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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Center for a Stateless Society</title> <atom:link href="https://c4ss.org/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://c4ss.org</link> <description>building public awareness of left-wing market anarchism</description> <lastBuildDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:59:47 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2</generator> <item> <title>Lecture: “Peace Economics With an Anarchist Squint”</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60283</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Nathan Goodman]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:09:05 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Stigmergy - C4SS Blog]]></category> <category><![CDATA[anarchism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[economics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[peace]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60283</guid> <description><![CDATA[I recently delivered the second annual Kenneth Boulding Lecture on the Study of a Stable Peace. This lecture, which is held annually by the Initiative for the Study of a Stable Peace, aims “to discuss the most pressing issues related to achieving a stable peace through the lens of mainline economics.” My talk was on...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[I recently delivered the second annual <a href="https://www.stablepeace.com/stable-peace-current-events">Kenneth Boulding Lecture on the Study of a Stable Peace</a>. This lecture, which is held annually by the <a href="https://www.stablepeace.com/">Initiative for the Study of a Stable Peace</a>, aims “to discuss the most pressing issues related to achieving a stable peace through the lens of <a href="https://www.peter-boettke.com/mainline-economics">mainline economics</a>.” My <a href="https://youtu.be/NuCSR8wrIwk?si=fxK9y6pmdjHDncsI">talk</a> was on <a href="https://youtu.be/NuCSR8wrIwk?si=fxK9y6pmdjHDncsI">“Peace Economics with an Anarchist Squint.”</a> I discussed how viewing the world through what James C. Scott calls an <a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/james-c-scott-two-cheers-for-anarchism#toc2">“anarchist squint”</a> can illuminate various crucial questions in the study of peace and conflict. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NuCSR8wrIwk?si=fxK9y6pmdjHDncsI" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Diversity and Harmony</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60284</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Trevor Hauge]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2025 11:00:18 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Feature Articles]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Atheism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[diversity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[hegemony]]></category> <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category> <category><![CDATA[nationalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[religion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Rojava]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Zapatistas]]></category> <category><![CDATA[zionism]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60284</guid> <description><![CDATA[Running parallel to the struggle between capitalists and workers is the conflict between those who value a society that respects plurality and diversity and those who demand conformity and homogeneity. Pluralism is a well established doctrine. It appears in many different ideologies to varying degrees: liberalism, anarchism, social democracy, and even some forms of right...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Running parallel to the struggle between capitalists and workers is the conflict between those who value a society that respects plurality and diversity and those who demand conformity and homogeneity. Pluralism is a well established doctrine. It appears in many different ideologies to varying degrees: liberalism, anarchism, social democracy, and even some forms of right libertarianism contain pluralistic aspects. On the opposite pole hangs the doctrines of sameness and orthodoxy that have gone by many different names; conservatism, traditionalism, perennialism, integralism, and most damning of all, fascism. Since we’re talking about a broad historical trend that transcends particular ideologies, let’s simply call those belonging to the first group pluralists and the latter homogenizers, since like the machine of the same name they seek to grind down diverse elements into a uniform, undifferentiated substance. Proponents of homogenizing ideologies argue that diversity inherently causes conflict, they claim that people need shared cultural values to form a cohesive society. If we all believe in different gods, can’t agree on how many genders there are, don’t speak the same language, don’t have the same conceptions of family, then society will crumble into chaos and, dare I say it, anarchy! Homogenizers tend to straw-man pluralists as being inconsiderate of the need for social cohesion. When it comes to the question of cohesion, what pluralists actually tend to believe is that broader values like liberty, equality, justice, and solidarity can act as the glue that binds people together, fulfilling the need for social cohesion. It’s important to note, however, that pluralists do not mindlessly believe that throwing a bunch of people together that don’t respect each other’s differences will automatically result in a stable society. Pluralists are generally pretty aware that an actual solution is needed in order to foster stability. Though the exact solution might vary depending on the specific pluralist ideology (liberalism, anarchism, libertarianism, etc), pluralists in general claim that people with different value systems can indeed get along if they choose to embrace a broader set of meta-cultural values which emphasize respect for diversity, alongside their own particular customs. In a pluralistic system, each individual can have their own autonomous cultural space, so long as they agree to respect one another’s boundaries. This does not mean that people have to abandon their own customs and assimilate, just that they are better off if they recognize that it’s mutually beneficial for all involved to accept and embrace the fact that not everyone will have the same cultural or religious preferences. In other words, people can hold their own unique cultural values that coexist with those broader shared values and still come together voluntarily to defend their respective autonomy. You can be a straight Christian or devout Muslim and I can be a bisexual atheist heathen so long as we respect each other’s differences and refrain from using the law (i.e., state violence) to assert power over one another. We can also work together to defend one another’s rights to be different, and in doing so, find a kind of natural, solidaristic social cohesion. This is a cohesion of volition, it arises naturally out of mutual aid and community defense. We don’t need to have the exact same identity, or even a remotely similar identity if we can find common ground through a desire for autonomy and through our innate need of mutual aid. Consider the rebel Zapatistas in Chiapas Mexico. The Zapatistas are a group of indigenous and mestizo libertarian socialists that rose up against the Mexican state in response to Nafta privatization schemes. They speak a multitude of different languages. According to a 2010 census 38.1% of the indigenous people in Chiapas speak Tzeltal, 34.5% Tzotil, 15.9% Chol, 4.5% Zoque, 4.4% Tojolabal, 0.7% Mame, 0.5% Kanjobal, and 1.3% speak 45 other minor languages.[1] That’s 52 different languages! Alex Khasnabish, author of Zapatistas: Rebellion From The Grassroots To The Global, points out that respect for diversity is integral to the Zapatista ideology, political structure and even their very notion of justice itself: <blockquote>The Zapatistas’ notion of ‘justice’ is not simply a demand for the just application of the law or even the reformation of the legal system but rather for a society within which dignity and respect are the primary standards according to which people are treated. The Zapatista conceptions of democracy, liberty and justice rest upon a perspective which views the world as a place characterized by multiplicity and diversity, a perspective which in fact is brilliantly articulated by the Zapatista slogan ‘queremos un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos’ — ‘we want a world which holds many worlds’ (Navarro 1998: 162). For a society to be ‘just’, it must not only view difference as legitimate, but acknowledge that difference and radical multiplicity are essential characteristics of existence rather than notions to be merely tolerated. In fact, the Zapatista emphasis on ‘equality’ is another concept closely aligned with ‘justice’ in that it is an explicit denial of any attempts to standardize or homogenize people. Rather than implying standardization, equality is instead the appreciation and respect for difference, the appreciation and respect for autonomy.