regional Planning. In 2001, he was a research professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona. In 2003, he joined the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication, as a Professor of Communication and the first Wallis Annenberg-endowed Chair of Communication and Technology.^[2] Castells is a founding member of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and a senior member of the diplomacy center's Faculty Advisory Council; and is a member of the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication. Castells divides his residence between Spain and the US; he is married to Emma Kiselyova. Since 2008 he has been a member of the governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology.

[edit] Theory

The sociological work of Manuel Castells Oliván synthesises empirical research literature with combinations of urban sociology, organization studies, internet studies, social movements, sociology of culture, and political economy. About the origins of the network society, he posits that changes to the network form of enterprise predate the electronic internet technologies (usually) associated with network organization forms (cf. Castells and Organization Theory). Moreover, he coined the (academic) term “The Fourth World”, denoting the sub-population(s) socially excluded from the global society; usual usage denotes the nomadic, pastoral, and hunter-gatherer ways of life beyond the contemporary industrial society norm.
"Manuel Castells believes the present Information Age has the potential to unleash the power of the mind,^[3] " : the effects of such phenomenon would be a dramatic yet positive increase in the productivity of individuals. By obtaining a greater level of productivity, Castells believes that this will lead to greater leisure: allowing individuals to achieve “greater spiritual depth and more environmental consciousness(ibid)”. The effects of this change in social order are extremely optimistic; by acting in such a productive way, the world would limit it’s resource consumptions. This approach brought on by Manuel Castells is ground breaking. The Information Age, the Age of Consumption, The Network Society are all perspectives attempting to describing modern life as known in the present and to depict furthermore the future of society itself. As Castells presents, modern society would be described as “replacing the antiquated metaphor of the machine with that of the network”
In the 1970s, following the path of Alain Touraine (his intellectual father),^[4] Castells was a key developer of the variety of Marxist urban sociology that emphasises the role of social movements in the conflictive transformation of the city, (cf. post-industrial society).^[5] He introduced the concept of "collective consumption" (public transport, public housing, etc) comprehending a wide range of social struggles — displaced from the economic stratum to the political stratum via state intervention. Transcending Marxist strictures in the early 1980s, he concentrated upon the role of new technologies in the restructuring of an economy. In 1989, he introduced the concept of the "space of flows", the material and immaterial components of global information networks used for the real-time, long-distance co-ordination of the economy. In the 1990s, he combined his two research strands in The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, published as a trilogy, The Rise of the Network Society (1996), The Power of Identity (1997), and End of Millennium (1998); two years later, its worldwide, favourable critical acceptance in university seminars, prompted publication of a second (2000) edition that is 40 per cent different from the first (1996) edition.^[6]
The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture comprehends three sociological dimensions — production, power, and experience — stressing that the organisation of the economy, of the state and its institutions, and the ways that people create meaning in their lives through collective action, are irreducible sources of social dynamics — that must be understood as both discrete and inter-related entities. Moreover, he became an established cybernetic culture theoretician with his Internet development analysis stressing the roles of the state (military and academic), social movements (computer hackers and social activists), and business, in shaping the economic infrastructure according to their (conflicting) interests. The Information Age trilogy is his précis: "Our societies are increasingly structured around the bipolar opposition of the Net and the Self";^[7] the “Net” denotes the network organisations replacing vertically integrated hierarchies as the dominant form of social organization, the Self denotes the practices a person uses in reaffirming social identity and meaning in a continually changing cultural landscape.

[edit] Publications

Manuel Castells Oliván is one of the world's most often-cited social science and communications scholars;^[8][9] he has written more than twenty books, including:

• The Urban Question. A Marxist Approach (Alan Sheridan, translator). London, Edward Arnold (1977) (Original publication in French, 1972)
• City, Class and Power. London; New York, MacMillan; St. Martins Press (1978)
• The Economic Crisis and American Society. Princeton, NJ, Princeton UP (1980)
• The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press (1983)
• The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban Regional Process. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell (1989)
• The Information Age trilogy:

1. Castells, Manuel (1996, second edition, 2000). The Rise of the Network Society, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. I. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22140-1.
2. Castells, Manuel (1997, second edition, 2004). The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. II. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-0713-6.
3. Castells, Manuel (1998, second edition, 2000). End of Millennium, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture Vol. III. Cambridge, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-22139-5.

