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The conventional objections to DeGrowth boil down to: it isn’t the status quo, so it can’t work. Actually, it’s the status quo that isn’t working.

I’ve written about DeGrowth for many years, including Degrowth, Anti-Consumerism and Peak Consumption (May 9, 2013), Degrowth Solutions: Half-Farmer, Half-X (July 19, 2014) and And the Next Big Thing Is … Degrowth? (April 7, 2014)

These are the basic concepts of Degrowth:

1. Consumerism is psychological/ spiritual junk food (French: malbouffe) that actively reduces well-being (bien-etre) rather than increases it.

2. Better rather than more: well-being is increased by everything that cannot be commoditized by a market economy or financialized by a cartel-state financial machine– friendship, family, community, self-cultivation. The goal of economic and social growth should be better, not more. On a national scale, the cancerous-growth measured by gross domestic product (GDP) should be replaced with gross domestic happiness/ gross national happiness (GNH).

3. A recognition that resources are not infinite, despite claims to the contrary. For one example of many: China Is Plundering the Planet’s Seas (The Atlantic). Indeed, all the evidence suggests that access to cheap energy only speeds up the depletion and despoliation of every other resource.

4. The unsustainability of consumerist “growth” that’s dependent on resource depletion funded by financialization (i.e. the endless expansion of credit and phantom collateral). (This is covered in greater depth in my short book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform.)

5. The diminishing returns on private consumption and “bridges to nowhere” (crony-capitalist public consumption).

6. The failure of neoliberal capitalism and communism alike in their pursuit of growth at any cost.

Degrowth is heresy in what John Michael Greer calls the religion of progress (i.e. growth). The faith that growth equals progress is akin to the Cargo Cult of Keynesianism, the notion that expanding debt exponentially to drive diminishing returns of growth is not only necessary but a moral imperative.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe’s Circular-Economy Opportunity

February 23, 2016

global business

EUROPE’S CIRCULAR-ECONOMY OPPORTUNITY

A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional linear economy that uses the model of make, use, dispose of in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them while in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life. The economy of Europe’s has accumulated tremendous wealth over the past century. Partly, this success can be seen due to continuous improvements in resource productivity—a trend that has started to reduce Europe’s resource exposure. Nevertheless, resource productivity remains hugely under-utilized as a source of wealth, competitiveness, and renewal.

A new study “Growth within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe” has provided fresh evidence that a circular economy, made possible by the technology revolution, would make Europe to grow resource productivity by up to 3% annually translating into primary-resource benefit of as much as €0.6 trillion per year by 2030 in these economies.

Additionally, it would generate €1.2 trillion in non-resource and externality benefits, bringing the annual total benefits to around €1.8 trillion compared with today.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY IS FOUNDED ON THE BELOW PRINCIPLES:

Waste is food

Waste does not exist… the biological and technical components (nutrients) of a product are designed by intention to fit within a materials cycle, designed for disassembly and re-purposing. The biological nutrients are non-toxic and can be simply composted. Technical nutrients – polymers, alloys and other man-made materials are designed to be used again with minimal energy.

Diversity is strength

Modularity, versatility and adaptiveness are to be prioritised in an uncertain and fast evolving world. In working toward the circular economy, we should focus on longer-lasting products, developed for upgrade, ageing and repair by considering strategies like emotionally durable design. Diverse products, materials and systems, with many connections and scales are more resilient in the face of external shocks than systems built simply for efficiency.

Energy must come from renewable sources

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Voluntary Frugality

February 12, 2016

One of Our Homes (1)

VOLUNTARY FRUGALITY

This time, I’ve moved beyond dipping in here and there and really started to read David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability, a book that goes in depth into realms of permaculture that I’ve not fully explored in my time involved with the movement. And, while I’m not yet through the book, I’ve recently been struck by a bit of terminology he’s used to describe one of his own permaculture-based lifestyle choices: Voluntary frugality. I define it simply as living thoughtfully (and comfortably) within our means as opposed to always maximizing our possible take.

Coincidentally, when I picked up the book, I’d already begun writing on this very topic but had come to find myself stumped as to whether or not it was simply blowing smoke or something of relevant substance. Well, if Holmgren is anything, it’s substance, so I renamed my article with his words, got back on the high horse, and continued with what I had to say, perhaps with a little more assurance and little more insight. The result is something that I hope is of value to other permaculturalists looking for more ethical and responsible pathways to happiness and relative abundance.

