Fwd: FW: [Food-news] How do we learn to want less?

[Guest guest]

>

> http://www.freecycle.org

>

> > www.foodnews.ca

>

> Editor's Note: If capitalism as we know it is not

> compatable with

> environmental sustainability, are there

> alternatives? This article from Le

> Monde Diplomatique considers the subject of an

> economy and society

> premised on reduced growth. This proposal includes

> suggestions for urban

> areas limited in size, relocalizing agriculture and

> democracy. We invite

> your thoughts on this topic. Please visit

> www.foodnews.ca to leave your

> comments.

>

>

> http://mondediplo.com/2006/01/13degrowth

>

> How do we learn to want less?

>

> The globe downshifted

>

> There are practical ways in which we could

> immediately start to save our

> species from ecological and social crisis and our

> planet from being

> destroyed by our greed. So why aren’t we adopting

> them? What prevents us

> from desiring a simpler and better way of life?

>

> By Serge Latouche

>

> The dream of building a self-sufficient and

> economical society is widely

> shared, even if under many names. Décroissance

> (degrowth), downshifting,

> anti-productivism, requalified development and even

> sustainable

> development all evoke roughly the same goal. The

> French Greens, mean

> exactly the same thing by anti-productivism as

> growth objectors (1) mean

> by degrowth (2). The organisation Attac has appealed

> for “a move towards

> progressive and reasoned deceleration in world

> growth, under particular

> social conditions, as the first step towards

> reducing predatory and

> devastating production in all its forms”.

>

> Agreement on the re-evaluation our economic system

> needs, and on the

> values that (3) we should bring to the fore, is not

> confined to degrowth

> advocates thinking in terms of post-development. A

> number of sustainable

> or alternative development activists have made

> similar proposals (4). All

> agree on the need for a drastic reduction of

> humanity’s ecological

> footprint. None would contradict John Stuart Mill’s

> Principles of

> Political Economy, published in 1848, in which he

> wrote that all human

> activities that do not involve unreasonable

> consumption of irreplaceable

> materials, or do not damage the environment

> irrevocably, could be

> developed indefinitely. He added that those

> activities many consider to be

> the most desirable and satisfying - education, art,

> religion, fundamental

> research, sports and human relations - could

> flourish (5).

>

> We could go further. For who would actually declare

> themselves to be

> against saving the planet, preserving the

> environment and looking after

> plants and animals? Who actually advocates

> destroying the ozone layer and

> messing up the climate? Not politicians. Even in the

> upper echelons of the

> business world, there are company directors and

> economic authorities who

> favour a radical change in orientation, to save our

> species from

> ecological and social crisis.

>

> So we need to identify the opponents of degrowth

> politics more precisely,

> along with the obstacles to implementing such a

> programme, and the

> political form that an eco-compatible society ought

> to take.

>

> I. Who are the enemies of the people?

> The problem with trying to put a face on the

> adversary is that the

> economic bodies that hold real power (for example

> multinational companies)

> do not and inherently cannot exercise that power

> directly. Susan Strange

> has noted that some of the main responsibilities of

> the state in a market

> economy are no longer borne by anyone today (6).

> While Big Brother is now

> anonymous, his subjects’ servitude is more voluntary

> than ever. The

> manipulation achieved by advertising is infinitely

> more insidious than

> that of propaganda. In these conditions, how can the

> mega-machine possibly

> be challenged politically?

>

> For some on the far left, the stock answer is that

> capitalism is the

> problem, leaving us stuck in a rut and powerless to

> move towards a better

> society. Is economic contraction compatible with

> capitalism? This is a key

> question, but one that it is important to answer

> without resorting to

> dogma, if the real obstacles are to be understood.

>

> The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and

> Energy has come up

> with a number of ingenious win-win frameworks for

> nature’s interaction

> with capital. The Negawatt scheme aims to cut energy

> consumption by

> three-quarters without any drastic reduction in

> needs. It proposes a

> system of taxes, norms, bonuses, incitements and

> selective subsidies to

> make virtuous behaviour an economically attractive

> option and to avoid

> large-scale waste. In Germany there is a credits

> system initiative that

> effectively makes energy-efficient houses cheaper to

> build, despite the

> construction work being at least 10% more expensive.

> Another proposal is

> that rental rather than ownership should become the

> norm for such goods as

> photocopiers, fridges and cars. This would create a

> pattern of constant

> recycling that could slow our mad rush for new

> production. But would that

> really avoid the rebound effect: the economic

> principle whereby reduced

> material and energy costs lead, via reduced

> financial costs, to increased

> material consumption (7)? Nothing could be less

> certain.