• The Internet Galaxy, Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. Oxford, Oxford University Press (2001)
• The Information Society and the Welfare State: The Finnish Model. Oxford UP, Oxford (2002) (co-author, Pekka Himanen )
• The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar (2004), (editor and co-author), ISBN 978-1-84542-435-0.
• The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy. Washington, DC, Center for Transatlantic Relations (2006) (co-editor)
• Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press (2006) (co-author)
• Epilogue of Pekka Himanen's The Hacker Ethic.
• Castells, Manuel (2009). Communication power. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 608. ISBN 978-0-19-956704-1.

Recent Journal Articles

• Arsenault, A & Castells, M. (2008) Switching power: Rupert Murdoch and the global business of media politics: A sociological analysis. International Sociology 23(4): 488.
• Arsenault, A, and Castells, M. 2008. The structure and dynamics of global multimedia business networks. International Journal of Communication 2707-48.
• Castells, M (2007) Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. International Journal of Communication 1(1): 238-66.

Pertinent papers

• Social Uses of Wireless Communications: The Mobile Information Society, co-author of the paper for the International Workshop on Wireless Communication Policies and Prospects: A Global Perspective, USC, 8–9 October 2004.

Books about Manuel Castells

• Susser, Ida. The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory. Oxford, Blackwell (2002)
• Castells, Manuel; Ince, Martin. Conversations with Manuel Castells. Oxford, Polity Press (2003)
• Stalder, Felix. Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Oxford, Polity Press (2006)

[edit] References

1. ^ Relative Ranking of a Selected Pool of Leading Scholars in the Social Sciences by Number of Citations in the Social Science Citation Index, 2000-2009. PDF.
2. ^ "Endowed Faculty Chairs". USC Annenberg. http://annenberg.usc.edu/Faculty/Endowed.aspx.
3. ^ Strangelove, Michael (2005). The Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the anti-capitalist movement. Toronto, On, Canada: University of Toronto Press Incorporated. pp. 8.
4. ^ Castells and Ince 2003, p. 11-12
5. ^ Castells and Ince 2003, p. 12
6. ^ Castells and Ince 2003, p. 20
7. ^ Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (1996) p. 3
8. ^ Citations in the Social Science Citation Index, 2000-2007
9. ^ Citations in the Social Science Citation Index, 2000-2007 (living scholars only)

[edit] External resources

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Manuel Castells

• Webpage of Castells at USC Annenberg
• Webpage of Castells at UC Berkeley (Professor Emeritus listing)
• Website devoted to his work, made by Open University of Catalonia

• A scholarly review of the Information Age trilogy
• Video stream of an hour long interview with Castells, conducted in 2001
• International Journal of Communication Academic journal co-edited by Castells, established in 2007
• Manuel Castells' World of Communication, a Manuel Castells exclusive monthly article in Media Coolhunting.
• Audio: Manuel Castells in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
• Video Stream: Manuel Castells October 2009 keynote at University of Oxford Internet Institute for the release of his new book, "Communication Power"
• Video Stream: Manuel Castells March 2010 at USC Annenberg, International Seminar on Network Theory

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The De-Growth Movement

Pro-degrowth graffiti on the July Column in the Place de la Bastille in Paris during a protest against the First Employment Contract, March 28, 2006

Degrowth (in French: décroissance,^[1] in Spanish: decrecimiento, in Italian: decrescita) is a political, economic, and social movement based on ecological economics, anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas. Degrowth thinkers and activists advocate for the downscaling of production and consumption—the contraction of economies—as overconsumption lies at the root of long term environmental issues and social inequalities. Key to the concept of degrowth is that reducing consumption does not require individual martyring and a decrease in well-being.^[2] Rather, 'degrowthists' aim to maximize happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means—sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community.^[3]

Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Resource depletion 1.2 Ecological footprint 1.3 Degrowth and Sustainable Development 1.4 "The Rebound Effect" 2 Origins of the movement 2.1 The Club of Rome reports 2.2 Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's thesis 2.3 Serge Latouche 2.4 Schumacher and Buddhist Economics 2.5 Ecological and social issues 3 Degrowth movement 3.1 'Buy Nothing Day' 3.2 Conferences 3.3 Barcelona Conference (2010) 4 Criticisms 4.1 Liberal critique 4.1.1 Self-regulation of the market 4.1.2 Creative destruction 4.2 Marxist critique 4.3 Third world critique 4.4 Technological critique 5 See also 6 Notes 7 External links

[edit] Background

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The movement arose from concerns over the perceived consequences of the productivism associated with industrialist societies (whether capitalist or socialist):

• The reduced availability of energy sources (see peak oil)
• The declining quality of the environment (see global warming, pollution)
• The decline in the health of flora and fauna, including humans themselves
• The ever-expanding use of resources by first-world countries to satisfy lifestyles that consume more food and energy, and produce greater waste, at the expense of the third world (see neocolonialism)

[edit] Resource depletion

Main article: Resource depletion

As economies grow, the need for resources grows accordingly. There is a fixed supply of non-renewable resources, such as petroleum (oil), and these resources will inevitably be depleted. Renewable resources can also be depleted if extracted at unsustainable rates over extended periods. For example, this has occurred with caviar production in the Caspian Sea.^[4] There is much concern as to how growing demand for these resources will be met as supplies decrease. Many people look to technology to develop replacements for depleted resources. For example, some are looking to biofuels to meet the demand gap after peak oil. However, others have argued that none of the alternatives could effectively replace versatility and portability of oil.^[5]
Proponents of degrowth argue that decreasing demand is the only way of permanently closing the demand gap. For renewable resources, demand, and therefore production, must also be brought down to levels that prevent depletion and are environmentally healthy. Moving toward a society that is not dependent on oil is seen as essential to avoiding societal collapse when non-renewable resources are depleted.^[6] "But degrowth is not just a quantitative question of doing less of the same, it is also and, more fundamentally, about a paradigmatic re-ordering of values, in particular the (re)affirmation of social and ecological values and a (re)politicisation of the economy".^[7]

[edit] Ecological footprint

Main article: Ecological footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste.
According to a 2005 Global Footprint Network report,^[8] inhabitants of high-income countries live off of 6.4 global hectares (gHa), while those from low-income countries live off of a single gHa. For example, while each inhabitant of Bangladesh lives off of what they produce from 0.56 gHa, a North American requires 12.5 gHa. Each inhabitant of North America uses 22.3 times as much land as a Bangladeshi. Of the 12.5 hectares used by the North American, 5.5 is located in the United States, and the rest is found in foreign countries.^[8] According to the same report, the average number of global hectares per person was 2.1, while current consumption levels have reached 2.7 hectares per person.
In order for the world's population to attain the living standards typical of European countries, the resources of between three and eight planet Earths would be required.^{[citation needed]} In order for world economic equality to be achieved with the current available resources, rich countries would have to reduce their standard of living through degrowth.^{[citation needed]} The eventual reduction of all available resources would lead to a forced reduction in consumption. Controlled reduction of consumption would reduce the trauma of this change.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Degrowth and Sustainable Development

