Degrowth: Connecting the Dots
by Anthony T. Fiscella
What does it mean to connect global concerns locally about sustainability? As discussed in the previous issue’s introduction, the degrowth movement builds on the basic premises of personal health, sharing community wealth equitably, global ecological sustainability, detaching societal aspirations from the ideology of economic expansion, and developing new means of measuring national welfare and happiness. Connecting the dots can vary greatly depending on which dots we consider worthy of recognition. For example, imagine two societies, one vegan and one based heavily on animal exploitation for clothes and food and, all other things equal, we want to measure the respective levels of happiness of their members. Our results would turn entirely on whether we included animals as members of those societies and we developed means to measure their happiness. A study that did not include animals as factors would suggest that both societies had the same level of happiness. A study that did include animals would potentially show one society retaining a certain level of happiness while the other society, dependent upon animal exploitation, would show a high degree of misery and suffering for the average member of that society. Similarly, a country with a high Gross National Product (GDP) can correlate to a high degree of environmental destruction and/or elevated rates of depression yet, unless we include those dots, we can neither measure nor adequately address them. Degrowth advocates do not aim to reduce all forms of economic activity—only the ones that we need the least and which do the most harm, often the type of ecological and psychic harms that reigning economic theories dismiss as “externalities”. By highlighting the “dots” that we all need (such as clean air, clean water, fertile soil, functioning transportation, safe communities, peace, and justice), we can construct means to understand and develop genuine sustainability.
Let’s take one example: the military-industrial complex. The very nature of this industry demands the use of the materials produced to continue serving as a viable economic venture with foreseeable profits. Like many industries, the capture and processing of raw materials as well as the production and transportation processes levy a significant toll on ecosystems through habitat destruction, emissions, toxic byproducts, and so on. Yet, unlike many other industries (such as food, furniture, or fabrics), the actual use of military products often exacts a much heavier toll on ecosystems, during training and exercises but especially during war. Unless we not only measure but attribute a high value to currently low-prioritized factors such as animals, eco-systems, and even human psychic welfare, they will remain ignored and marginalized and, as a consequence, we will retain an economic system that regards the military-industrial complex as a viable—even desirable aspect of any given nation-state.
Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps, who described himself regretfully as “a gangster for capitalism” also saw the specter of massive war on the horizon as early as 1933 (Branagan 2013: 38). He bemoaned the obvious build-up toward yet another devastating war:
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, and surely the most vicious. […] A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
[The upcoming war] might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men. Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit—fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends.
This is a refreshingly honest general’s account, yet it also displayed two subtle but striking limitations of his analysis that emphasize his point:
We can think of general responses to current eco-crises in terms of a spectrum between two poles. On one side, we have “eco-modernism” which lauds technological solutions, economic growth, and scientific innovations as key tools. On the other side, we have degrowth advocates who insist on abolishing the perpetual growth model and re-thinking and re-structuring our entire economic system to make our trade, production, and consumption compatible with the limits of Earth’s ecosystems rather than the other way around.
To conceptualize this spectrum, we can begin with two Nebraskans. First, we have Frank Zybach (1894-1980) from Columbus, Nebraska. Zybach invented the center-pivot irrigation system in the 1940s and 50s which would eventually transform agricultural production across the world. By 2013, 57,000 farms had begun using it in the U.S. for 28 million acres making his invention the most popular irrigation technology on the market. Among other countries using Zybach’s invention, we see the world’s leading oil producer: Saudi Arabia. There, the government and industry have built enormous pivot-irrigation systems to turn their desert green and bring food production closer to home. It seems like a success story for “green technology”.
In the second case, we have Jay Forrester (1918-2016) from Anselmo, Nebraska. Discussion about limiting economic growth for the sake of nature and sustainability entered the public sphere in tandem with the influential study and book Limits to Growth (1972). Forrester, a pioneer in systems theory, designed the computer simulations that underwrote the basis for Limits to Growth (which focused on simulating the growth or decline of five factors: population, capital, food, nonrenewable resources, and pollution). Neither Forrester nor the Limits authors advocated degrowth (as did their contemporary scholar and economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen). Yet they raised an essential issue regarding the critical dilemma that accompanies unfettered economic growth.
However, neither of these cases offers viable degrowth models. Saudi Arabia may have made good use of Zybach’s irrigation system but it cannot change the limits of its nature: Saudi agriculture in the last several decades now seems to have used up four-fifths of its aquifers. Technological development can only get us so far. In a world run by economics placing profit as the top priority, even a seemingly endless array of new “green tech” will continue to ignore natural limits and public welfare while speeding us toward ecological systemic collapse in many regions near and far. Similarly, with the successes Forrester’s work received and while the Limits to Growth predictions have held largely true (if somewhat behind schedule), their prescriptions for remedies seem to fall short. They overestimated the significance of addressing population growth and they underestimated the significance of racism. They still placed faith in technological development and capitalist accumulation while leaving little space for Native models.
