I am a fan of Buddhist economics. The main conclusion is that GDP is a perverse metric. Humans are more than economic units.
Capitalism is the ultimate cause of climate breakdown
Kohei Saito thinks that capitalism is the ultimate cause of climate breakdown. And that capitalism is not going to solve the problem of the severe ecological burden our daily existence imposes on the planet. Green capitalism is a myth. SDGs are a myth. Carbon tax is not the solution. Neither is a new green deal. They are all smoke screens to avoid the inevitable conclusion. What got you here will not get you there. Because all these models still have a growth modus as the basis. We need to go to degrowth and a redefinition of society.
Plundering
Capitalism uses humans as tools for accumulating capital and profits from the natural world by simply plundering its resources directly. His fear is that the world will end before capitalism does. The diminished availability of fossil fuel is not the only limit we face. In fact, it’s not even the most important. Even before we run out of oil, we’re running out of planet.
A more democratic, egalitarian and sustainable vision of our economy
Saito proposes that instead of the undemocratic state socialism controlled by state bureaucrats, we should develop a more democratic, egalitarian, and sustainable vision of a new steady-state economy that is compatible with Marx’s vision of the future society. We must not entrust the salvation of the earth’s future to the emergency responses dreamed up by politicians, experts, and other elites.
Economics
Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. Economics does not take into consideration that the economic damage caused by climate change is upwards of $27 trillion annually. This kind of damage would continue indefinitely. That is a bill we are leaving for our children. That is outside of the horrific consequences on the environment. That is some legacy to leave behind.
North vs South
It starts with the global North. We live at the expense of the South. It is an imperial mode of living and externalises the effects. Our comfortable lives come at the expense of others forced to live in comparative misery. All capitalism has ever done is shift the costs and burdens of resource extraction onto the various peripheries it has created. Marx’s main point was that capitalism displaces its contradictions elsewhere, thus rendering them invisible.
We are running out of time
However, the exhaustion of the periphery is making it harder and harder to turn a blind eye to the impending crisis. We will be forced to act. Technology development as a solution is always mentioned. He does not share the views of the techno-optimists. According to him, history shows that technological shifts do not solve problems. Instead, the excessive use of technological solutions only deepens the contradictions underlying the problems we are facing. Even if marvellous new technologies were to be discovered, they would still take a long time to be adopted effectively across society. Read “The exponential age“.
Relative decoupling
Decoupling is the attempt, through new technologies, to sever the link between economic growth and increases in environmental burden. Lessening the increase in carbon dioxide emissions relative to what would normally accompany increased economic growth by optimising technological efficiency is referred to as ‘relative decoupling’. That is why we invented, for example, carbon credits.
Absolute decoupling
We need to remember scientists’ warnings that we need to reduce emissions by half by 2030 and to zero by 2050. In other words, humanity’s destiny lies in whether we will be able to effect sufficient absolute decoupling to stop climate change within the next ten to twenty years.
Net zero
Solar panels are not going to do it, electric cars are not going to do it, wind turbines are not going to do it, and biomass energy is not going to do it. They all still are not zero-carbon. No matter how efficient things get, we will never be able to create cars using half the amount of resources we do now, and creating storage batteries and electric cars takes energy as well.
Volume
As the economy grows, the range of human economic activity grows, too, which means that the volume of resources and energy consumption will also grow, making it difficult to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is a historical tendency. Economic growth is historically accompanied by more frequent consumption of bigger commodities, including ones in wasteful and carbon-intensive industries.
Growth trap
This, in turn, will necessitate more dramatic increases in efficiency, but there is an insurmountable physical limit to improving technological efficiency. This is the Growth Trap, a major pitfall awaiting capitalism as it attempts to establish a zero-carbon economy. We also face the Productivity Trap (causing unemployment).
Jevons Paradox
Even as the development of new technologies is improving efficiency, the resulting decrease in the price of goods frequently leads to the increased consumption of those goods. A television might use less energy than before. Still, the increase in demand from people purchasing more and larger televisions leads to an increase in the overall amount of electricity consumed by televisions.