Degrowth thought is in opposition to all forms of productivist economics. It is, thus, also opposed to sustainable development. While the concern for sustainability does not contradict degrowth, sustainable development is rooted in mainstream development ideas that aim to increase capitalist growth and consumption. Degrowth therefore sees sustainable development as an oxymoron,^[9] as any development based on growth in a finite and environmentally stressed world is seen as inherently unsustainable. Since current levels of consumption exceed the Earth's ability to regenerate these resources, economic growth will lead to their exhaustion.^{[citation needed]} Those in favor of sustainable development argue that continued economic growth is possible if consumption of energy and resources is reduced.
Furthermore, growth-based development has been shown to be more effective in expanding social inequality, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few, than in actually generating more wealth and increasing living standards.^[10][11] Critics of degrowth argue that a slowing of economic growth would result in increased unemployment and increase poverty. Many who understand the devastating environmental consequences of growth still advocate for economic growth in the South, even if not in the North. But, a slowing of economic growth would fail to deliver the benefits of degrowth—self-sufficiency, material responsibility—and would indeed lead to decreased employment. Rather, degrowth proponents advocate for a complete abandonment of the current (growth) economic system, suggesting that relocalizating and abandoning the global economy in the Global South would allow people of the South to become more self-sufficient and would end the overconsumption and exploitation of Southern resources by the North.^[12]

[edit] "The Rebound Effect"

Main article: Rebound effect (conservation)

Technologies designed to reduce resource use and improve efficiency are often touted as sustainable or green solutions. However, degrowth warns about these technological advances due to the "rebound effect".^[13] This concept is based on observations that when a less resource-exhaustive technology is introduced, behaviour surrounding the use of that technology will change and consumption of that technology will increase and offset any potential resource savings.^[14] In light of the rebound effect, proponents of degrowth hold that the only effective 'sustainable' solutions must involve a complete rejection of the growth paradigm and a move toward a degrowth paradigm.

[edit] Origins of the movement

The contemporary degrowth movement can trace its roots back to the anti-industrialist trends of the 19th century, developed in Great Britain by John Ruskin, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement (1819–1900), in the United States by Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), and in Russia by Leo Tolstoy (1828–1911).
The concept of "degrowth" proper appeared during the 1970s, proposed by the Club of Rome think tank and intellectuals such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Jean Baudrillard, André Gorz, Edward Goldsmith and Ivan Illich, whose ideas reflect those of earlier thinkers, such as the economist E. J. Mishan,^[15] the industrial historian Tom Rolt,^[16] and the radical socialist Tony Turner. The writings of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi also contain similar philosophies, particularly regarding his support of voluntary simplicity.
More generally, degrowth movements draw on the values of humanism, enlightenment, anthropology and human rights.

[edit] The Club of Rome reports

In 1968, the Club of Rome, a think tank headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland, asked researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a report on practical solutions to problems of global concern. The report, called The Limits to Growth, published in 1972, became the first important study that indicated the ecological perils of the unprecedented economic growth the world was experiencing at the time.
The reports (also known as the Meadows Reports) are not strictly the founding texts of the movement, as they only advise zero growth, and have also been used to support the sustainable development movement. Still, they are considered the first official studies explicitly presenting economic growth as a key reason for the increase in global environmental problems such as pollution, shortage of raw materials, and the destruction of ecosystems. A second report was published in 1974, and together with the first, drew considerable attention to the topic.

[edit] Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's thesis

The Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen is considered the creator of degrowth,^{[dubious – discuss]} and its main theoretician.^[17] In 1971, he published a book called The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, in which he noted that the neoclassical economic model did not take into account the second law of thermodynamics, by not accounting for the degradation of energy and matter (i.e. increase in entropy). He associated every economic activity with an increase in entropy, whose increase implied the loss of useful resources. When a selection of his articles was translated into French in 1979 under the title Demain la décroissance ("tomorrow, degrowth"), it spurred the creation of the movement in France.

[edit] Serge Latouche

Serge Latouche, a professor of economics at the Paris-Sud 11 University, has noted that:

“

If you try to measure the reduction in the rate of growth by taking into account damages caused to the environment and its consequences on our natural and cultural patrimony, you will generally obtain a result of zero or even negative growth. In 1991, the United States spent 115 billion dollars, or 2.1% of the GDP on the protection of the environment. The Clean Air Act increased this cost by 45 or 55 million dollars per year. [...] The World Resources Institute tried to measure the rate of the growth taking into account the punishment exerted on the natural capital of the world, with an eye towards sustainable development. For Indonesia, it found that the rate of growth between 1971 and 1984 would be reduced from 7.1 to 4% annually, and that was by taking only three variables into consideration: deforestation, the reduction in the reserves of oil and natural gas, and soil erosion.