Vegetable Harvest, Photo by Emma Gallagher

For the better part of the last two and a half years, my wife Emma and I have been traveling around, volunteering on farms. At times, we’ve earned meager salaries doing odd jobs that were offered to us, nothing we sought out or needed, per say, for just as often we’ve simply exchanged about twenty hours of labor each week for room and board. Though the situation has not padded our bank accounts in any way whatsoever and, in fact, at this point our clothing is all a little more tattered over backs that are certainly more labored, the experience has still been more than worth it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bread, circuses and inequality – a dishonest bargain

November 21, 2015

Bread, circuses and inequality – a dishonest bargain

How does consumerism undermine democracy?

Flickr/dcmaster, CC BY-NC 2.0

China leads the way

the Chinese people surrender democratic citizenship for the promise of individual gain through private consumptionOver the decade of the 2000s I visited China several times. At some point on each trip a Chinese acquaintance would assure me, unsolicited on my part, that “the Chinese” were not interested in democratic rights. Rather, their priority was material improvement, greater incomes for greater private consumption.

Whatever the validity of this interpretation of collective will, it summarises the governing strategy of China’s dictatorial regime. It involves a bargain in which the Chinese people surrender democratic citizenship for the promise of individual gain through private consumption.

The iron link between dictatorship and private consumption goes far to explain 1) the obsession of the Chinese rulers with maximising economic growth, and 2) the political role of the middle class. Given the clear absence of policies to reduce inequality, rapid growth becomes the necessary mechanism for the state to deliver its part of the consumerist bargain. Far from being a force for democratisation, the rise of a consumerist middle class provides the political support for dictatorship, albeit a minority support.

The bargain of democratic rights for material gain that we see in China is not limited to dictatorial regimes. On the contrary, it serves as the mechanism for the transition from representative democracy to disenfranchised dictatorship.

Consumerist route to tyranny

The disastrous effect of consumerism on global environmental sustainability is well documented. The private automobile represents the most obvious example of the triumph of consumerism over making the planet fit for human life.

Consumerist ideology treats society as a collection of individuals, each seeking to maximise their private consumption

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pope’s climate push is ‘raving nonsense’ without population control, says top US scientist

September 26, 2015

Pope’s climate push is ‘raving nonsense’ without population control, says top US scientist

Paul Ehrlich writes in Nature Climate Change that Francis is wrong to fight climate change without also addressing the strain from population growth on resources

One of America’s leading scientists has dismissed as “raving nonsense” the pope’s call for action on climate change – so long as the leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics rejects the need for population control.

In a commentary in the journal Nature Climate Change, Paul Ehrlich, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, argues that Pope Francis is simply wrong in trying to fight climate change without also addressing the additional strain on global resources from population rise. “That’s raving nonsense,” Ehrlich told the Guardian. “He is right on some things but he is just dead wrong on that.”

The critique in “Society and the Pope’s encyclical”, part of a special package from scientists on the encyclical, marked a rare note of dissent from scientists and campaigners. Many hope that the pope will drive home his call to action on poverty and the environment in his speech to Congress on Thursday.

Ehrlich, in his Nature Climate Change commentary, accuses Francis of a dangerous flaw in his indictment of consumerism and its effects on the poor and the environment. The pope had fallen for the usual clerical “obsession” with contraception and abortion – when he could have instead broken new ground on the Catholic church’s approaches to women’s reproductive rights and family planning.

The broadside exposes some of the difficulties of embracing a figure such as the pope – for those on the left as well as the right.

Conservative allies of the pope, on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion, have balked at his denunciation of capitalism and call to action on climate change.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are we prepared to change to prevent climate change?

June 10, 2015

Are we prepared to change to prevent climate change?

What is needed to get us out of our comfort zone and fight for our children’s future?

If you ask, let’s say, a seven year old, it’s all pretty clear. If it’s the way we live, consume and produce that causes climate change, why don’t we simply stop it and start doing things differently? And if there are millions of people too poor even to meet their basic needs, why don’t we tell the rich to share a bit of their overflow so that there is enough for all?

