“I don’t think we’re ever going to get to utopia again by going forward, but only roundabout or sideways; because we’re in a rational dilemma, an either/or situation as perceived by the binary computer mentality, and neither the either nor the or is a place where people can live.” Ursula K Le Guin
Here we are again: a position in the degrowth movement becomes apparent, strong, almost dominant, and the other side responds, feeling misrepresented. And in reacting, it inevitably ends up claiming to be the herald of the “true Degrowth” and rejecting the contribution of the other side.
This time, the quarrel seems to be (again) fundamentally strategic. In a recent interview, Jason Hickel claimed that putting degrowth into practice requires resorting to socialist theory and policy-making, and that we must prioritise the creation of a mass (and workers-based) socialist party to gain power, push back bourgeois capitalist parties and implement strategic reforms to achieve democratic socialism. This triggered the anarchist/horizontalist “wing” of the degrowth universe, which promptly reacted through the words of Vincent Liegey, Anitra Nelson and Terry Leahy in a piece published on this site, to defend the honour of the grassroots origins of degrowth based on democratic “horizontalism, autonomy, commoning and subsidiarity”. They stressed the dangers and undesirability of engaging with the state, its vertical power structures and intrinsically oppressive nature, and vouched for interstitial and prefigurative strategies creating outside alternatives to growth-based capitalism. On the side, yet another dive into the age-old discussion around what a true and comprehensive definition of degrowth should or should not contain.
Just to be clear: we do not believe these debates to be trivial. On the contrary, they are vital to any anticapitalist political strategy, and we too have our (often very strong) opinions on the matter. But we should shatter the illusion that a single general theory can grasp all the nuances of our complicated present, and one all-encompassing project can offer all the solutions. Stuck in these boxes, we keep on missing the opportunity to transcend the “vertical” and “horizontal” dichotomy and follow the advice of degrowthers’ maybe dearest writer Ursula K. Le Guin: going sideways.
Degrowth has never been a coherent movement, nor has it ever managed to contain in itself all the contrasting political positions of its proponents. And it probably never will. The pluriversal roots of degrowth were born out of the awareness that the supposedly universal ideologies of the 19th and 20th century failed to grasp the complexity of reality. A pluriversal approach promised a new way of coexisting and thriving of a plurality of ontologies, ideologies, and modes of societal organisation.
It is high time to stop pretending - and claiming - degrowth is one thing, one huge all-encompassing framework that will fix the world. Instead, let’s focus on what it is that degrowth brings that the rest of political programs have missed so far: the ideology of growth, in all its socio-cultural, economic, material and political iterations, is the curse of our time. It is the most blatant expression of capitalism in the neoliberal globalised age, rooted so deeply into the political and cultural hegemony of our societies that it goes unnoticed, and is taken for granted, even by many of the most radical struggles. Centering growth provides a sharp tool to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression by targeting the core mechanism of capital accumulation. This is what degrowth can offer, the missing piece in the ideological and analytical frameworks of movements engaging in eroding capitalism, from a variety of angles and through a plethora of tactics.
Beyond this core anti-capitalist tenet, we believe that degrowth can be better understood as a perspective, a lens of interpretation, that can strengthen the anti-capitalist struggle in its different forms. We should maybe stop, from all fronts, to ‘claim’ the word, and start using it instead as an elegant, clarifying, and indispensable adjective. It’s as easy as that: degrowth communism; degrowth eco-socialism; degrowth municipalism; degrowth anarchism. You name it. The result? No reason to quarrel at all.
On the other hand, it is also plausible that our uncompromising strategic positions (vertical and horizontal alike) are not quite well-equipped to grapple with our complicated present. A present that is a Gramscian interregnum in which most categories - even “capitalism” and “liberalism” - blur and degenerate into their techno-authoritarian monstrous shadows. With fascisms taking over governments, welfare being eroded to the bone to fuel a horrendous arms race, and the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, the Left cannot afford to, and should not, waste time and energy over who owns which niche idea.
It is then also high time to put aside utopian purist ideologies and look for sideways alternatives, remixing the ingredients for yet-to-be-seen combinations. In addition to pluriversal thinking, it is time to take seriously another anti-capitalist tool that some in the degrowth movement embraced and contributed to: strategic pluralism.
Strategic pluralism suggests that we must operate simultaneously through different strategies to pressure on different leverage points and overthrow capitalism. Yet strategic pluralism does not mean that we throw together incompatible strategic prospects to, every now and then, discover we actually profoundly disagree. It is not about finding “the right mix of interstitial, symbiotic, and ruptural” strategies, as if, uncoordinated, they would magically work out.
It means, maybe, finding together a dialectical synthesis of those differences and integrating approaches to cover scales so far largely forgotten. A synthesis built on reciprocal recognition and understanding, that resolves the tensions without neglecting the specific value of different theories of change. It means that bottom-up and top-down are not mutually exclusive but potentially complementary. It means that autonomous zones and municipalist self-organisation can potentially spring up alongside central democratic planning that dismantles global obsolete oppressive structures and redistributes power locally. It means that ecosocialism and localist anarchism are potentially two sides of the same coin, if there is a pinch of much-needed convergence. It means that what we dualistically just presented as two sides of a coin are probably just two faces of a dice.
The point is not figuring out what the right strategy is: relying on a single strategy or agent of change is blind to the complexity of the systems in which we operate. We should acknowledge the possibility that different strategies implemented together can succeed in achieving a common goal; and that we must put some effort into coordinating rather than debating.
Within degrowth, we can and should continue to debate theories and strategies. But if we want to meaningfully engage with system transformation, we must recognise the pluriversal essence of the degrowth contribution and offer our analytical tools to support the anti-capitalist struggles, becoming thus an attribute - or adjective - of existing political proposals.
At the same time, even if degrowth in itself might not be the single theory that solves the century-old fault lines of the left, we believe that at least within degrowth circles (and hopefully beyond!), we have the opportunity to start working towards novel strategic convergences fit for our troubled times, and work towards a kintsugi that takes us beyond old fractures.
Oliver Lewis argues that the degrowth movement must not shy away from engaging with its critics
The degrowth movement should shift trajectories, dramatically, as soon as possible. In what direction? Political science research, and direct organizing. I’m an undergraduate political science student in the US. In the last year, I’ve consumed a huge chunk of literature on degrowth. I have deep respect and admiration for the work done by the folks at Research and Degrowth (R&D), the Barc...
Degrowth is a thriving academic field, but one without a home. It can be a struggle to publish degrowth-related articles in the current journal environment. If successful, authors must often surrender the ownership of their work to commercial journals. After more than a decade of degrowth research, and with a growing number of scholars engaged in the field, we believe the time has come to start...