Market dynamics
The power of the market cannot stop climate change. The truth is that the total consumption of resources in 1970 – including mineral resources, ores, fossil fuels, and biomass – was 26 billion, 700 million metric tons; in 2017, it had already surpassed 100 billion metric tons. By 2050, this figure is predicted to rise to 100 billion, 800 million. By 2040, the number of electric cars will likely rise from 2 million to over 280 million, but this is expected to result in a mere 1% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Sufficient absolute decoupling is nothing but an illusion, and while the ‘green’ label may be trendy, even ‘green’ growth will inevitably lead to insupportable increases in the burden on the environment.
Adapting is not an option
Adapting to climate change is nothing more than a way to say that climate change cannot be stopped. It’s exactly this sort of wishful thinking that further strengthens our attachment to the Imperial Mode of Living, resulting in more pressure to exploit the periphery than ever. If we continue down this path, it won’t be long before we end up reaping the consequences at home as well. Read “Deep Adaption“. Collapse as an option.
Degrowth
We could choose degrowth, going far beyond doughnut economics. The enormous question here is how we can realise a just and sustainable society at the global level. Capitalism can never bring about global justice. Eventually, only the top 1% of the richest people in the world will be able to continue their present lifestyles.
10%
10% of the world’s richest people make up half of worldwide emissions. If the world’s richest 10% were to lower the amount of emissions they produce to that of the average European, overall emissions would decrease by a full third. That would likely buy sufficient time for a comprehensive transition to sustainable social infrastructure.
The options
1. Climate fascism. If we choose to do nothing and keep pursuing economic growth through capitalism in order to support the status quo, the damage brought about by climate change will become enormous. Things will be different for the super-rich elite.
2. Barbarism. At the same time, if climate change continues to advance, climate refugees will proliferate, and food production will collapse.
3. Climate Maoism. If this is where we were headed, some form of rule would be necessary to save society from the second-worst-case scenario of descent into barbarism. This would involve jettisoning the free market and liberal democracy as ideals and creating a centralised, authoritarian dictatorship that would bring about ‘more efficient’ and ‘equal’ ways to combat climate change.
4. X. The only real way to face the environmental crisis head-on and control economic growth is to give up capitalism ourselves and bring about a great transition to a post-capitalist system of degrowth. Cancelling GDP as the metric. A transition from quantity (growth) to quality (flourishing). To bring about equality and sustainability. Reconsidering issues of class, money and market. We must create a free, equal, just and sustainable society that overcomes class divides of exploitation and domination and radically revolutionises labour.
Commons
A key concept is the idea of ‘the commons’. The commons is a term for forms of wealth that should be managed and shared by every member of a society. The commons aims to designate things like water, electricity, shelter, healthcare and education as public goods and manage them democratically. To gradually expand the commons until, in the end, they overcome and displace capitalism entirely. This means that the land – that is, the earth – and the means of production are returned to the commons.
Living the good life
Living the good life without a market mechanism. Forget productivity as a metric. No more exploitation of workers. Seeing humans as part of nature. As part of a metabolic relation to the physical world. No more unlimited profit-seeking, but cooperative wealth. Extreme citizen development. Open source. Focus on use-value (use-value indicates the quality in something – for example, air or water – that satisfies a human need or desire). Shifting to an economy based on use-value will transform production dynamics in major ways. To move to a Gross National Happiness Index (GNH).
No more artificial scarcity
- For example, if land speculation were banned, prices would surely fall by half or even two-thirds, wouldn’t they?
- Capital employs another form of artificial scarcity to complete its dominion. Monetary scarcity, caused by debt. A prime example of this is mortgages. In some cases, a couple’s dual income is not enough, and they end up working two jobs – one during the day and one at night – to make ends meet. A worker’s industriousness is, of course, very convenient for the capitalist system.