[2]</blockquote> The Zapatistsas organize themselves through a decentralized confederation of village level assemblies that employ a mixture of direct and consensus democracy where all over the age of 16 have a direct say in the affairs of the community. This system covers half the state of Chiapas. They fought the Mexican state, the drug cartel and have managed to hold onto this anarchic way of life since 1994. If diversity was inherently incompatible with social cohesion and synonymous with societal collapse, how could a stateless society founded upon respect for diversity defend itself against a well armed, militaristic state with superior logistics and technology for thirty one years? That’s longer than the existence of famously homogenous societies like Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. So much for the master races and supposed superiority of homogeneity. If the Zapatistas aren’t enough to convince you that a diverse group of people can put aside their differences and come together for a common goal over a long period of time, exist harmoniously, and defend themselves, we also have the example of Rojava, another libertarian socialist confederation in North and East Syria in which several different languages are spoken and in which many different ethnic and religious people not only choose to coexist but fought valiantly against the homogenizing terror of ISIS from 2012 to the present. It is arguable that without the efforts of the YPG/YPJ in Rojava, the reign of ISIS might have been prolonged. There is also the Swiss Confederation, often called a state of volition rather than of nation, since four different languages are spoken, each primarily dominant in a different Canton. The Swiss Confederation was founded on September 12th, 1848, 177 years ago. Such a society, statist or otherwise, could not exist for a long time without some degree of underlying respect for diversity baked into the culture. Along with the evidence examined, it is also hard not to conclude that, along with class systems and state apparatuses, homogenizing ideology is one of the major contributors to human conflict, and ironically a primary enemy of the harmony which it seeks so desperately to achieve. World War II alone killed 50 million people, and it was started by a man who’s primary obsession was with that of a dominant homogenous culture. Hitler and his pawns thought that if only everyone was a blonde haired, blue eyed, god-loving German patriot then all the world’s problems would wither away and there would be harmony and peace. But such thinking brought only death, destruction, and dissolution of the very fabric of society itself. Nazi warmongering doesn’t even scratch the surface of the wave tribalistic conflicts that have been ravaging the globe ever since. For instance, the genocide of Palestinians by the Israeli ethnostate, a homogenizing force if there ever was one. While the Zionist movement certainly had support before the Holocaust, it gained real popularity and momentum afterward. Some people in the Jewish diaspora initially saw the fledgling Jewish state as a necessary measure to ensure their safety in a world that was hell bent on destroying them for no good reason. And, I can empathize with their pain while understanding the flaws inherent to that solution. Persecution sometimes drives people towards nationalistic solutions which encourage homogeneity and tribalism. But more often than not nationalistic solutions result in people engaging in actions which mirror the persecution they initially endured, such is the case with Zionist movement. Right now as I type, Gaza still continues to be leveled by Israeli bombs. Donald Trump, the most powerful ally of the Zionist state has openly talked of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.[3] A portion of the oppressed made the choice in the wake of the Holocaust to become the oppressor as a result of their trauma. Others belonging to the Jewish diaspora rejected and still continue to reject homogeneity and nationalism and that’s a better decision in the long run. The Israeli-Palestine conflict will not end once Gaza has been ethnically cleansed. In response to the atrocities committed by the Israeli state, many Palestinian survivors will endorse the xenophobia and campism of Hamas, and I can empathize with their pain and suffering as well while recognizing that the ideology of Hamas ultimately has the same problem that Zionism does; the homogenizing tendency. The entire process is a negative feedback loop, and it often begins when a dominant majority decides to impose its culture on the minority. Let’s look at a theoretical: Imagine that there are two groups, Group A and Group B. Each group has a different competing cultural movement within itself, a homogenous movement which seeks to establish a domineering monoculture and a pluralist movement which allows for many different cultures to exist autonomously, side by side. When the pluralist movement becomes hegemonic in both groups the two groups have a higher chance of being able to peacefully resolve their conflicts because a core tenet of their culture is coexistence. They don’t inherently interpret human relations as being a zero-sum game, in which only one culture can be dominant. The homogenizing mindset creates a mentality of fear and paranoia, which is further exacerbated by material scarcity. On the other hand, pluralistic groups tend not to view other peoples as potential threats unless they have a very good reason to, and even when they have a reason to, they are more likely to seek out a diplomatic solution before resorting to a violent solution. Meanwhile, when the homogenizing mentality becomes hegemonic in one group the risk of conflict increases. But even then, the potential for deescalation remains greater if the other group holds fast to its values of coexistence, giving the hostile group a chance to work out its own problems internally. This does not mean that conflict can always be avoided, but that its risk can be mitigated. What about when both groups embrace the homogenizing influence though? Conflict, chaos and annihilation are all but guaranteed due to the innate out group hostility of homogenizing ideology. The same logic applies not only to intergroup relations, but to intragroup dynamics. In this case too, homogenizing ideology often increases friction more than it decreases friction. As a pluralist I can get along with any other pluralist regardless of what else they believe because we all agree on the basic principle of live and let live. I live how I want; they live how they want. We defend each other’s right to do so and thus feel solidarity for one another regardless of our cultural differences. It’s our love of individual freedom that unites us and creates harmony. It doesn’t matter if we speak a different language, worship different gods (or none at all), prefer different familial structures, or have different skin colors. When an ideology that seeks to homogenize society is introduced though, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: violence, sectarianism, oppression, and ultimately, disunity. Conflict is a likely outcome because homogenization requires domination in order to eliminate diversity. It’s impossible to eliminate all human variety and to control all variables, and so a power struggle is inevitable when domination becomes the primary human relationship governing society. This is because the groups that are being dominated and assimilated will have no other choice but to defend themselves, which escalates conflict. The pressure of conflict can unfortunately push target minorities to embrace campism in self-defense. When a majority group decides to target a minority within itself, it signals to the members of that community that they are no longer a part of the in-group which can understandably trigger a fight response. For instance, due being targeted by the US state, and ostracized by a large segment of the US public, some members of the Palestinian diaspora living in the US look to anyone who’ll stand up against the Israeli state or its imperialist ally, America, as a potential ally, including rival imperialist powers like Russia or China and their allies, North Korea and Iran. However, that’s a strategic mistake since those states either engage in the same type of external conquest, or internal subjugation of minorities that the United States does. In the case of Russia, both. In this example, or any other, the homogenizing forces which initiated the conflict will undoubtedly take advantage of this strategic blunder to bolster their claim that the target minority cannot be trusted creating an even greater sense of alienation. Alas, the prophecy fulfills itself as conflict intensifies. The good news is that the homogenizing ideology cannot escape the inevitable creep of entropy. Even where homogenizing factions have asserted totalitarian control, believing that they have finally freed themselves from “subversive elements”, they eventually find control slipping from their hands, as they can’t prevent new factions from forming within, causing ruptures. To diverge is human nature! For instance when the Nazis took power they immediately had to purge the followers of Strasser and Rohm or face a power struggle from within. Also consider the Bolsheviks, while they did not espouse ethnic homogeneity they did believe strongly ideological homogeneity and that resulted in a similar outcome; factionalism, purges, power struggle, strife and eventually disintegration. Authoritarian homogenization can never truly last because we are all individuals and all have our unique way of thinking, the homogenizers can’t escape this fate either. When they think they are finally on the same page, someone turns to the next and their fragile world is torn asunder because they do not respect diversity of thought, let alone identity, and so they begin to turn on each other which can sometimes give oppressed people and their allies an opportunity to rebel. The only way this could ever be resolved is if humans became some sort of cybernetic hive mind. But hey, maybe that’s the end goal of the techno-fascist police state. Sometimes this pluralist-homogenist conflict gets framed as identical to conflicts between atheism and religion, but it’s not. The New Atheists of the early aughts tried to frame the violence in the middle east as a struggle between barbarous adherents of eastern religion and enlightened western secularists. The general thinking is best exemplified by Richard Dawkins in the first couple pages of his 2006 book, The God Delusion: <blockquote>In January 2006 I presented a two-part television documentary on British television (Channel Four) called Root of All Evil? From the start, I didn’t like the title. Religion is not the root of all evil, for no one thing is the root of all anything. But I was delighted with the advertisement that Channel Four put in the national newspapers. It was a picture of the Manhattan skyline with the caption ‘Imagine a world without religion.’ What was the connection? The twin towers of the World Trade Center were conspicuously present. Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it.</blockquote> Now, I won’t pretend I was above this simplistic thinking for my entire life. As a young atheist, this book especially resonated with me. But, the narrative fell on its head pretty quickly when I began to delve into revolutionary history. Dawkins claims there would be no public beheadings without religion, however one has only to gesture to the French revolution to see how silly that claim is. How about his claim that the troubles and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wouldn’t exist? Well, there’s no particular reason why colonialism wouldn’t still exist in the absence of religion, the Soviets found their justifications without it just fine. Ask the Ukrainians and Ingushetians about that one. So, while I am an atheist, and I even enjoy a good take down of religious fundamentalism to this day, it’s not as simple as rational atheism vs irrational religion. The fact is, the homogenizing ideology which drives human conflict can be present within all sorts of belief systems, theistic and atheistic alike. Though I don’t fully agree with anarchist Josiah Warren’s ultra-individualistic conclusions, falling somewhere between individualist and social anarchism myself, I can’t help but feel there was a grain of truth when he said “Infinite diversity instead of ‘’unity’ is inevitable.”