We may turn to other Nebraskans, such as the Pawnee, for an example more in line with degrowth. Gene Weltfish, a European American anthropologist, described early observations of the Pawnee as follows: “They were a well-disciplined people, maintaining public order under many trying circumstances. And yet they had none of the power mechanisms that we consider essential to a well-ordered life. No orders were ever issued. Time after time I tried to find a case of orders given, and there were none” (Forbes 2011: 114). As with many other Native cultures, Pawnee society exemplified egalitarian traits, a general commitment to collective welfare (including animals and habitats), and a worldview that saw people as embedded with nature rather than separate from it. As Native scholar Jack Forbes wrote, Natives, have long since known the meaning and centrality of limits, whereas European colonialism swept in a systemic that disregarded them: “Brutality knows no boundaries. Greed knows no limits. Perversion knows no borders. Arrogance knows no frontiers. Deceit knows no edges.” Forbes continued: “If I lose the air, I die. If I lose the sun, I die. If I lose the plants and animals, I die. For all of these things are more a part of me, more essential to my being, than is that which I call ‘my body. We don’t stop at our eyes, we don’t begin at our skin.”
In this spirit, degrowth advocates imagine a new means of calculating value that, unlike our current economic system, connects the dots between personal health, ecological health, and sustainable production/consumption. Degrowth advocates do not reject technological development, nor do they oppose the increase of certain types of trade, but they do call upon all of us to conceptualize different types of technology.
Instead of solely thinking of technology as something material and produced by industry, we can place our faith and energy in psychological and social technologies (ranging from meditation and mediation to wealth distribution and minimizing mandatory work hours) and, in doing so, bring the production and consumption of those much closer to home. This means connecting global, regional, and local dots, connecting various species and various challenges. This means organizing here and now for an economic world that fits human, animal, and ecological needs right where we live. One step, one paw, one garden at a time.
What does it mean to connect global concerns locally about sustainability? As discussed in the previous issue’s introduction, the degrowth movement builds on the basic premises of personal health, sharing community wealth equitably, global ecological sustainability, detaching societal aspirations from the ideology of economic expansion, and developing new means of measuring national welfare and happiness. Connecting the dots can vary greatly depending on which dots we consider worthy of recognition. For example, imagine two societies, one vegan and one based heavily on animal exploitation for clothes and food and, all other things equal, we want to measure the respective levels of happiness of their members. Our results would turn entirely on whether we included animals as members of those societies and we developed means to measure their happiness. A study that did not include animals as factors would suggest that both societies had the same level of happiness. A study that did include animals would potentially show one society retaining a certain level of happiness while the other society, dependent upon animal exploitation, would show a high degree of misery and suffering for the average member of that society. Similarly, a country with a high Gross National Product (GDP) can correlate to a high degree of environmental destruction and/or elevated rates of depression yet, unless we include those dots, we can neither measure nor adequately address them. Degrowth advocates do not aim to reduce all forms of economic activity—only the ones that we need the least and which do the most harm, often the type of ecological and psychic harms that reigning economic theories dismiss as “externalities”. By highlighting the “dots” that we all need (such as clean air, clean water, fertile soil, functioning transportation, safe communities, peace, and justice), we can construct means to understand and develop genuine sustainability.
Let’s take one example: the military-industrial complex. The very nature of this industry demands the use of the materials produced to continue serving as a viable economic venture with foreseeable profits. Like many industries, the capture and processing of raw materials as well as the production and transportation processes levy a significant toll on ecosystems through habitat destruction, emissions, toxic byproducts, and so on. Yet, unlike many other industries (such as food, furniture, or fabrics), the actual use of military products often exacts a much heavier toll on ecosystems, during training and exercises but especially during war. Unless we not only measure but attribute a high value to currently low-prioritized factors such as animals, eco-systems, and even human psychic welfare, they will remain ignored and marginalized and, as a consequence, we will retain an economic system that regards the military-industrial complex as a viable—even desirable aspect of any given nation-state.
Major General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps, who described himself regretfully as “a gangster for capitalism” also saw the specter of massive war on the horizon as early as 1933 (Branagan 2013: 38). He bemoaned the obvious build-up toward yet another devastating war:
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, and surely the most vicious. […] A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.
[The upcoming war] might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men. Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit—fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends.
This is a refreshingly honest general’s account, yet it also displayed two subtle but striking limitations of his analysis that emphasize his point:
- He foresaw the coming war in Europe (WWII) as costing hundreds of thousands of lives when, in fact, between 1937 and 1945 the war itself resulted in approximately 12 million dead for the “losers” of the war (Japan, Germany, and Italy) and more than five times as many killed among the “victors” (Soviet Union, France, UK, US, China, and others): approximately 61 million people killed. These figures do not include the millions of lives killed during the Holocaust whose horrors lay hidden amidst the fog of war. In other words, General Butler grossly underestimated the devastating cost to human life of the next “racket”.