”

^[18][19]

[edit] Schumacher and Buddhist Economics

E. F. Schumacher's 1973 book Small is Beautiful predates a unified degrowth movement, but nonetheless serves as an important basis for degrowth ideas. In this book he critiques the neo-liberal model of economic development, noting the absurdity of increasing "standard of living", which is based solely on consumption, as the primary goal of economic activity and development. Instead, under what he refers to as buddhist economics, we should aim to maximize well-being while minimizing consumption.^[20]

[edit] Ecological and social issues

In January 1972 Edward Goldsmith and Robert Prescott-Allen—editors of The Ecologist journal—published the Blueprint for Survival, which called for a radical programme of decentralisation and de-industrialisation to prevent what the authors referred to as "the breakdown of society and the irreversible disruption of the life-support systems on this planet". Signed by leading scientists of the day, the Blueprint went on to inspire the establishment of environmentalist political parties around the world.

[edit] Degrowth movement

[edit] 'Buy Nothing Day'

Buy Nothing Day occurs on the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. This is the unofficial first day of the Holiday shopping season. Typically retail stores offer goods for dramatically reduced prices, prompting consumers to buy more. Buy Nothing Day is a rejection of this unabashed consumption.

[edit] Conferences

The movement has also included conferences in Paris,^[21] Barcelona,^[22] and Vancouver.^[23]

[edit] Barcelona Conference (2010)

The First International Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity of Paris (2008) was a discussion about the financial, social, cultural, demographical, environmental crisis caused by the deficiencies of the capitalism and an explanation of the main principles of the degrowth. ^[24] The Second International Conference of Barcelona on the other hand focused on specific ways to implement a degrowth society. It gathered researchers, practitioners, academics and civil society members from forty countries which brought new ideas and allowed the interconnection between social, economic and environmental aspects. The participation of every person was promoted through working groups, each discussing one of the 29 topics of the programme.
The result of this innovative participatory process has brought a major contribution to the Degrowth strategy. Concrete proposals have been developed for future political actions, including:

• Promotion of local currencies, elimination of fiat money and reforms of interest
• Transition to non-profit and small scale companies
• Increase of local commons and support of participative approaches in decision-making
• Reducing working hours and facilitation of volunteer work
• Reusing empty housing and co-housing
• Introduction of the basic income guarantee and an income ceiling built on a maximum-minimum ratio
• Limitation of the exploitation of natural resources and preservation of the biodiversity and culture by regulations, taxes and compensations
• Minimize the waste production with education and legal instruments
• Elimination of mega infrastructures, transition from a car-based system to a more local, biking, walking-based one.
• Suppression of advertising from the public space ^[25]

The introduction of these points in our society would require a change of mentality, oriented to a reduction of the consumption and the regrowth of integrity, ethic and social links. This is related to the concept of Simple Living. ^[26]. It is a personal choice that can be undertaken individually or by small communities, and maybe would grow in larger scale.
In spite of the real willingness of reform and the development of numerous solutions, the conference of Barcelona didn’t have a big influence on our economic and political system. Many critiques have been made concerning the proposals, mostly about the financial aspects, and this has refrained changes to occur. ^[27]

[edit] Criticisms

[edit] Liberal critique

Supporters of economic liberalism believe that economic growth brings about the creation of wealth, by increasing employment, improving quality of life, and providing better education and healthcare, in other words, there should be more resources in order to make and improve on more things. From this point of view, degrowth constitutes economic recession and is a destroyer of wealth.
An additional liberal criticism of degrowth is that progress is increasingly linked to knowledge rather than the use of physical resources, and that the progress of technology will solve the world's environmental problems. Free-market environmentalism is a position that argues that most environmental problems are caused by a lack of property rights and the extension of such to include externalities.