[4] However, I would modify this by saying that infinite diversity and unity are not necessarily antonyms, but that infinite diversity needs to be given a lot of room within society. If it does not find that room and is suppressed as the forces of homogenization desire, it will lead to conflict; power struggle is the only active option when autonomy is denied. If it is allowed to flourish within a system built upon mutual respect for differences, it will be a source of solidarity, which naturally leads to harmony. As an anarchist, I’m under no illusion that any society, stateless or otherwise can last forever. Change and entropy are, as far as we can ascertain, inevitable. Societies will continue to rise and fall, come and go, ebb and flow. That’s the beauty of “anarchy” in the colloquial and political sense of the word. But that doesn’t mean we should despair and fall into nihilism, which only accelerates entropy, it just means that we have to construct systems which are dynamic, pluralistic, and which account for the many divergent ways of being by fostering respect for diversity. If anarchy can be order, then respect for diversity can be unity. If you value social cohesion, you should be a pluralist, not a homogenizer. Homogeneity is not the solution; it’s the problem. <ol> <li><a href="https://www.indigenousmexico.org/articles/chiapas-forever-indigenous">“Chiapas: Forever Indigenous”</a> by John Schmal, Indigenous Mexico.</li> <li>Zapatistas: Rebellion From The Grassroots To The Global by Alex Khasnabish, pg. 91.</li> <li><a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-gaza-plan-palestinians-israel-3f12eb51869da2221afbb22b0bcf47ba">“Trump doubles down on plan to empty Gaza. This is what he has said and what’s at stake.”</a> by Lee Leath, AP News.</li> <li><a href="https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/josiah-warren-the-motives-for-communism">The Motives for Communism</a> by Josiah Warren, Anarchist Library.</li> </ol> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>New Cover for Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60257</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex McHugh]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2025 13:51:44 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Center Updates]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stigmergy - C4SS Blog]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60257</guid> <description><![CDATA[A classic C4SS study got an update recently. Kevin Carson’s deeply impactful Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition is now available with a beautifully illustrated cover, created by Joshua Sparrow. You can support the artist here! Now more than ever, it’s important to share the economic insights or LWMAs with as many...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[A classic C4SS study got an update recently. Kevin Carson’s deeply impactful <a href="https://c4ss.org/content/50407">Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition</a> is now available with a beautifully illustrated cover, created by Joshua Sparrow. <div id="attachment_60254" style="width: 222px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://c4ss.org/content/50407"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60254" class="wp-image-60254 size-medium" style="padding-left: 10px;" src="https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover-212x300.jpg" alt="" width="212" height="300" srcset="https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover-212x300.jpg 212w, https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover-724x1024.jpg 724w, https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover-768x1086.jpg 768w, https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover-1086x1536.jpg 1086w, https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Libertarian-Municipalism-illustrated-cover.jpg 1448w" sizes="(max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px" /></a><center><a href="https://ko-fi.com/josha_wah">Support the artist.</a></center></div> <a href="http://ko-fi.com/josha_wah">You can support the artist here!</a> Now more than ever, it’s important to share the economic insights or LWMAs with as many people as possible. To that end, this new version of Carson’s well-loved deep dive into libertarian municipalism is meant to be eye-catching on a book fair table and a little more social-media-friendly. Enjoy the new look, and please share widely! You may have read this study many times, but re-sharing and spotlighting seminal work from the Center’s recent past keeps the ideas fresh and in front of new eyes. With new artistic talent on the team, we’re excited to do more with the kind of content we publish and explore new ways of illustrating the ideas of market anarchism. So look out for more gorgeous work from Josha in the coming months. ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>More Degrowth Dogma </title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60149</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kevin Carson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2025 11:00:59 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[degrowth]]></category> <category><![CDATA[dogma]]></category> <category><![CDATA[economics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[environmentalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[markets]]></category> <category><![CDATA[oil]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Reason]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60149</guid> <description><![CDATA[There’s a great deal of commonality in critiques of degrowth by left-wing “ecomodernists” and accelerationists like Leigh Philips (see my critique here), and right-wing libertarians like Steven Greenhut. Both are characterized by a high degree of conceptual laziness; this laziness is manifested particularly in a failure to clearly define what degrowth even is, instead playing...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[There’s a great deal of commonality in critiques of degrowth by left-wing “ecomodernists” and accelerationists like Leigh Philips (see my critique <a href="https://c4ss.org/content/52500">here</a>), and right-wing libertarians like Steven Greenhut. Both are characterized by a high degree of conceptual laziness; this laziness is manifested particularly in a failure to clearly define what degrowth even is, instead playing on the negative associations of the term and rolling out a series of talking points that don’t honestly frame or directly address actual degrowth theory. Greenhut (“<a href="https://reason.com/2024/10/25/the-degrowth-mentality-promises-a-world-of-poverty-and-misery/">The ‘Degrowth’ Mentality Promises a World of Poverty and Misery</a>,” Reason October 25 — reprinted from <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2024/10/20/degrowth-theorists-plot-a-world-of-poverty-and-misery/">Orange County Register</a>) exemplifies these tendencies in spades. Right at the outset, Greenhut summarizes degrowth as arguing that “humanity’s continuing pursuit of economic betterment is unsustainable and a threat to the planet.” At the end of his piece he puts it, more crudely, as desiring a world in which we’re “spending all day scrounging for food and washing our clothes with a rock.” Greenhut cites the website <a href="https://degrowth.info/degrowth">Degrowth.info</a> to the effect that degrowth “requires radical redistribution, reduction in the material size of the global economy, and a shift in common values towards care, solidarity, and autonomy.” Naturally, he leaves out the part that calls for “a good life for all within planetary boundaries.” This, predictably, he dismisses as “the latest environmental-oriented take on the same-old left-wing totalitarianism” (here he links to an article on China’s Great Leap Forward, <blockquote>as it would take immense government power to radically redistribute resources and determine how to re-order society. However this concept would be implemented, it certainly would enslave and impoverish virtually everyone, and lead to famine and misery. . . . One might argue that progressive policy makers in California are engaged in a kinder, gentler version as they crush the oil and gas industry and try to remake our economy and rejigger land-use patterns to promote a “sustainable” and carbon-free future.