>

> Eco-compatible capitalism is conceivable in theory,

> but unrealistic in

> practice. Capitalism would require a high level of

> regulation to bring

> about the reduction of our ecological footprint. The

> market system,

> dominated by huge multinational corporations, will

> never set off down the

> virtuous path of eco-capitalism of its own accord.

> It is a system made of

> anonymous, utilitarian machines for generating

> dividends. These will not

> give up their rapacious consumption of resources

> unless they are forced to

> do so. Even where company directors support

> self-regulation, they cannot

> impose it upon the majority of free-riders who are

> guided by a single

> principle: maximising the company’s share value in

> the short term. If the

> power to regulate were in the hands of an external

> body (the state, the

> people, a union, an NGO, the United Nations), then

> that power would be

> enormous. It could rewrite the social rulebook. It

> could put society back

> in charge.

>

> Mechanisms for countering power with power, as

> existed under the

> Keynes-Fordist regulations of the Social Democratic

> era, are conceivable

> and desirable. But the class struggle seems to have

> broken down. The

> problem is: capital won. We looked on, powerless if

> not indifferent, as it

> swept away everything in its path, including the

> western working class. We

> are currently witnessing the steady

> commercialisation of everything in the

> world. Applied to every domain in this way,

> capitalism cannot help but

> destroy the planet much as it destroys society,

> since the very idea of the

> market depends on unlimited excess and domination.

>

> A society based on economic contraction cannot exist

> under capitalism. But

> capitalism is a deceptively simple word for a long,

> complex history.

> Getting rid of the capitalists and banning wage

> labour, currency and

> private ownership of the means of production would

> plunge society into

> chaos. It would bring large-scale terrorism. It

> would still not be enough

> to destroy the market mentality. We need to find

> another way out of

> development, economism (a belief in the primacy of

> economic causes or

> factors) and growth: one that does not mean

> forsaking the social

> institutions that have been annexed by the economy

> (currency, markets,

> even wages) but reframes them according to different

> principles.

>

> II. Reforms or revolution

> A number of simple, apparently anodyne measures

> would be enough to set the

> virtuous circles of degrowth in motion (8). A

> reformist transition

> programme, of just a few points, could be arrived at

> simply by drawing

> some commonsense conclusions from our diagnosis of

> the problem. We should:

>

> Reduce our ecological footprint so that it is

> equal to or less than the

> sum of Earth’s resources. That means bringing

> material production back

> down to the levels of the 1960s and 1970s.

>

> Internalise transport costs.

>

> Relocalise all forms of activity.

>

> Return to small-scale farming.

>

> Stimulate the production of “relational goods” -

> activities that depend

> on strong interpersonal relationships, such as

> babysitting, caring for

> the bereaved or terminally ill, massage, even

> psychoanalysis, whether

> traded commercially or not, rather than on the

> exploitation of

> resources.

>

> Reduce energy waste by three-quarters.

>

> Heavily tax advertising expenditure.

>

> Decree a moratorium on technological innovation,

> pending an in-depth

> assessment of its achievements and a reorientation

> of scientific and

> technical research according to new aspirations.

>

> Key to this programme is the internalisation of

> external diseconomies -

> those costs incurred by the activity of one player

> but borne by the

> community at large (such as all those related to

> pollution). This idea is

> ostensibly in full keeping with orthodox economics.

> But it would clear the

> way towards a degrowth society. It would place the

> costs of our social and

> environmental problems on the books of the companies

> responsible for them.

> Imagine the impact that this would have: if

> businesses had to accept the

> costs of the transport, security, unemployment and

> education that their

> functioning requires (not to mention the costs of

> their environmental

> impact), then our societies would start to function

> differently. These

> reformist measures, whose principles were outlined

> in the early 20th

> century by the liberal economist Arthur Cecil Pigou,

> would bring about a

> revolution.

>

> The reason for this is the scale of the disincentive

> that these measures

> would represent for any business adhering to

> capitalist logic. Already, no

> insurance company will provide cover for risks

> associated with nuclear

> power, climate change or genetically modified

> organisms. Imagine the

> paralysis that would ensue if firms had to cover for

> health risks and

> social risks (unemployment), or the aesthetic

> aspects of environmental

> degradation. Countless activities would suddenly no

> longer be viable.

> Initially, the system would grind to a halt.

>

> But that halt could be a transitional period on the

> path to an alternative

> society; it would certainly be proof of the urgent

> need for such change.