[edit] Self-regulation of the market

Supporters of the self-regulation of the market believe that if a particular non-renewable resource becomes scarce, the market will limit its extraction via two mechanisms:

• an increase in price (supply and demand)
• an increase in funding for the development of alternatives (i.e. renewable energy, recycling, etc.)

This position argues that allowing market forces to take effect is the most rational way of solving the problem, and consider that these forces are more efficient than centralized decision systems (see economic calculation, dispersed knowledge, tragedy of the commons). Market capitalism can take advantage of the exploitation of energy sources that were not economically viable 10 or 20 years prior, because under new conditions the required economic growth will necessitate their use.
In response to the theories of Georgescu-Roegen, Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz noted that capital and labor can substitute for natural resources in production either directly or indirectly, ensuring sustained growth or at least sustainable development.^[28]

[edit] Creative destruction

The concept of degrowth is founded on the hypothesis that producing more always implies the consumption of more energy and raw materials, while at the same time decreasing the size of the labor force, which is replaced by machines. This analysis is considered misleading from the point of view that technological progress allows us to produce more with less, as well as provide more services. This is what is known as creative destruction, the process by which the "old" companies from a sector (as well as their costly and polluting technologies) disappear from the market as a result of the innovation in that sector that brings down costs while consuming less energy and raw materials in exchange for increased productivity.
At the same time, this reduction in costs and/or increase in profits increases the ability to save, which simultaneously allows for investment in new advances, which will replace the old technologies.

[edit] Marxist critique

Marxists distinguish between two types of growth: that which is useful to mankind, and that which simply exists to increase profits for companies. Marxists consider that it is the nature and control of production that is the determinant, and not the quantity. They believe that control and a strategy for growth are the pillars that enable social and economic development. According to Jean Zin, while the justification for degrowth is valid, it is not a solution to the problem.^[29] However, other Marxist writers have adopted positions close to the de-growth perspective. For example John Bellamy-Foster ^[30] and Fred Magdoff ^[31], in common with David Harvey, Imanuel Wallerstein, Paul M. Sweezy and others focus on endless capital accumulation as the basic principle and goal of capitalism. This is the source of economic growth and is unsustainable. Foster and Magdoff develop Marx's own concept of the metabolic rift, something he noted in the exhaustion of soils by capitalist systems of food production.

[edit] Third world critique

The concept of degrowth is viewed as contradictory when applied to lesser-developed countries, which require the growth of their economies in order to attain prosperity. In this sense the majority of supporters of degrowth advocate the attainment of a certain, acceptable level of well-being independent of growth. The question of where the balance lies (i.e. how much the developed nations should degrow by, and how much the developing nations should be allowed to grow), remains open.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Technological critique

Supporters^[who?] of scientific progress argue that it will solve the problems of energy supply, waste and the reduction of raw materials. This ideology draws inspiration from the Enlightenment to develop an optimistic technologist vision. They point to the reduction in the relation between energy consumption and production (or energy intensity) over the past twenty years. They propose that research into nuclear energy could provide temporary energy alternatives to the oil crisis, while technologies such as nuclear fusion come online.^{[citation needed]}
This argument is contrasted by the data obtained by the Global Carbon Project in 2007, which notes the stagnation in the aforementioned decrease in energy intensity, which is one of the variables of the Kaya identity, which tends to show that either the economic downturn, or demographic decline are essential to prevent ecological disaster.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (November 2012)

Blueprint for Survival Club of Rome Downshifting Edward Goldsmith Ezra J. Mishan Genuine Progress Indicator Limits to Growth Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen

Political ecology Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World Serge Latouche Simple living Tim Jackson Traditional trades Transition Movement Uneconomic growth Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Institut d'études économiques et sociales pour la décroissance soutenable.(2003). http://decroissance.org/
2. ^ Zehner, Ozzie (2012). Green Illusions. Lincoln & London: U. Nebraska Press. pp. 178-183, 339-342. ISBN 0803237758. http://GreenIllusions.org.
3. ^ Economic Degrowth for Sustainability and Equity.(2009). http://www.degrowth.net/Economic-Degrowth-for
4. ^ Bardi, U. (2008) 'Peak Caviar'. The Oil Drum: Europe. http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46143
5. ^ McGreal, R. 2005. 'Bridging the Gap: Alternatives to Petroleum (Peak Oil Part II)'. Raising the Hammer. http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=119
6. ^ Energy Bulletin. (October 20, 2009). Peak Oil Reports. http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50447
7. ^ Fournier, V. (2008). Escaping from the economy: politics of degrowth. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. Vol. 28:11/12, pp 528-545.
8. ^ ^{a b} http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/data_sources/
9. ^ Latouche, S. (2004), "Degrowth economics: why less should be much more", Le Monde Diplomatique, November
10. ^ Latouche, S. (1993). In the Wake of Affluent Society: An Exploration of Post-development. N.J.: Zed Books.
11. ^ Harvey, D. (2006, June 16). in Sasha Lilley "On Neoliberalism: An Interview with David Harvey". Monthly Review.
12. ^ Latouche, S. (2004). Degrowth Economics: Why less should be so much more. Le Monde Diplomatique.
13. ^ Zehner, Ozzie (2012). Green Illusions. Lincoln: U. Neb. Pr.. pp. 172-73, 333-34.
14. ^ Binswanger, M. (2001), "Technological progress and sustainable development: what about the rebound effect?", Ecological Economics, Vol. 36 pp.119-32.
15. ^ Mishan, Ezra J., The Costs of Economic Growth, Staples Press, 1967
16. ^ Rolt, L. T. C. (1947). High Horse Riderless. George Allen & Unwin. pp. 171. http://www.amazon.co.uk/HIGH-HORSE-RIDERLESS-L-T-C-Rolt/dp/B0006ARC3W/.
17. ^ Martin Parker, Valérie Fournier, Patrick Reedy, The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization, Zed Books, 2007, p. 69.
18. ^ Hervé Kempf, L'économie à l'épreuve de l'écologie Hatier
19. ^ Latouche, Serge (2003) Decrecimiento y post-desarrollo El viejo topo, p.62
20. ^ Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Perennial Library.
21. ^ "Décroissance économique pour la soutenabilité écologique et l'équité sociale". http://events.it-sudparis.eu/degrowthconference/. Retrieved 16 May 2011.
22. ^ "Home". http://www.degrowth.eu/. Retrieved 16 May 2011.
23. ^ "The Tyee – The Degrowth Movement Is Growing". http://thetyee.ca/Life/2010/05/05/Degrowth/. Retrieved 16 May 2011.
24. ^ Declaration of the Paris 2008 Conference. Retrieved from: http://degrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Declaration-Degrowth-Paris-2008.pdf
25. ^ 2nd Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Ethic. 2010. Degrowth Declaration Barcelona 2010 and Working Groups Results. Retrieved from: http://barcelona.degrowth.org/
26. ^ Simple Living. 2011. Home page. Retrieved November 3rd, 2012, from: http://www.simpleliving.org/
27. ^ Responsabilité, Innovation & Management. 2011. Décroissance économique pour l’écologie, l’équité et le bien-vivre par François SCHNEIDER. Retrieved from http://www.openrim.org/Decroissance-economique-pour-l.html
28. ^ William D. Sunderlin, Ideology, Social Theory, and the Environment, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002, p. 154-155.
29. ^ L'écologie politique à l'ère de l'information, Ere, 2006, p. 68-69
30. ^ [1], Monthly Review Press.
31. ^ [2],.

[edit] External links

• First International De-growth Conference in Paris 18-19 April 2008
• 2nd Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity. Barcelona 26-29 March 2010
• International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas, Montreal, 13-19 May 2012
• 3rd International Conference on degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity (Venice, 19-23 September 2012)
• Peter Ainsworth on degrowth and sustainable development Published on La Clé des langues

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