</blockquote> It’s ironic that Greenhut trots out the Great Leap Forward as an analogy, as it was motivated not by an agenda of austerity but as a way of drastically expanding industrial output. More substantively, the claims quoted above involve no small amount of strawmanning, not to say projection. He ignores the extent to which the history of actual, real-world capitalism — as opposed to the ahistorical fairy tale regularly defended at Reason — was established through the use of immense government power to radically redistribute resources and re-order society. The creation of the wage system, based on the separation of a propertyless working class from means of production concentrated in the hands of absentee owners, involved not only the wholesale nullification of peasants’ customary communal rights in the land from the late Middle Ages on, but vagrancy laws that imposed whippings, ear-croppings and peonage on newly landless peasants who would not accept work from landowners on whatever terms were offered. In fact it is the current concentration of wealth, and the level of resource consumption and waste in the economy, which depend on government intervention. It’s frequently joked that governments of settler states like the United States and Canada are actually a number of mining and oil companies in a trench coat. One of the primary functions of Western colonialism was to expropriate and enclose the natural resources of colonized countries; the central function of the neoliberal order in the post-colonial world has been to force countries of the Global South into export-oriented development models in which their primary export is natural resources to the West, on terms set by the latter. From the very beginning, capitalism’s growth model has been based on the extensive addition of artificially abundant resource inputs. The reference to fossil fuels and land use patterns, in particular, is a masterful display of question-begging. In the real world, the only thing needed to “crush” the fossil fuel industry would be to eliminate the use of eminent domain for pipelines, along with statutory liability caps for oil spills, and open up the industry to full civil liability for all the negative externalities it causes. The primary actor behind existing car-centered land use patterns was the state: massive subsidies (including the use of eminent domain to bulldoze entire neighborhoods) to urban freeway systems, the imposition of monoculture development and low-density development via zoning laws and urban design plattes, and the subsidy of outlying developments by making older, inlying compact developments pay a disproportionate share of extending roads and utilities to them. As for “restructuring society,” the pattern of development of American industrial capitalism from the late 19th through mid-20th century was largely owing to state policy. Absent railroad, civil aviation, and highway systems created largely at government expense, and the use of patents for concentrating and cartelizing industry, the 20th century model of high-overhead, centralized mass production would likely never have come about. Instead we’d have most likely had an industrial development model based on dozens or hundreds of local manufacturing economies on the model of the Emilia-Romagna industrial district: low-overhead production, using general purpose electrical machinery, frequently switching between product lines on a demand-pull basis. Greenhut shows a fundamental conceptual blinder, in presenting the issue as one between “market-based economies” and “command-and-control” economies: Market-based economies create incentives that unleash human creativity and provide incredible abundance. Command-and-control economies, whether run by warlords or technocratic planners, result in shortages and poverty. It’s entirely wrong-headed to equate the idea of a “market-based economy,” as such, with the actual model of globalized corporate capitalism we live under. In fact the idea of a “market-based economy,” as such, is meaningless. A market-based economy is simply one that allows the formation of market-clearing prices without interference; it’s compatible with any number of alternative sets of property rules. And the basic structure of the global corporate economy is built on a foundation of state power. Transnational corporations depend on massively subsidized utility and transportation infrastructures, and other subsidized inputs, along with the use of intellectual property to enclose outsourced production by nominally independent contractors within corporate walls. It’s maximalist intellectual property accords that enable Western capital to outsource most or all actual production to contractors in Asia, pay the sweatshops a tiny pittance for the goods they produce, but maintain a legal monopoly over disposal of the product so they can mark up the price many hundreds of percent on the shelves of retailers. But he falls victim to an even greater conceptual failing — the failure, mentioned earlier, to clearly define “growth” and “degrowth” at all. For example: <blockquote>Economically growing societies can best deal with environmental problems because they have excess resources to spend on environmental improvement. Growing and free societies spawn new technologies that are effective at reducing emissions. It’s no surprise communist nations were the world’s biggest polluters.</blockquote> Ironically, Marxist-Leninist countries in the 20th century engaged in large-scale waste and pollution for the same reason as Western capitalist countries: their shared understanding of “growth.” The marginal productivity theory of John Bates Clark treated the ability to charge for something, as such, as the creation of value. Both national GDP accounting and GAAP corporate management accounting, similarly, treat the consumption of resources as the creation of value. And since resource inputs are subsidized and negative externalities are insulated from negative consequences to the guilty firm, there is reduced incentive to minimize waste or pollution. The Soviet planning agency Gosplan, likewise, treated the consumption of resources to produce a quota of output assigned in the Plan as the creation of value, regardless of whether the finished goods were anything anyone wanted or whether they even worked. And since the state planners assigned no price to negative externalities, in the interest of maximizing output, there was even less incentive to avoid pollution than in the West. And the structure of the mass-production economy created further incentives for waste and inefficiency. Because of its reliance on expensive, product-specific machinery, American industry carried a high burden of overhead and had a strong incentive to maximize output in order to minimize unit costs. That meant enormous amounts of waste production (the military-industrial complex, subsidized sprawl and car culture, etc.) and planned obsolescence to keep the wheels turning. This is where a proper understanding of both growth and degrowth comes in. Greenhut relies heavily on two pieces on degrowth — one at <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22408556/save-planet-shrink-economy-degrowth">Vox</a> and one at the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/06/what-is-degrowth-economics-climate-change/">World Economic Forum</a>. He quotes both quite selectively, leaving out a great deal of nuance and clarification, giving an extremely dishonest impression. To the extent that he acknowledges defenses of degrowth by writers like Jason Hickel at all, he simply tips his hat to them as briefly as possible and then accuses them of “sanewashing” the strawman views he falsely attributes to them. Both the pieces Greenhut quotes have the virtue of at least attempting to honestly restate actual degrowth arguments — although they repeatedly fall back into equally honest confusion based on their equation of “growth” to standard of living, “degrowth” to austerity, and GDP to prosperity. They repeatedly quote statements, like that of Hickel (cited in the WEF article), that degrowth is not about austerity as such, but about “reducing [energy and resource] throughput.” The Vox article quotes Hickel at greater length: <blockquote>If our washing machines, fridges, and phones lasted twice as long, we would consume half as many (thus the output of those industries would decline), but with zero reduction in our access to those goods. . . . . . . [T]he language of poverty really gets it wrong: longer-lasting products, living wages, shorter working weeks, better access to public services and affordable housing — we are calling for the opposite of poverty. Yes, industries like SUVs and fast fashion would decline, but that doesn’t mean poverty. We can replace them with public transportation and longer-lasting fashion, thus meeting everyone’s needs.</blockquote> This is key. The focus on “reducing production” is meaningless, unless we take into account how much of what is produced is actually waste and negative utility. A huge part of GDP is taken up by things like the military-industrial complex, police, and prisons. Subsidized Interstate highways make it artificially cheap to ship things over large market areas that otherwise would be more economically produced for local consumption. Subsidized sprawl and car culture generate artificial distance between things, create artificial dependency on cars, and crowd out convenient public transit. Planned obsolescence is ubiquitous, with products deliberately designed to thwart repair and long life. Major parts of the economy are taken up by “bullshit jobs.” And much if not most of this waste could be eliminated, not by regulating it out of existence, but by removing subsidies and liability protections so that the price of resource consumption reflects its actual cost, and eliminating the intellectual property supports to planned obsolescence. In the absence of legally enforced artificial scarcities, like intellectual property, that prevent the savings from more efficient resource use and more ephemeral product design and production methods from being passed on to the consumer, implosion of GDP would be the natural effect of increased efficiencies. It’s artificial scarcity — as Tom Peters once crowed, the price of his new camera was mostly “intellect” rather than labor and materials — that prevents standard of living being decoupled from GDP. There is room for honest debate about whether an end to subsidized resource consumption and waste will reduce our ecological footprint sufficiently to achieve the necessary reductions in environmental damage. But let’s have an honest one — not talking points like “turning back the clock on the myriad advancements that have extended and improved our lives,” and otherwise preaching to the choir in venues like the OC Register. ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Ce Stann’a Pijà er Lavoro, Ovvero Perché Libera Immigrazione</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60270</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Logan Marie Glitterbomb]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2025 10:42:52 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Italian]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stateless Embassies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[borders]]></category> <category><![CDATA[immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[labor]]></category> <category><![CDATA[labor issues]]></category> <category><![CDATA[labor market]]></category> <category><![CDATA[MAGA]]></category> <category><![CDATA[open borders]]></category> <category><![CDATA[working class]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60270</guid> <description><![CDATA[Di Logan Marie Glitterbomb. Articolo originale: Dey Turk Er Jerbs, or Why We Should Legalize Immigration, del 17 marzo 2025. Tradotto in italiano da Enrico Sanna. Argomento diffuso a destra è che i clandestini rubano il lavoro. Al che la sinistra risponde che si tratta di lavori, ad esempio nell’agricoltura, che gli americani non vogliono...