> For the proposals that might make up a manifesto for

> degrowth politics

> stand little chance of being adopted, and even less

> of being brought to

> fruition, without total subversion of the current

> system. These realistic

> and reasonable suggestions can only be enacted via a

> utopian project: the

> construction of an alternative society.

>

> Conceiving an alternative society requires attention

> to detail. This is

> precisely what Marx refused to do: the dirty dishes

> of the future. Take

> the necessary dismantling of large companies. It

> immediately raises a host

> of questions: what limit should be set on the size

> of a company? Should it

> be measured in terms of turnover, or numbers of

> employees? How could our

> vast technical systems be maintained without

> mega-corporations to run

> them? Or should certain systems or types of activity

> be abandoned (9)?

>

> Any transition would have to answer tricky

> questions. But some answers are

> available. A massive reconversion programme could

> turn car factories into

> cogeneration power plants (where heat and

> electricity are generated at the

> same time). Such techniques have already turned many

> German homes into net

> producers of electricity, rather than consumers.

> Solutions exist: it is

> the conditions for their adoption that are lacking.

>

> III. Global dictatorship vs local democracy

> Consumer democracies are dependent on growth, for

> without the prospect of

> mass consumption, the inequalities would be

> unbearable (and they are

> already getting that way, thanks to the crisis in

> the growth economy). The

> foundation myth of modern society is that the trend

> is towards more equal

> conditions. Inequalities are provisionally accepted,

> since many goods that

> were once reserved for the privileged are now

> widespread, and the luxuries

> of today will be accessible to all tomorrow.

>

> For this reason, many doubt the capacity of

> democratic societies to take

> the measures that our environment needs. This view

> can see no other

> solution than a form of authoritarian ecocracy:

> ecofascism or

> ecototalitarianism. In the highest spheres of

> capital’s empire (at the

> elite, semi-secret Bilderberger Organisation, for

> example), thinkers have

> been discussing this possibility. Faced with a

> serious threat, the masses

> of the North might well hand over their freedom to

> demagogues promising to

> preserve their lifestyles. This plan would of course

> entail a drastic

> aggravation of global injustice and, ultimately, the

> liquidation of a

> substantial proportion of the species (10).

>

> The strategy of degrowth economics is different. It

> wagers on a

> stick-and-carrot combination: regulations designed

> to force change, plus

> the ideal of a convivial utopia, will add up to a

> decolonisation of minds

> and encourage enough virtuous behaviour to produce a

> reasonable solution:

> local ecological democracy.

>

> The revitalisation of the local opens up a far

> smoother and less uncertain

> route to economic contraction than the problematic

> notion of a universal

> democracy. It gives the lie to the ideal of a

> unified humanity as the only

> way to achieve harmony with the planet, one of the

> myriad false good ideas

> thrown up by everyday western ethnocentrism.

> Cultural diversity is surely

> the only way to achieve peaceful social intercourse

> (11).

>

> Democracy can probably only function where the polis

> is small and firmly

> anchored to a set of values. For the economist Takis

> Fotopoulos, the aim

> of universal democracy presupposes a “confederation

> of demoi” made up of

> small, homogenous units of around 30,000 people

> (12), a size at which most

> basic needs could be provided for locally. “Given

> their huge size, many

> modern cities would probably have to be divided into

> a whole set of

> demoi,” says Fotopoulos (13).

>

> With our cities and towns restructured around little

> neighbourhood

> republics, we could turn our attentions to the more

> thorough

> reorganisation of human land use recommended by the

> Italian town-planner

> Alberto Magnaghi. He suggests “a long and complex

> period (50 to 100 years)

> of purification. During this period people will no

> longer be engaged in

> turning more and more fens and fallow land over to

> farming, nor in pushing

> transport links through such areas. Instead, we will

> set about cleaning up

> and rebuilding the environmental and territorial

> systems that have been

> destroyed and contaminated by human presence. In so

> doing, we shall create

> a new geography” (14).

>

> It may sound utopian. But the utopia based around

> local community politics

> is more realistic than people think, since

> expectations and possibilities

> grow out of citizens’ hands-on experiences. In

> Fotopoulos’s view,

> “Standing in local elections gives one the chance to

> change society from

> below, which is the only truly democratic strategy.

> It is unlike both

> state-based methods (which aim to change society

> from above by taking

> control of the state) and ‘civil society’ activity

> (which doesn’t try to

> change the system at all)” (15).