We may consider this cute and naïve, we may laugh and say, “Look, it’s not all that easy, there are too many complexities and interdependencies and lock-ins and path-dependencies. It’s OK, when you’re older you’ll understand. Our economy needs to grow for us to keep up the good life. It needs to grow to get more people out of poverty, to secure return on investments, and to create jobs in place of those that fell away due to rationalization. We cannot simply stop the machine for something abstract like climate change: this would lead to recession, social unrest and chaos. We have to keep up our economic system to secure social stability, pension schemes and state budgets”—as if social instability, unemployment and wars on resources were not already well on their way.

Questioning the underlying system logic

These are all robust arguments hardly ever questioned—following the logic of homo economicus that individual profit and competition are the best means to achieve the higher common good. But what if this system logic itself was the root cause of our environmental and social crises—climate change above all—and needed to be replaced by something new to secure our survival on this planet?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Liberation Is Unprofitable

June 2, 2015

Liberation Is Unprofitable

12 examples of how liberation is not profitable and therefore it must be marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed.

If we had to summarize the sickness of our economy and society, we could start by noting that liberation is unprofitable, and whatever is not profitable to vested interests is marginalized, outlawed, proscribed or ridiculed. Examples of this abound.

Liberation from debt is not profitable. Only the wealthy can afford to buy a vehicle without debt, a home without debt or a university education without debt. For everyone else, liberation from debt is not an option, because debt is highly profitable to our financial Overlords and the politicos they buy/own.Liberation from digital communication servitude is not profitable. Don’t have a smart phone on 18 hours a day, every day? Loser! Luddite! Liberation from digital communication servitude is not profitable, therefore it is ridiculed.

This Is How Little It Cost Goldman To Bribe America’s Senators (Zero Hedge)

Liberation from political elites is not profitable. Dependence on the state for monthly payments binds the recipients to the political elites that control the money and payments, and to the financial elites who control the political elites.

Liberation from the staged, soap-opera political drama of elections is not profitable. Election advertising generates staggering profits for media companies, and the ceaseless nurturing of fear, resentment and indignation fuels acceptance of centralized power and control.

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.

Liberation from the consumerist mindset is not profitable. Aspirational purchases in the pursuit of appearances are the most profitable of all spending; re-use, repair and informal peer-to-peer sharing are all intrinsically unprofitable.

Narcissistic Consumerism and Self-Destruction (October 20, 2012)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP

May 17, 2015

Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP

I hate to say I told you so, and could be too dead to do so, so I’ll tell you in advance: One decade soon, environmental problems will stop tracking with GDP.

But the reasons? Well, they probably aren’t what you think, especially if you’ve been drinking the green Kool-Aid.

For decades, big-picture ecologists and eventually the “ecological economists” pointed out the fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Every tick of GDP came with the tock of habitat loss, pollution, and, as we gradually realized, climate change. A growing GDP requires a growing human population or a growing amount of goods and services per person. In the American experience of the 20^th century, it was easy to see both – population and per capita consumption – spiraling upward, and just as easy to see the environmental impacts reverberating outward. Much of the world saw the same, although in some countries GDP growth was driven almost entirely by population growth.

Unfortunately, a lot of time was spent overcoming fallacious but slick-sounding shibboleths like “green growth,” “dematerializing” the economy, and the “environmental Kuznets curve.” It seemed these were – or easily could have been –designed by advertisers on Madison Avenue, Big Money in general, or economists in their service, to prevent consumers and policy makers from responding rationally to environmental deterioration. Suggestive phrases such as “consumer confidence” spurred the consumer along, buying more stuff to increase the profits of corporations and, in turn, the campaign purses of politicians.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Change They Don’t Believe In

April 21, 2015

Change They Don’t Believe In

The unfortunate consequence of not allowing the process of “creative destruction” to occur in banking and Big Business is that the historic forces behind it will seek expression elsewhere in the realm of politics and governance. The desperate antics of central banks to cover up financial failure can’t help but provoke political upheaval, including war.

It’s a worldwide phenomenon and one result will be the crackup of economic relations — thought by many to be permanent — that we call “globalism.” The USA has suffered mightily from globalism, by which a bonanza of cheap “consumer” products made by Asian factory slaves has masked the degeneration of local economic vitality, family life, behavioral norms, and social cohesion. That crackup is already underway in the currency wars aptly named by Jim Rickards, and you can bet that soon enough it will lead to the death of the 12,000-mile supply lines from China to WalMart — eventually to the death of WalMart itself (and everything like it). Another result will be the interruption of oil export supply lines.