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Di Logan Marie Glitterbomb. Articolo originale: <a href="http://c4ss.org/content/60182">Dey Turk Er Jerbs, or Why We Should Legalize Immigration</a>, del 17 marzo 2025. Tradotto in italiano da <a href="https://tinyurl.com/3scy96ry">Enrico Sanna</a>. Argomento diffuso a destra è che i clandestini rubano il lavoro. Al che la sinistra risponde che si tratta di lavori, ad esempio nell’agricoltura, che gli americani non vogliono fare. Ma cosa li induce a pensare che gli americani non vogliono fare quei lavori? Magari lotterebbero per ottenere condizioni migliori, visto che la legge gli dà la possibilità di farlo, ma che ce ne siano disposti a fare quei lavori è certo. Dopotutto ci sono americani che lavorano nell’agricoltura, nel giardinaggio, nell’industria delle carni, nelle costruzioni, nella ristorazione e in molti altri campi in cui lavorano anche immigrati. Non sarà per gli stessi padroni, ma certo in mansioni equivalenti. Ma allora perché si preferisce assumere immigrati clandestini e non persone del posto? Perché il lavoratore clandestino è disposto a lavorare per meno e perché non può denunciare il padrone in caso di abusi o sfruttamento senza rischiare di essere arrestato e espulso. In un certo senso, il clandestino è il lavoratore capitalista perfetto, da trattare un po’ meglio dello schiavo senza timore che si ribelli. È talmente adatto a questo ruolo che molte aziende fanno campagna in Messico per incoraggiare la gente a emigrare clandestinamente per un posto di lavoro. E pur essendo una situazione che i capitalisti hanno contribuito a creare, si dà la colpa agli immigrati e il controllo dei confini diventa un problema grave. Ma a perpetuare questi problemi non è esattamente la chiusura dei confini. Contrariamente a quel che sembra a prima vista, confini più permeabili risolverebbero il problema. L’unica ragione per cui i clandestini vengono assunti per una paga sotto il salario minimo e con condizioni terribili è perché, appunto, sono clandestini. Inasprire i controlli ai confini non evita che le persone immigrino clandestinamente, solo rende l’impresa più difficile e pericolosa. Semmai finora questa politica è servita solo a creare più clandestini, ora che l’immigrazione legale è più impraticabile, incentivando così l’immigrazione clandestina, e perché chi è entrato illegalmente ha pochissime probabilità di dover rifare il percorso. Si sceglie di immigrare clandestinamente perché, nonostante sia terribilmente più pericoloso, è più facile che farlo legalmente. Per non dire di chi decide di rimanere dopo la scadenza del permesso di soggiorno, un problema che sfugge completamente alla polizia di frontiera in quanto si tratta di persone già immigrate. Se vogliamo risolvere il problema, quindi, dobbiamo capovolgere gli incentivi e rendere più facile e allettante l’immigrazione legale. Se si aprissero di più i confini facilitando l’immigrazione legale, l’immigrazione clandestina si ridurrebbe. Questo significherebbe molti meno immigrati clandestini e molti più immigrati legali. Questi ultimi non possono essere sfruttati dai capitalisti come i primi dato che sono protetti dalle leggi e possono denunciare il padrone senza temere l’arresto o l’espulsione. E poiché i datori non possono assumerli per meno del salario minimo e devono farli lavorare a condizioni di legge se non vogliono rischiare una denuncia, viene a cessare l’incentivo a preferire i clandestini ai lavoratori del posto. Non si parlerebbe più di immigrati che “rubano il lavoro” e spingono i salari al ribasso, lavoratori immigrati e del posto sarebbero alla pari per quanto riguarda l’acquisizione di un impiego e il salario. Le aziende sarebbero costrette ad assumere secondo le capacità e non secondo la possibilità di sfruttare. I lavoratori del posto avrebbero infine più possibilità, se non di liberarsene, almeno di ridimensionare il sistema che opprime sia loro che gli immigrati. Se qualcuno vi dice che gli immigrati rubano il lavoro, non cercate di convincerlo che non è vero; dite che siete d’accordo e spiegate che proprio per questo bisogna aprire ancora di più i confini (e magari anche abolire la polizia di frontiera). Le nostre traduzioni sono finanziate interamente da donazioni. Se vi piace quello che scriviamo, siete invitati a contribuire. Trovate le istruzioni su come fare nella pagina Sostieni C4SS: <a href="https://c4ss.org/sostieni-c4ss">https://c4ss.org/sostieni-c4ss</a>. ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>“Queer Ultraviolence”</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60268</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[C4SS]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sat, 05 Apr 2025 10:08:22 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Indonesian]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stateless Embassies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[activism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[civil disobeidence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[gender violence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[insurrection]]></category> <category><![CDATA[queer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Queer Ultraviolence]]></category> <category><![CDATA[trans]]></category> <category><![CDATA[vandalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[violence]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60268</guid> <description><![CDATA[Oleh: Nikki Cooper. Diterjemahkan dari artikel dengan judul yang sama oleh Ameyuri Ringo. Support Ringo by considering becoming his Patron. Queer Ultraviolence: Abridged Bash Back! Anthology by Fray Baroque and Tegan Eanelli (Ardent Press) Little Black Cart. Awalnya, saya tidak tahu bagaimana memulai ulasan saya tentang antologi Queer Ultraviolence karya Fray Baroque dan Tegan Eanelli....]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[Oleh: Nikki Cooper. Diterjemahkan dari artikel dengan <a href="https://c4ss.org/content/39023">judul </a>yang sama oleh Ameyuri Ringo. Support Ringo by considering becoming his <a href="https://patreon.com/iman_kim">Patron</a>. <a href="https://littleblackcart.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=506">Queer Ultraviolence: Abridged Bash Back! Anthology by Fray Baroque and Tegan Eanelli (Ardent Press) Little Black Cart.</a> Awalnya, saya tidak tahu bagaimana memulai ulasan saya tentang antologi Queer Ultraviolence karya Fray Baroque dan Tegan Eanelli. Saya sudah membaca puluhan buku tentang anarkisme, tapi pemahaman saya tentang insureksionis masih sebatas informasi di Wikipedia. Jadi saya mulai saja dari kesan pertama saya terhadap buku ini. Penampilan luar buku ini menyampaikan pesan yang kuat. Di bagian belakang ada kutipan yang pasti bisa memancing semangat siapa pun yang radikal atau anarkis, dan sampulnya serba pink, lengkap dengan siluet queer yang membawa senjata. Pembaca pasti langsung penasaran dengan isinya. Font ala tahun 70-an yang funky dan slogan “BASH BACK” dengan huruf kapital besar memberi sentuhan akhir yang tegas pada narasi queer yang radikal. Tapi estetikanya menipu. Buku ini dibuka dengan pernyataan misi yang canggung dan samar. Sampai halaman terakhir, saya masih bingung: sebenarnya buku ini tentang apa sih? Apakah ini ajakan menggulingkan sistem kapitalis? Serangan terhadap agama? Atau sekadar teriakan “fuck you” buat sistem gender-binari alias “cistem”? Entahlah. Mungkin tergantung pembacanya. Awalan yang berantakan itu tidak langsung membunuh antusiasme saya. Sebagai seorang trans perempuan kulit berwarna, saya mencoba bersabar dan melanjutkan membaca. Sepuluh halaman pertama berlalu cepat, di mana asal-usul Bash Back dijelaskan. Bash Back lahir sebagai bentuk protes terhadap Konvensi Nasional Partai Republik dan Demokrat tahun 2008 dan gerakan Pride seacra umum. Awalnya, gerakan ini ditujukan kepada mereka yang menolak keberadaan queer dan trans, sekaligus kepada kalangan Pride arus utama yang dianggap telah menjual diri demi diterima sistem. Bash Back menuduh mereka menjual kita demi “sisa-sisa makan malam” dari penguasa. Sikap mereka yang terang-terangan memusuhi elit politik dan Pride arus utama cukup membangkitkan semangat saya. Tapi ketika sampai di halaman dua puluh, saya mulai mentok. Isi bukunya seperti kumpulan pikiran acak yang berusaha menyambungkan kapitalisme, negara, dan agama tapi tidak berhasil. Buku ini seharusnya bisa jauh lebih kuat kalau berisi lebih banyak perspektif pribadi dari para anggota Bash Back. Tapi sebagian besar halaman malah dipenuhi puisi, metafora, dan materi yang terlalu abstrak. Masalah lainnya adalah eksklusivitas yang berlebihan. Dari awal, buku ini mempromosikan semacam maskulinitas queer yang macho, seolah hanya ada ruang untuk “bullqueers” (istilah untuk queer maskulin yang agresif) yang tidak takut penjara. Siapa pun yang tidak mau dipenjara karena vandalisme—yang oleh mereka disebut “menyenangkan”—langsung dicap sebagai kaum asimilasionis. Saya paham bahwa pemberontakan bisa punya peran penting; sisi kriminal dalam diri saya menghargai hal itu. Tapi menganggap siapa pun yang tidak siap masuk penjara sebagai pengkhianat? Itu konyol. Ditambah lagi, buku ini terus-menerus mengulang mantra “anarkisme adalah komunisme” dan “komunisme adalah anarkisme” sampai terasa melelahkan. Seperti tipikal anarko-komunis lainnya, buku ini menyiratkan bahwa hanya tipe anarkis tertentu yang bisa diterima. Kalau kamu bukan anarki komunis, kamu dianggap musuh. Saya juga berharap menemukan sesuatu yang segar dan baru. Tapi ternyata buku ini lebih seperti daur ulang tema-tema lama dari masa lalu. Di tengah-tengahnya ada puisi yang terasa setengah matang, cemoohan terhadap akademisi, dan upaya pemberontakan yang setengah hati. Meski terkesan “keras”, buku ini tampaknya takkan dikenang lebih dari sekadar catatan kaki dalam sejarah radikal. Untungnya, ada beberapa bagian yang berkesan. Salah satunya adalah email anonim dari seorang anggota Bash Back. Ia menceritakan kisah konfrontasi dengan polisi dalam sebuah “pesta vandalisme”. Di tengah kekacauan, polisi diserang dengan “senjata queer” yang kreatif, termasuk dildo, tongkat peri mainan, dan kalau saya tidak salah ingat, sepatu hak tinggi. Adegan ini membuat saya tersenyum lebar, membayangkan polisi dipukul wajahnya dengan benda-benda berkilauan berbentuk falus. Bagian lain yang menyentuh adalah kisah penangkapan massal. Semua orang dalam kelompok itu mengenakan pakaian serba hitam dan merah muda, dan menolak memberi tahu polisi tentang gender mereka. Ini strategi cerdas yang membuat polisi