- The marketing industry is the third biggest in the world, after food and energy production. Between 20% and 40% of the price of commodities is their packaging, it’s said, while in the case of cosmetics, the price of the packaging can rise to as much as three times that of the product itself.
Radical abundance
Instead, radical abundance. Solar and wind power possess a radical abundance. They are truly unlimited and free. But such attributes are fatal to capitalism. The inability to induce scarcity is the same as the inability to make money. Therein lies the problem of capitalism.
Private citizen-ization
This is why the private citizen-ization – that is, the citizen management or municipalisation of energy production – is essential to the widespread adoption of renewable energy. It represents an opportunity to construct small-scale power networks amenable to democratic management, free from the profit motive and capitalising on its inherently dispersed and decentralised nature. This sort of private citizen-ization has been attempted successfully in the UK, Denmark and Germany. Once such a cycle begins, a region’s environment, economy and society begin to synergise, revitalising the community. That is what it means to transition to a sustainable economy via the commons.
Introduce workers’ co-ops
Workers’ co-ops play a crucial role in workers regaining their autonomy and power of self-determination. What enables such an agency is that the co-op is not the private holding of a CEO or a group of shareholders, nor a national enterprise run by a government, but a form of socialised ownership by the workers themselves. Workers’ co-operatives return the means of production to the hands of the producers through solidarity between workers and thus help restore radical abundance.
What if
What if Uber were publicly owned, turning its platform into a commons? To take an example of a different sort – what if the vaccines and drug treatments for COVID-19 were a worldwide commons? The management of the commons can easily occur independently of the state. Water can be managed by autonomous regional bodies, and electricity and farmland can be managed at the citizen level. Sharing economy services can be managed collectively by app users. The space taken up by commodification decreases as radical abundance is restored. For this reason, the GDP would also decrease. This is degrowth. There will be more opportunities to do sports, go hiking, take up gardening, and get back in touch with nature. We will have time, once again, to play the guitar, paint pictures, and read—to live well. We would no longer have to shop online or drink ourselves into oblivion just to rid ourselves of the stress of simply surviving.
Freedom
We must distinguish freedom from the American-style capitalist value system by which liberty is measured by the realisation of a lifestyle that places the largest possible burden on the environment. By contrast, the realm of freedom refers to the range of activities that may not be strictly necessary for survival but to be human. What we need to remember here is that the ‘good’ freedom Marx wants to see flourish is not the material, individualistic consumerism of capitalism.
Synch with nature
According to Marx, the only way to heal this rift is to radically revolutionise the realm of labour so that production can be in sync with the cycles of nature again. The most crucial thing, above all else, is the revolutionary transformation of labour and production. The author suggests five pillars:
- Transitioning to a use-value-based economy
- Shortening work hours
- Abolishing the uniform division of labour
- Democratising the production process
- Prioritising essential work
Agency
As restoring production as a form of commons, municipalism and citizens’ assemblies as forms of democracy that genuinely allow citizens to exercise their agency in planning the way forward and expand their reach, even more fundamental debates will begin to occur as to what sort of society we all want to live in, going forward. Also, read “Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution”.
Techno socialism
I am not an economist (I only understood half of the book) and I am a secret techno-optimist. Still, I imagine that Saito’s thinking would go hand in hand with techno socialism and is definitely something to consider. I do not think energy companies privatising water or public transport (as examples) have done us any favours. The number that keeps on resonating is the 10%. 10% of the world’s wealthiest people make up half of worldwide emissions. That is not right. We all need more skin in the game, and more ownership (commons), as the current systems are no longer working. We are seeing total system collapse.
We only need 3.5%
It would behove us to remember the figure ‘3.5%’. That is the number that Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth came up with in the course of her research into protest strategies as the percentage of a population that must rise up sincerely and non-violently to bring about a major change to society.1It seems entirely within the realm of possibility that enough people sincerely concerned with climate change and passionately committed to fighting it could be gathered together to become a constituency of 3.5%.
Be part of the first 3.5%.