The USA as currently engineered (no local economies, universal suburban sprawl, big box commerce, despotic agribiz) won’t survive these disruptions and one might also wonder whether our political institutions will survive. The crop of 2016 White House aspirants shows no comprehension for the play of these forces and the field is ripe for epic disruption. The prospect of another Clinton – Bush election contest is a perfect setup for the collapse of the two parties sponsoring them, ushering in a period of wild political turmoil. Just because you don’t see it this very moment, doesn’t mean it isn’t lurking on the margins.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Money for Nothin’ and your Chicks for Free – and your Houses too!

April 21, 2015

Money for Nothin’ and your Chicks for Free – and your Houses too!

Nothing Against the Old

We would like to preface today’s Diary with a clarification: We don’t have anything against old people. We don’t have anything against high GDP growth rates either. But the two don’t go together.

Some of this opinion comes from looking in the mirror: New products? New technology? New businesses? The older we get the less interest we have. When we learn a “new” song on the guitar, for example, it is likely to be one written half a century ago.

When we sit down to watch a movie, we’re as likely to pick out something from Leslie Nielsen’s Naked Gun series as a new Hollywood release. There are different stages in life… with different interests. One dear reader explains it:

In India there is a concept of Vrana ashram. In it, a person’s life is divided in four parts. From birth until 25, it is Brahmacharya – a person should gain knowledge by reading scriptures. From 25 to 50, it is Grihastha ashram – to live married life. From 50 to 75, it Vanaprastha – away from society in the forest seeking god. From 75 to 100, it is Sannays – complete renouncing of the world.”

We guess we are in the Vanaprastha stage. Maybe that’s what we’re really doing out on this remote ranch high in the Argentine Andes: seeking god.

Keeping the Money Spinning

Is there anything wrong with that? Not that we know of. But it is not the way to boost GDP.´One reader pointed out that the problem is not too many old people. It’s too few young people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We need a map out of the nightmare of consumerism

April 16, 2015

We need a map out of the nightmare of consumerism

One of the most harrowing challenges of modern American life is navigating through the massive desert of our mindless, materialistic consumerism. It is within this landscape that a soul can become lost and drenched in despair.

From the endless stream of vacant-eyed wraiths who glide down catwalks, to the pervasive advertising that never ceases to demean the values of empathy and compassion and hollow out any meaning associated with human connection, to the entertainment industry which revels in the depths of cruelty it can sink to, the onslaught on the psyche is both constant and merciless.

Seductions subtle and not

The American shopping mall is a reflection of this nightmare of ravenous cupidity and a message of stark disenfranchisement to the ever growing underclass.

Its glossy finishes and plastic displays erect a wall of defense against anything remotely human or sacred. It entices the youngest of our society with the promise of fulfillment and social status through the acquisition of objects, the alteration of their faces and bodies, and the tacit abandonment of any connection with the natural world and all the beings that inhabit it. Concrete and glass monoliths of corporatism drive home the deepest sense of alienation and desolation by design.

It is a fantasy land of the cruelest fakery, replacing the lively, chaotic and thoroughly interactive marketplace with the impersonal, the absurd, and the surreal. Exported around the world to some of the most impoverished nations on the planet, it is a unique, exclusionary and effective form of imperialism.

– See more at: http://transitionvoice.com/2015/04/we-need-a-map-out-of-the-nightmare-of-consumerism/#sthash.IY9p7ArX.dpuf

The Tyranny of Convenience

April 11, 2015

The Tyranny of Convenience

Our lives are ridiculously convenient in this day and age, and much of the consumer economy seems to be directed at making life ‘easier’ still. It seems that the more convenient life becomes, the more need there is for more convenience. Anything is possible in this technological age and if it can’t be afforded, then convenient credit can make it happen. There is no reason to wait for anything.

Just like an addict, the modern convenience seeker is rarely aware of the damage that the need to feed the need is causing.

The pursuit of convenience is big business and over the last 60-75 years we have experienced a profound cultural shift towards disposable consumerism. We’ve been sold the idea that life must be easy, and that the mundane things in life are to be rushed or delegated so that more time is available for enjoying ourselves. For several generations now our culture has been programmed to place an overly high value on convenience, and the flip side of this is that we have grown to loathe inconvenience to such a degree that we now perceive even slight delays in the delivery of convenience as inconveniences.