tak bisa memisahkan mereka berdasarkan gender—langkah yang melindungi mereka dari potensi kekerasan atau pelecehan seksual di tahanan. Tapi bukan cuma cerdas, aksi ini juga penuh solidaritas dan kasih sayang. Di momen genting itu, mereka saling menjaga. Membayangkan sekelompok trans, queer, dan sekutu mereka yang tetap saling melindungi saat digiring masuk ke mobil polisi, membuat saya hampir menangis. Ada juga kisah tentang sekelompok queer yang mengepung seorang Nazi, menghajarnya sampai tulangnya patah dan wajahnya babak belur, lalu menaburinya dengan glitter. Meski brutal, cerita itu tetap meninggalkan kesan. Sayangnya, cerita-cerita semacam ini hanya muncul sesekali. Saya cukup menikmati bagian-bagian yang bercerita tentang sejarah bajak laut trans, pemberontak, pencuri, pekerja seks, dan masyarakat adat yang melawan dan kadang bertikai. Tapi sisanya terasa seperti pengisi halaman saja. Buku ini juga tidak terlalu peduli dengan kenyataan bahwa gerakan ini gagal mencapai hasil yang nyata. Meski banyak bicara soal insureksi dan “revolusi semu”, buku ini lebih terasa sebagai upaya dari seorang anarkis otonom untuk mendapatkan 15 menit ketenaran. Tapi untuk percikan semangat yang mereka nyalakan saat itu, aku akan memberikan tepuk tangan. Saya tetap menghargai usaha mereka, seperti saya menghargai setiap upaya trans untuk melawan penindasan dengan cara mereka sendiri. Insureksi adalah salah satu taktik penting dalam gerakan anarkisme, tapi sering kali tidak menghasilkan apa-apa. Mungkin itu memang maksud dari Queer Ultraviolence—untuk merayakan sisi “fun” dari pemberontakan. Mungkin juga buku ini diniatkan sebagai semacam panduan untuk memberdayakan diri. Tapi tetap saja, saya tidak bisa mengabaikan kesan bahwa buku ini malah ikut melanggengkan maskulinitas toksik yang sering muncul di ruang-ruang queer radikal. Bentuk kekerasan dan elitis yang justru memecah-belah kita. Ini adalah pendekatan yang ironisnya sangat kapitalistik—yang lemah akan tersingkir, dan yang kuat akan dipuja sebagai pahlawan. Apakah ini buku terbaik tentang anarkisme queer? Jelas tidak. Tapi tetap saya sarankan untuk membelinya, kalau bukan karena isinya, setidaknya karena hasil penjualannya akan diberikan kepada perempuan trans yang dipenjara. Mereka benar-benar butuh bantuan kita. Mereka hidup dalam lingkungan yang sangat berbahaya. Uang yang kamu sumbangkan lewat buku ini akan sangat berarti. Anggap saja buku ini sebagai cara untuk sedikit mengurangi penderitaan para trans yang terperangkap dalam sistem penjara yang bisa saja menghancurkan mereka sebelum sempat mendapatkan kebebasan kedua. Lagipula, kamu pasti tetap bisa belajar satu dua hal dari buku ini. Seluruh hasil publikasi didanai sepenuhnya oleh donasi. Jika kalian menyukai karya-karya kami, kalian dapat berkontribusi dengan berdonasi. Temukan petunjuk tentang cara melakukannya di halaman Dukung C4SS: <a href="https://c4ss.org/dukung-c4ss." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">https://c4ss.org/dukung-c4ss.</a> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>The Long Library, Episode 4: “They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism”</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60246</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Cory Massimino]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 02 Apr 2025 22:29:09 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Feed 44]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Stigmergy - C4SS Blog]]></category> <category><![CDATA[anti-fascism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[cory massimino]]></category> <category><![CDATA[fascism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Frédéric Bastiat]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Gustave de Molinari]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Herbert Spencer]]></category> <category><![CDATA[libertarian]]></category> <category><![CDATA[podcast]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Roderick Long]]></category> <category><![CDATA[The Long Library]]></category> <category><![CDATA[video]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Voltairine de Cleyre]]></category> <category><![CDATA[William Graham Sumner]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60246</guid> <description><![CDATA[On this episode of The Long Library, I interview Roderick Long about his essay “They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism.” Written over ten years ago about arguments written over one hundred years ago, this essay is as timely as ever here in 2025. Roderick shows that 19th-century libertarians such as Gustave...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[On this episode of The Long Library, I interview Roderick Long about his essay “<a href="https://c4ss.org/content/15126">They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism</a>.” Written over ten years ago about arguments written over one hundred years ago, this essay is as timely as ever here in 2025. Roderick shows that 19th-century libertarians such as Gustave de Molinari, Frédéric Bastiat, Voltairine de Cleyre, Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and others warned against the very tendencies — “militarism, corporatism, regimentation, nationalist chauvinism, plutocracy in populist guise, the call for ‘strong leaders’ and ‘national greatness,’ the glorification of conflict over commerce and of brute force over intellect” — that would decades later culminate in fascism. At a time when many libertarians range from tepid to excited about incipient fascism, it’s important to remember that wasn’t always the case, that there was a time when libertarians consistently opposed these evils and their catastrophic combination, that there was a time when libertarians were libertarians. These 19th-century anti-fascists have much to teach us about 21st-century fascism and, as Roderick reminds us, “their fallen banner is ours to pick up.” <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/they-saw-it-19th-125790362?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link">Video version on Patreon.</a> Video version on YouTube: <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UPbO7O1cpZw?si=bV5PB6gfZgZxEYJx" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Audio version: <iframe loading="lazy" style="border: none;" title="Embed Player" src="https://play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/35980840/height/192/theme/modern/size/large/thumbnail/yes/custom-color/310331/time-start/00:00:00/hide-playlist/yes/font-color/ffffff" width="100%" height="192" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Degrowth: The Conceptual Confusion Continues</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60147</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kevin Carson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 11:00:31 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[capitalism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[confusion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[debate]]></category> <category><![CDATA[degrowth]]></category> <category><![CDATA[economics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[germany]]></category> <category><![CDATA[language]]></category> <category><![CDATA[liberalism]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60147</guid> <description><![CDATA[In a 2019 study for Center for a Stateless Society (We Are All Degrowthers. We Are All Ecomodernists), I argued that the debate for and against degrowth was nearly incoherent because neither side clearly defined “degrowth” at all, let alone stuck to any consistent definition. If Paul Crider’s article “Degrowth: Neither Left Nor Right, But...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[In a 2019 study for Center for a Stateless Society (<a href="https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/We-Are-All-Degrowthers_We-Are-All-Ecomodernists_Carson.pdf">We Are All Degrowthers. We Are All Ecomodernists</a>), I argued that the debate for and against degrowth was nearly incoherent because neither side clearly defined “degrowth” at all, let alone stuck to any consistent definition. If Paul Crider’s article “<a href="https://www.liberalcurrents.com/degrowth-neither-left-nor-right-but-backward/">Degrowth: Neither Left Nor Right, But Backward</a>” (Liberal Currents, Dec. 12, 2022) is any indication, this is as much a problem as ever. To Crider’s credit, his venture at critiquing degrowth is in much better faith than that of Leigh Phillips (whose work I examined in the C4SS study linked above), and he is not guilty of the kind of hate reads Phillips applied to degrowth source materials (by way of background, Crider is a self-described liberal and Phillips is a left-accelerationist). Crider gets off to a promising start. <blockquote>The word [degrowth] itself is shocking. For anyone accustomed to the assumptions of positive economic growth in public policy and the fear and hardship associated with economic contractions — recessions — degrowth evokes self-destructive policy, if not a return to primitivism. Yet degrowth deserves a hearing. I hope to show that degrowth is fatally flawed, but its many currents are often misunderstood, conflated, or misrepresented. We should acknowledge what degrowth gets right: gross domestic product (GDP) is a problematic economic indicator; the pursuit of economic growth as a primary policy objective isn’t self-evidently justified in liberal or other terms, despite its near universal presumption; and the pursuit of economic growth has trade-offs and can be taken to absurd extremes.</blockquote> His analysis begins to go off the rails, first as a result of problems with his source material, and then of his own lack of conceptual clarity combined with his unjustified inferences from the source material. To start with the first: <blockquote>It’s worth checking in to see what degrowth’s exponents actually say for themselves. For much of the essay that follows I found <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3989-the-future-is-degrowth?ref=liberalcurrents.com">The Future Is Degrowth: a Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism</a>, by Matthias Schmelzer, Aaron Vansintjan, and Andrea Vetter to be a clear and engaging resource on the various currents within the degrowth movement. Early on they reference a survey especially useful for present purposes.