Degrowth - Tumblr Posts

So, like, universal basic income.

One of the things I’ve heard people say is how, you know, you need income as a motivation to make people work. And I’ve heard some great arguments against that.

But also.

There are a lot of low-paid jobs that actually make the world a crappier place. Like, if we could just pay everyone in the fast fashion industry to stay home and not go to work, the world would be a much better place. If we paid people enough that they didn’t need to work in factories, then large-scale manufacture of crappy stuff wouldn’t be feasible anymore.

Like, we’re basically in a post-scarcity society. We have more than enough food and clothing for everyone. This manic capitalist mindset where we force people to go to jobs they hate to remove value from the world is insane, right?

And maybe if we instituted this we’d lose fast food corporations and stuff. But I bet they’d be replaced by small restaurants run by people who are passionate about what they do.

Why Capitalism Needs Infinite Growth to Survive

Or, 'Even The Goddamn Money Is Privately Owned '

So, you know how capitalism apologists always say that we need a high growth rate in order to ensure high standards of living? Didja ever notice how they don't actually give a shit and a half about the magnitude of resources people are able to access, only that the rate of change is positive? There's a structural reason for that. It's a dogshit one, but like, it's pretty influential.

It starts with Fractional Reserve Banking. Been around for a while, basically ever since paper money was invented. When a bank takes a savings deposit, it can lend most of that deposit back out to someone else. The person who takes out the loan will spend the money on something, and the person who receives the money will put it in their savings account, and the cycle repeats.

The reserve requirement in the US is 10%, which means that through this multiplier effect, the commercial banking system can expand the money supply printed by the government by up to a factor of 10x. In other words, ~90% of the money in circulation is privately owned, and crucially, it carries interest.

So, almost every dollar out there needs to get paid back to a lender, with some extra dollars sprinkled on top (as a treat). This is only possible if there is always more money in the future than there is in the present, in order to make up the missing difference.

This means capitalism is always operating in some mixture of three states:

1. The increased flow of money is spent on an increased flow of stuff, which is growth.

2. The increased flow of money is spent on the same amount of stuff, which is inflation.

3. The flow of money does not increase, so the loans cannot be repaid, so the banks crash and pull the plug on the money printer and now nobody has permission to do anything anymore and the entire system crashes and everything is terrible but it can probably be fixed with austerity guys, I promise, just one more public service cut, it'll fix everything this time, trust me bro

The State can come in and print a whole bunch of money to shift the economy from situation 3 to situation 2, but you can't print more resources. That requires pulling a bunch of energy and materials out of the ground. And so they pillage the Earth, and they lie about trying to cut back in the future, and they greenlight new fossil projects, and they pillage even faster, and they profit.

Capitalism can often feel insurmountable, but part of that is because, ever since World War 2, there have been easily extractable deposits of petroleum that have let the system constantly accelerate to insane levels of material throughput. That won't last forever. Fossil fuels and mineral deposits get harder to extract as time goes on. And every time the extraction system has even the slightest hiccup, capitalism reveals itself to be as fragile as a shark, choking to death as soon as it stops swimming.

PICTURED: How energy and mineral resource depletion built up to trigger the 2008 financial crisis, and radicalized an entire generation

“It is important to recognize that the word ‘growth’ has become a kind of propaganda term. In reality, what is going on is a process of elite accumulation, the commodification of commons, and the appropriation of human labour and natural resources – a process that is quite often colonial in character. This process, which is generally destructive to human communities and to ecology, is glossed as growth. Growth sounds natural and positive (who could possibly be against growth?) so people are easily persuaded to buy into it, and to back policies that will generate more of it, when otherwise they might not. Growth is the ideology of capitalism, in the Gramscian sense. It is the core tenet of capitalism’s cultural hegemony. The word degrowth is powerful and effective because it identifies this trick, and rejects it. Degrowth calls for the reversal of the processes that lie behind growth: it calls for disaccumulation, decommodification, and decolonization.”

— Jason Hickel, What does degrowth mean? A few points of clarification

“It is important to recognize that the word ‘growth’ has become a kind of propaganda term. In reality, what is going on is a process of elite accumulation, the commodification of commons, and the appropriation of human labour and natural resources – a process that is quite often colonial in character. This process, which is generally destructive to human communities and to ecology, is glossed as growth. Growth sounds natural and positive (who could possibly be against growth?) so people are easily persuaded to buy into it, and to back policies that will generate more of it, when otherwise they might not. Growth is the ideology of capitalism, in the Gramscian sense. It is the core tenet of capitalism’s cultural hegemony. The word degrowth is powerful and effective because it identifies this trick, and rejects it. Degrowth calls for the reversal of the processes that lie behind growth: it calls for disaccumulation, decommodification, and decolonization.”

— Jason Hickel, What does degrowth mean? A few points of clarification

companies really have got to be okay with stagnant profits. what is wrong with earning the same amount every year? why does it always have to be more? it's not sustainable. there are only so many people on the planet you can profit from 😭

I too am very much done with this wasteful plastic eco-collapse war-for-profit clowntown shitpit.

It's a wierd phenomenon, seeing as traditionalists are usually so dynastic.

Do yall ever feel no cares about our society and environment and everything.. I'm watching the world end before my eyes and everyone my age I talk to could care less I want people to care because what will fucking happen when your way of life is no longer possible I don't care about your status in cookie run kingdom STFU AND CARE ABOUT THIS PLANET WE ARE WATCHING IN REAL TIME OUT SOCIETY FALLING AND YOUR DOING NOTHING NOW IS THE TIME TO LEARN HOW TO CAN FOOD OR HUNT IT SEWING MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE KNOWLEDGE IN TRADITIONAL CRAFTS PEOPLE YOUR DYING AND DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT YOU ARE PART OF THE RAT RACE THAT WILL ONLY END WITH YOU DEAD

Why are humans so fucking evil

It's fucking NINETY DEGREES OUT on September 30th

This is inhumane, this is evil, this is horrific

Genuinely think it would be best if all humans were fucking exterminated I do not give a shit

Everyday I read about how many bombs are detonated, how strong the hurricanes are, how green Antartica is turning, and how the 6th extintion event happened because of capital greed, and I just can't wrap my head around the world as I know it ending, with me in it.

I'm not the kind of human to survive harsh winters, strong weather anomalies or hunger. Even if humans can survive another 100 years in a different kind of society, I'm not strong enough. I'll die, and my family will die, and all my friends will die.

And I'm just supposed to go to work because it's Monday.