Who has time for anything to go wrong in our world today?

Our addiction to this complex lifestyle, requiring ever-compounded convenience, is one of the subtlest and most addictive tyrannies of the modern age.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

10 SHADY ORIGINS OF CONSUMERISM IN THE US

March 28, 2015

10 SHADY ORIGINS OF CONSUMERISM IN THE US

Consumerism and the practice of flaunting one’s status through clothes, jewelry, and other things has existed since the dawn of civilization. Yet, the endless cycle of working to buy has never been more rampant than it is now. How did the United States, a nation founded on Puritan, non-materialistic tenants become filled with the biggest shoppers on the planet and end up occupying 29% of the World’s consumer market? As it turns out, Americans were carefully and systematically manipulated into becoming insatiable shoppers.

10. Freud’s Theories

The man who is largely responsible for introducing advertising as we know it was none other than Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays’, nicknamed the “father of public relations,” studied his uncle’s writings on psychology and group mentality and learned humans react to feelings not facts. With this knowledge, he saw an opportunity to capitalize on people’s subconscious desires by selling goods with the promise of delivering power, status, sex appeal, glamour, health, and other things with emotional connections. His uncle also taught him that humans often act irrationally when emotions are involved and can be led to believe objects are a symbol of their character. Bernays used these theories to manipulate people into buying products they didn’t necessarily need or want.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Only Less Will Do

March 22, 2015

Only Less Will Do

When I’m not writing books or essays on environmental issues, or sleeping or eating, you’re likely to find me playing the violin. This has been an obsessive activity for me since I was a boy, and seems to deliver ever more satisfaction as time passes. Making and operating the little wooden box that is a violin is essentially a pre-industrial activity: nearly all its parts are from renewable sources (wood, horsetail, sheepgut), and playing it requires no electricity or gasoline. Violin playing therefore constitutes an ecologically benign hobby, right?

It probably was, a couple of centuries ago; now, not so much. You see, most violin bows are made from pernambuco, a Brazilian hardwood that’s endangered because too many bows have already been made from it. Ebony, too, is over-harvested; it’s used for making fingerboards, tuning pegs, and bow parts. Some fancy older violin bows are even decorated with tortoiseshell, ivory, and whalebone. And while maple and spruce (the main woods from which violins are constructed) are not endangered, whole forests are being cut in China to meet the burgeoning global demand for student instruments. Modern strings (most of which are made using petroleum derivatives) are often wound with nonrenewable silver or aluminum, and almost nobody tries to recycle them.

You see, the real problem with violins is one of scale. If there were only a few thousand violinists in the world, making and playing fiddles would have negligible environmental impact. But multiply these activities by tens of millions and the results are deforestation and species extinctions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pulling the plug, part 1

March 1, 2015

Pulling the plug, part 1

We can refuse to participate in a dead society gone shopping.
— Joe Bageant

Once we understand what feeds it, it becomes possible to think of stopping the Machine. I puzzled over this one for a long time, only to suddenly grok the obvious: the fodder for the Machine is our precious life energy!

So then. Deny it its coveted fuel: your effort, your attention and interest, your money, your loyalty, your goodwill and your good ideas. Deny it your streams of energy, one by one. Direct them instead to the Lifeworld. And don’t shout it from the rooftops! Just blend discreetly into one of the various subcultures experimenting nowadays with a saner way of life; the minions and guardians of the Machine will never even notice you.

This is the crux. Any machine can withstand tinkering, but no machine can run without fuel. Like an old mill on a dry riverbed, it will become a relic of a past that’s done with, a useless hunk of debris. Our radical withdrawal will be the end of the Machine.

Here are some of the ways of seceding from Babylon:

Down-work, un-work

More work is the source of evils like resource depletion and stress and pointlessly complicated lives; the Earth needs us to stop working so hard! The less we work, the less we feed the Machine. Our work aids the plunder, our de-working slows and stops it, one person at a time. This is why Babylon has always reinforced the message that work is virtuous and important even as it was inventing pointless busywork, harmful work, useless work. Let’s celebrate “Freedom from Labor” Day! Working more is not the way to leisure. Leisure is the way to leisure. Find it before the Machine uses you up and spits you out.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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