>

> The relationships between the polities within the

> global village could be

> regulated by a democracy of cultures, in what might

> be called a

> pluriversalist vision. This would not be a world

> government, but merely an

> instance of minimal arbitration between sovereign

> polities with highly

> divergent systems. The philosopher and theologian

> Raimon Panikkar has

> developed an alternative vision to that of a world

> government, which he

> calls the bio-region: “natural regions where

> livestock, plants, animals,

> water and men form a unique and harmonious whole. We

> need to divorce the

> myth of the universal republic from the notion of a

> world government or

> system of control, or a world police. The way to do

> this is by developing

> a different kind of relationship between bioregions”

> (16).

>

> Whatever one makes of these visions, one thing is

> certain: the creation of

> democratic local initiatives is more realistic than

> that of a democratic

> world government. Once we have ruled out the idea of

> tackling the power of

> capital head-on, what remains is the possibility of

> dissidence. This is

> the strategy of Subcomandante Marcos and the

> Zapatistas in Mexico. They

> have reinvented the notion of communal goods and

> spaces - “commons” - and

> regained real popular control over them. Their

> autonomous management of

> the Chiapas bioregion is one illustration, in one

> context, of how localist

> dissidence can work (17).

>

>

> More about Serge Latouche.

> Translated by Gulliver Cragg

>

> (1) Members of the ROCADe Network of Growth

> Objectors for

> Post-development. See www.apres-developpement.org/ac

> cueil...

>

> (2) Décroissance, now a buzzword in French, means

> the replacement of

> economic growth with a steady downscaling in

> production levels to bring

> human use of the planet’s resources back within

> sustainable limits.

>

> (3) See Serge Latouche, “The world downscaled”, Le

> Monde diplomatique,

> English language edition, December 2003.

>

> (4) As early as 1975, the Dag Hammarskjöld

> Foundation proposed the same

> self-limitation measures, for “endogenous,

> self-reliant development”, as

> degrowth advocates propose today: “A ceiling on meat

> consumption, oil

> consumption . . . more economical use of buildings .

> . . greater

> durability of consumer goods ... no privately owned

> automobiles.” Dag

> Hammerskjöld report, 1975.

>

> (5) Principles of Political Economy, Oxford World’s

> Classics, Oxford

> University Press, Oxford, 1999.

>

> (6) Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State: The

> Diffusion of Power in the

> World Economy, Cambridge University Press,

> Cambridge, 1996.

>

> (7) See www.faw.uni-ulm.de/asis/html/b ackgr...

>

> (8) Without affecting other healthy public measures

> such as the taxation

> of financial transactions or the setting of an upper

> limit on earnings.

>

> (9) Ivan Illich believed that some technologies were

> convivial and others

> were not and never could be. See Ivan Illich, Tools

> for Conviviality,

> Calder and Boyars, London, 1973. Read Thierry

> Paquot, “The nonconformist”,

> Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition,

> January 2003, for a

> profile of Illich.

>

> (10) See William Stanton, The Rapid Growth of Human

> Population 1750-2000:

> Nation by Nation, Multi-Science Publishing,

> Brentwood, 2003.

>

> (11) See the last chapter of Serge Latouche, Justice

> sans limites, Paris,

> Fayard, 2003.

>

> (12) In ancient Greece, the natural arena for

> politics was the city-state,

> a grouping of neighbourhoods and villages.

>

> (13) Takis Fotopoulos, Towards an Inclusive

> Democracy: the Crisis of the

> Growth Economy and the Need for a New Liberatory

> Project, Cassell, London,

> 1997.

>

> (14) Alberto Magnaghi, Le projet local, Mardaga,

> Brussels, 2003.

>

> (15) Fotopoulos, op cit.

>

> (16) Raimon Pannikar, Politica e interculturalità,

> L’Altrapagina, Città di

> Castello, 1995.

>

> (17) According to Gustavo Esteva in Celebration of

> Zapatismo, Multiversity

> and Citizens International, Penang, 2004.

>

>

> English language editorial director: Wendy

> Kristianasen - all rights

> reserved © 1997-2006 Le Monde diplomatique.

>

>

>

> WHO WE ARE: This e-mail service shares information

> to help more people

> discuss crucial policy issues affecting global food

> security. The service

> is managed by Amber McNair of the University of

> Toronto in partnership

> with the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI)

> and Wayne Roberts of

> the Toronto Food Policy Council, in partnership with

> the Community Food

> Security Coalition, World Hunger Year, and

> International Partners for

> Sustainable Agriculture.

> Please help by sending information or names and

> e-mail addresses of

> co-workers who'd like to receive this service, to

> foodnews

>