</blockquote> He quotes this passage from the book: <blockquote>The largest empirical survey of degrowth proponents, a survey at the 2014 Leipzig conference in which one of us was involved, found that respondents held several positions in common: they largely agreed that economic growth without destruction of nature is an illusion and that therefore industrialized countries need to equitably downscale production and consumption; they also mostly agreed that consequently the rich will have to do without some amenities to which they have become accustomed, and that the transformation to a degrowth society must come from below, will be peaceful, and will require overcoming capitalism and patriarchy. This basic consensus across many different perspectives among conference attendees highlights that degrowth proponents are fundamentally critical of growth, capitalism, and industrialism, want to overcome other forms of domination, and advocate a radical restructuring of the economy in industrialized countries, requiring the selective downscaling of certain industries and production. This clearly distinguishes degrowth from many other political positions — not only from conservative currents (e.g., preserving the status quo, green fascism, or green growth) but also from leftist productivist positions such as most Green New Deals or visions of post-capitalism, which are less precise on the need to transform capitalism, dynamics of growth, global justice, and excess consumption. </blockquote> The problem with this quote — leaving aside that it was a survey of attendees at a conference in Leipzig, its generalizations therefore applying only to the German degrowth movement — is that, in Crider’s own words, degrowth is a movement of “various currents,” and the various positions enumerated in the clauses of the passages he quotes are not necessarily all held by the same people. While a majority of degrowthers polled — the passage doesn’t specify the size of the majorities — might agree with each of the statements, they are not necessarily the same majorities. Further, many of the terms themselves — “industrialism” in particular — are notoriously squishy, and may mean different things to the different people surveyed. The authors of The Future is Degrowth themselves, in the passage quoted, cite two sources for their generalizations about the survey: <ol> <li>Matthias Schmelzer and Dennis Eversberg, “Beyond Growth, Capitalism, and Industrialism? Consensus, Divisions and Currents within the Emerging Movement for Sustainable Degrowth,” Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements 9, no. 1 (2017): 327–56; and</li> <li>Dennis Eversberg and Matthias Schmelzer, “The Degrowth Spectrum: Convergence and Divergence within a Diverse and Conflictual Alliance,” Environmental Values 27, no. 3 (2018): 245–67.</li> </ol> Only the latter article was available on <a href="https://sci-hub.ru/10.3197/096327118X15217309300822">Sci-Hub</a>. Looking at the actual questions asked in the survey, none of them specifically defines either “growth” or “degrowth,” or asks for the respondents’ agreement or disagreement with any definition. Some questions refer vaguely to reductions in “production and consumption” and “shrinkage,” with no clear statement of what is meant by any of them. What’s more, the word “industrialism” itself doesn’t even appear — casting serious doubt on the characterization of the survey results by Schmelzer et al. The most damning response, from the standpoint of someone seeking to debunk associations of degrowth with austerity, was probably to the statement “In the future we will have to abstain from amenities that we have become used to,” with which 86% agreed. But that statement itself is by no means unambiguous. Many of the amenities we would have to forgo, in a more efficient society, are actually things we are forced to consume in order to compensate for previous amenities of which we have been deprived. A good example is car culture, in which car ownership is mandated by the previous destruction of compact, mixed-use cities with walkable/bikeable layouts and convenient, high capacity public transportation. In the case of other amenities, where their production is currently profitable at artificially high levels or they are artificially cheap because of subsidies, reduced consumption might result automatically from full internalization of cost in the market price. On the other hand, respondents agreed almost 2-1 with the statement “The high level of technological development in today’s society is not a hindrance, but in fact an important precondition for a post-growth society.” They also disagreed by more than 2-1 that long-distance flights purely for pleasure would have to be forbidden. A majority disagreed that humans should return to our “natural place in the world,” and only the slimmest of majorities agreed that “To live more sustainably, we should remember and revive the lifestyles of previous generations.” So the generalization that degrowthers are in any way technophobic (as suggested by degrowthers’ alleged opposition to “leftist productivism” — a position itself arguably reflecting a cargo cult view of technology) is not reflected in the actual survey data. From here on out, the problem lies primarily with Crider’s own lack of conceptual clarity. He continues, returning to his earlier promising start, by pointing out some of the problems with GDP as a metric. <blockquote>To a first approximation economic growth is captured by the familiar GDP, or gross domestic product, which in principle is all the output of the economy, all the expenditure, or all the incomes. As the economic indicator toward which politicians focus public policy, degrowth addresses the shortcomings of GDP and calls for its abolition as an indicator. But while GDP provides a convenient target, degrowth ultimately opposes economic growth even when growth is more comprehensively conceived. GDP famously fails to account for environmental degradation or even the value of natural resource wealth. Obliterating a landscape and its associated ecology by mining for coal (and thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions) figures not just as a net positive in GDP but as entirely positive. There are further absurdities in domestic and reproductive labor. Work within the home, whether housekeeping or caring for children or elders goes uncounted in GDP, though such activities do count toward GDP when money changes hands. . . . Health and well-being figure into GDP only when they involve exchange, as in buying medicine, receiving hospital care, or visiting a therapist. The proliferation of unhealthy foods and activities increase GDP once when they are purchased and again (and again) when medical or therapeutic care is bought to alleviate the resulting ills. . . .</blockquote> In fact, in the following two paragraphs, Crider comes close to giving away the entire ballgame. <blockquote>GDP also says nothing about the variety of options or the invention of new kinds of goods and services. A shoe is just a shoe to GDP, but there are real quality of life benefits to being able to choose not just between different shoemakers but between designer stilettos, high-tech running shoes, and steel-toe construction boots. Before the digital revolution — made possible by economic growth — there was nothing analogous to computing power. It is a whole new species. GDP is often a convenient enough metric for both defenders and critics of economic growth, but degrowth is more fundamentally concerned with growth as material throughput, or “social metabolism,” the real material and energy intercourse human beings have with nature. I will refer to “material economic growth” throughout when I’m talking about this more comprehensive phenomenon.</blockquote> The last paragraph fairly encapsulates a proper understanding of growth, and what is problematic about it, from a degrowth standpoint. GDP is simply a metric of the sum total of exchange value, which itself for all intents and purposes is the sum of input costs plus economic rents. Any reduction in the resource inputs required to produce a given output of use-value, unless economic rents from artificial scarcities or artificial property rights prevent the savings in material input costs from being reflected in the final price of goods and services, will reduce GDP by an equivalent amount. The central goal of degrowth is a reduction in material inputs; regarding the production of use-value, it is neutral. It follows that, depending on the changing efficiencies of production and design, a reduction in input consumption can reduce GDP without any necessary effect on actual standard of living. The penultimate paragraph, taken in this context, actually develops the principle stated in the last one (albeit with some confusion added to the mix). GDP, indeed, “says nothing about the variety of options or the invention of new kinds of goods and services.” The technical quality of goods and services can increase with no effect on nominal GDP. Despite acknowledging this, Crider characterizes the digital revolution and increased computing power as “made possible by economic growth.” In so doing, he makes essentially the same mistake as Leigh Phillips and other degrowth critics, in treating “growth” as a god-term more or less synonymous with “progress” — and not, as it should be understood, a simple increase in aggregate exchange value determined primarily by material footprint rather than the quantity of use-value produced. Crider nevertheless shifts back to treating “growth” as, if not synonymous with material footprint and resource consumption, at least a considerably overlapping concept. <blockquote>Degrowth, liberal and otherwise, offers good reason to be suspicious of the normative “hegemony of growth.” We face an ecological catastrophe that can only be seriously met by sharply reducing our social metabolism. Material economic growth requires ever increasing imposition on the natural world. This is most acute with the fossil fuels on which global economic growth has depended since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Yet the possibilities for decoupling energy production — and thus the economy generally — from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels have turned markedly more hopeful in the last decade, as renewable energy sources are primed to overtake coal by 2025 and as solar power costs continue to plummet. Plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions are ambitious but no longer pie-in-the-sky, and the realization of big clean energy infrastructure moves are beginning to be demonstrated with President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, to take one promising recent example. </blockquote> Note that “reducing our social metabolism,” and decoupling resource inputs from the production of use-value, are serviceable descriptions of the actual degrowth agenda. Crider, notwithstanding, goes on to make the following leap, with no more basis in the previous discussion than Schmelzer et al’s generalizations had in the responses to their own survey: <blockquote>To the extent that degrowth strives to sever the association of economic growth from notions like welfare, development, and flourishing, it provides a helpful corrective. But the claim is not only that growth isn’t the whole story, but that it is either… irrelevant or (from harder left perspectives) positively harmful. For all of the growth-agnostic qualifiers from liberal degrowth, the main thrust of the many currents in degrowth is anti-capitalist, anti-industrial, anti-abundance, and ultimately anti-liberal…. On the degrowth view, growth subjects — ordinary people living ordinary lives in liberal democracies — must be taught to narrow their sights and dim their dreams. Why do you want to try new things, ideas, foods, sports, etc? Why do you want to see the world? Why do you want to consume so much media, read so many books, eat exotic foods, explore expensive hobbies?