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Degrowing and Democratizing the Economy

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Degrowing and Democratizing the Economy Degrowing and Democratizing the Economy By Connor Allaby Supervisor: Stefan Kipfer A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Student Signature: _________________ Supervisor Signature: _________________ Foreword My Area of Concentration is “Critical Perspectives on Energy Transition”. Its primary focus is on social, institutional, and economic barriers to a transition away from fossil fuels to mitigate climate change. Its components are political economy, technical aspects of sustainability, and alternative economics. This paper will focus on reforms that can be made to the existing political economic system in order to move to a qualitatively different system that is sensitive to biophysical limits and that is considerably more egalitarian and democratic than the present. So far in the program I have been learning about the structural barriers to sustainability and energy transition. Now I would like to carry this further into an analysis of the options and choices that may present themselves to people searching for alternative political economic arrangements. In this way, the paper progresses as my plan of study progresses, from learning about the state of the world and the ways that it is determined by political economic forces (among other things), to the concrete alternatives that exist to challenge the existing inequality and unsustainable growth in resource throughput. Thus, the paper will serve as a fusion of my components, with an emphasis on what could be done. i Abstract This paper investigates the transition of societal institutions in light of the climate crisis. It proceeds from an understanding of capitalism shaped by recent literature on the “metabolic rift”, primarily drawing upon the work of Jason Moore. From here, it considers the origins of the degrowth movement and literature, which has been one of the more radical forces originating from an explicitly ecological framework. Degrowth is traced from its origins in the work of Georgescu-Roegen and the entropic implications on the economic process, through the French revival of his ideas, and its reincorporation into the academic literature. Degrowth institutional reforms are summarized and it is provisionally concluded that they represent a significant break with certain tenets of capitalist development, although the way in which they are integrated is thought to be crucial. However, the question of the role of the market is raised in consideration of a break with capital accumulation. This leads into the second major part of the paper in which a debate on market socialism is revisited, in order to clarify how the market can be theorized in the transition away from capitalism (and towards degrowth), as well as how the economy can be democratized. The debate reveals some of the essential differences between market socialists and non-market socialists and enables the elaboration of their strategies for democratizing economic life. The debate is also contrasted with an understanding of markets in the development of capitalism, in which markets came to mediate two elements of life that were previously uncommodified: land and labour. In considering degrowth on the market debate, it is suggested that markets should be initially socialized and democratized (along some of the lines exposed in the elaboration of the debate) and then gradually reduced as the economy moves toward a more sustainable basis. This follows from the similar conclusion that degrowth and democratization must be integrated parts of a societal transition. The paper concludes with some promising avenues of political mobilization which incorporate a spirit of systemic change in both an ecological and social direction. ii Table of Contents Foreword................................................................................................................................................i Abstract.................................................................................................................................................ii 1. Introduction...........................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Methodology.................................................................................................................................2 1.2 Method..........................................................................................................................................4 1.3 Capitalism: The Context...............................................................................................................5 1.4 Transition....................................................................................................................................11 2. Part 1: Degrowth.................................................................................................................................13 2.1 Overview of Degrowth...............................................................................................................13 2.2 Degrowth Proposals for Transition.............................................................................................20 2.2.1 Collective Ownership.........................................................................................................21 2.2.2 Job Guarantee and Basic Income.......................................................................................23 2.2.3 Reduced work hours, work sharing, and lower labour productivity..................................25 2.2.4 Maximum Income and Inheritance Taxes..........................................................................26 2.2.5 Technology.........................................................................................................................26 2.2.6 Resource Caps....................................................................................................................28 2.2.7 Population Limits...............................................................................................................29 2.2.8 Public Money and Debt Audits...........................................................................................30 2.2.9 Limitations on Private Property..........................................................................................32 2.3 Discussion...................................................................................................................................32 2.4 Connections to Economic Democracy (and markets).................................................................36 3. Part 2: Democratizing the Economy...................................................................................................38 3.1 Economic Democracy.................................................................................................................39 3.2 Market Socialism........................................................................................................................40 3.3 The Market..................................................................................................................................41 3.3.1 Nove...................................................................................................................................41 3.3.2 Mandel: Respone to Nove..................................................................................................43 3.3.3 Nove: Response to Mandel.................................................................................................45 3.3.4 Elson: Response to Nove and Mandel................................................................................45 3.3.5 Blackburn: In Support of Elson..........................................................................................49 3.3.6 McNally..............................................................................................................................50 3.3.7 Auerbach et al.....................................................................................................................52 3.3.8 Control over Investment.....................................................................................................53 3.3.9 Summary.............................................................................................................................56 4. Degrowth and Democratization..........................................................................................................60 5. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................66 6. References...........................................................................................................................................69 iii 1. Introduction "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by God that's something we can change." - tenant, Grapes of Wrath The quote above from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath makes a clean distinction between lightning and earthquakes (natural forces), and the eviction of tenant farmers from their land during the Great Depression (“a bad thing made by men”). Today that separation is hard to maintain; anthropogenic climate change is now making storms more likely and the practice of
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