- He did not even imagine or calculate the tremendous cost that war exacts upon animals and ecosystems. Even in one small country during a rhetorical “war against a virus”, Denmark’s government sought to alleviate the spread of the coronavirus by killing 17 million mink on hundreds of Danish mink farms. When human lives have little value, animal lives tend to have none. Likewise regarding ecosystems.
We can think of general responses to current eco-crises in terms of a spectrum between two poles. On one side, we have “eco-modernism” which lauds technological solutions, economic growth, and scientific innovations as key tools. On the other side, we have degrowth advocates who insist on abolishing the perpetual growth model and re-thinking and re-structuring our entire economic system to make our trade, production, and consumption compatible with the limits of Earth’s ecosystems rather than the other way around.
To conceptualize this spectrum, we can begin with two Nebraskans. First, we have Frank Zybach (1894-1980) from Columbus, Nebraska. Zybach invented the center-pivot irrigation system in the 1940s and 50s which would eventually transform agricultural production across the world. By 2013, 57,000 farms had begun using it in the U.S. for 28 million acres making his invention the most popular irrigation technology on the market. Among other countries using Zybach’s invention, we see the world’s leading oil producer: Saudi Arabia. There, the government and industry have built enormous pivot-irrigation systems to turn their desert green and bring food production closer to home. It seems like a success story for “green technology”.
In the second case, we have Jay Forrester (1918-2016) from Anselmo, Nebraska. Discussion about limiting economic growth for the sake of nature and sustainability entered the public sphere in tandem with the influential study and book Limits to Growth (1972). Forrester, a pioneer in systems theory, designed the computer simulations that underwrote the basis for Limits to Growth (which focused on simulating the growth or decline of five factors: population, capital, food, nonrenewable resources, and pollution). Neither Forrester nor the Limits authors advocated degrowth (as did their contemporary scholar and economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen). Yet they raised an essential issue regarding the critical dilemma that accompanies unfettered economic growth.
However, neither of these cases offers viable degrowth models. Saudi Arabia may have made good use of Zybach’s irrigation system but it cannot change the limits of its nature: Saudi agriculture in the last several decades now seems to have used up four-fifths of its aquifers. Technological development can only get us so far. In a world run by economics placing profit as the top priority, even a seemingly endless array of new “green tech” will continue to ignore natural limits and public welfare while speeding us toward ecological systemic collapse in many regions near and far. Similarly, with the successes Forrester’s work received and while the Limits to Growth predictions have held largely true (if somewhat behind schedule), their prescriptions for remedies seem to fall short. They overestimated the significance of addressing population growth and they underestimated the significance of racism. They still placed faith in technological development and capitalist accumulation while leaving little space for Native models.
We may turn to other Nebraskans, such as the Pawnee, for an example more in line with degrowth. Gene Weltfish, a European American anthropologist, described early observations of the Pawnee as follows: “They were a well-disciplined people, maintaining public order under many trying circumstances. And yet they had none of the power mechanisms that we consider essential to a well-ordered life. No orders were ever issued. Time after time I tried to find a case of orders given, and there were none” (Forbes 2011: 114). As with many other Native cultures, Pawnee society exemplified egalitarian traits, a general commitment to collective welfare (including animals and habitats), and a worldview that saw people as embedded with nature rather than separate from it. As Native scholar Jack Forbes wrote, Natives, have long since known the meaning and centrality of limits, whereas European colonialism swept in a systemic that disregarded them: “Brutality knows no boundaries. Greed knows no limits. Perversion knows no borders. Arrogance knows no frontiers. Deceit knows no edges.” Forbes continued: “If I lose the air, I die. If I lose the sun, I die. If I lose the plants and animals, I die. For all of these things are more a part of me, more essential to my being, than is that which I call ‘my body. We don’t stop at our eyes, we don’t begin at our skin.”
In this spirit, degrowth advocates imagine a new means of calculating value that, unlike our current economic system, connects the dots between personal health, ecological health, and sustainable production/consumption. Degrowth advocates do not reject technological development, nor do they oppose the increase of certain types of trade, but they do call upon all of us to conceptualize different types of technology.
Instead of solely thinking of technology as something material and produced by industry, we can place our faith and energy in psychological and social technologies (ranging from meditation and mediation to wealth distribution and minimizing mandatory work hours) and, in doing so, bring the production and consumption of those much closer to home. This means connecting global, regional, and local dots, connecting various species and various challenges. This means organizing here and now for an economic world that fits human, animal, and ecological needs right where we live. One step, one paw, one garden at a time.