…</blockquote> The sheer messiness of this is only compounded by the fact that the first sentence in the passage appears to contradict all the rest. Crider starts out by acknowledging the conceptual advantage of decoupling “growth,” as such, from material welfare — and then immediately proceeds to equate degrowth to austerity, imposed through central planning and social control. His statement of this last charge is both explicit and strident. <blockquote>. . . [P]ursued to its logical ends degrowth must turn to central planning and social control. Under degrowth the natural propensity to pursue our wants by truck, barter, and trade is held in suspicion or even contempt. Seeking profit, investing, consuming, and even saving are all pursued to better our own conditions and possibilities or those of our families, friends, or communities. Because the urge to improve our lot in life is so primal and so strong, these activities must be sharply guided or outright controlled.</blockquote> There is no conceivable, stable scenario where the great preponderance of individuals, business interests, and governments choose to reduce wealth and productive capacity — to become poorer — voluntarily. . . . <blockquote>. . . A degrowth advocate could readily retort that human “freedom” is just the price that must be paid to avert ecological catastrophe. But even on its own terms degrowth is destined to fail to meet the basic needs it centralizes. Few economic or historical lessons have been harder learned than the inability of centrally planned economies to provide the basic needs or protect the basic rights of its subjects. Lest my charge of central planning be mistaken for red-baiting at the hint of an enlarged public sector, I’ll say now that mitigating climate change demands massive public spending, and a greatly expanded public sector providing “public options” for healthcare, child care, banking, transportation, and other necessities could provide a solid basis for all individuals to live productive and flourishing lives. This may or may not be socialism but it is not central planning. Central planning enters the picture when everyday consumption choices and entrepreneurial ventures are treated with suspicion, presumptively forbidden without special approval from “democratic” councils.</blockquote> To back this up, he cites The Future is Degrowth: <blockquote>To make [degrowth] possible, economic decisions must be seen as political problems. This means putting the economy in the hands of people and involving more and more people in key decisions – such as the producers in a factory, the neighbours of a farm, the users of a community-owned power plant, or the care recipients in retirement homes deciding what is produced, how to relate to the environment and other economic agents, which services are needed, and how work is organized.</blockquote> He continues in the same vein: <blockquote>The presumption of freedom — to do what we like, buy, sell, and trade what we like, and toil how we like — is replaced by the presumption of needing approval from authorities. This is the political economy of the homeowners association at the local level, and at the national (and international) level it is picking and choosing whole sectors of the economy that need to be purged for the “common good” of degrowth. For the industries that remain, political powers must choose what products and which producers are truly necessary and which must be cut as wasteful excess. . . . It’s worth dwelling on what a shift to a command-and-control economy would look like in human terms. Degrowth may involve a universal job guarantee, but choice of work would radically diminish. Do you want to move to be with your family? Do you want to escape a lousy work environment? Do you want to study German literature or economics at college? These sorts of decisions may need approval from planners, especially as five-year degrowth plans begin missing their targets. </blockquote> Having doubled and tripled down on his assertion that degrowth requires Stalinist levels of central planning, Crider returns to his sloppy equation of “growth” to “progress” and “innovation” — ignoring his own earlier concessions that both of those things can be decoupled from changes in GDP and from resource consumption (i.e., that they have nothing to do with “growth”): <blockquote>This has been a negative case for economic growth. We should not pursue degrowth because to do so would cost too much in the coin of basic human freedoms. But material economic growth also directly expands human capabilities. Greater wealth, greater productive capacity, and the institutional machinery of innovation multiply the effective options individuals have to pursue their respective projects and ends. Growth makes freedom possible; freedom makes growth possible. They are inseparable. It’s trivial to think of inventions that have radically improved human capabilities. A personal favorite is the birth control pill, which has perhaps done more to liberate women into public life and to undermine patriarchy than the entire edifice of feminist thought. But this required a base level of economic capabilities to achieve and to produce to scale. Hormone therapy for trans people might not have been developed had we started degrowth in J.S. Mill’s time. Covid would have hit differently without remote capabilities to continue work (which would be necessary to some extent even in a degrowth regime) and the readily deployed industrial capacity to churn out millions of doses of made-to-order mRNA vaccines. The Green Revolution enabled industrial agriculture to feed billions and genetic engineering promises to continue that tradition. Cutting edge technologies like CRISPR promise revolutionary health advances and as a kind of health platform technology it will likely roll out a whole new industry. </blockquote> This is contradicted, by the way, by the German degrowthers’ own overwhelming agreement with the statement that contemporary technology is a help to degrowth. Now he returns to decoupling technical progress from “growth,” in the sense of increasing GDP: <blockquote>We do not and cannot know what technologies are just around the corner that could be just as important to us as birth control or mobile telephony. We can acknowledge that material economic growth has these attractive features without thereby committing ourselves to maximizing GDP at all costs. </blockquote> But shortly afterward he’s back to equating degrowth, once again, with everything backward and primitive — in terms almost as egregious as Leigh Phillips’s “hair shirts” and “organic carrot pants.” <blockquote>The good ideas in degrowth (buy-nothing groups, libraries, universal basic services, the whole gamut of social justice causes) are easily apprehended in normal growth-friendly terms. Degrowth adds only rotten ideas: central planning, suspicion and politicization of everyday economic and lifestyle choices, and a profound lowering of human aspirations, no longer to boldly build, explore, and better ourselves but to crouch and huddle in the familiar.</blockquote> So ends Crider’s article. The problems with it fall into two general categories. The first, of course, is conceptual incoherence. There’s really no need to belabor this, as we’ve already noted it in the process of recounting, above, his shifting characterizations of degrowth from one paragraph to another. The other problem is his assumption, at no point justified, that degrowth requires “imposing limits” through “central planning,” rather than (say) eliminating all the existing ways in which the state actively promotes and subsidizes resource consumption and erects barriers to efficiency. Crider resorts to a framing that is shared by most liberal capital apologists: i.e., that everything leftists criticize about capitalism — e.g. inequality, exploitation, extractive profit models, unsustainable resource consumption, etc. — is a spontaneous outcome of the market which can only be changed through intervention and the imposition of constraints from outside. But the truth is just the reverse. Capitalism and the nation-state are fraternal twins, with their common origins in the early modern period. And they have been in a symbiotic relationship since the beginning. All the defining features of capitalism — the expropriation and enclosure of land, the separation of the working majority from the means of subsistence, the mass-imposition of the wage system and the cash nexus, the transformation of land and labor (in Polanyi’s term) into “fictitious commodities” — required constitutive violence by the state. Capitalism also requires ongoing state violence, insofar as the great bulk of profit results from unearned economic rents on artificial property rights and artificial scarcities of one kind or another — absentee title to land, intellectual property, legal restriction of the credit function to the possessors of previously stockpiled wealth, etc. — and these same rents are the means by which accumulated wealth is enabled to grow exponentially upon itself. Most relevant for our purposes is the way in which capitalism has, from the beginning, pursued a model of endless growth through the extensive addition of new, artificially cheap, resource inputs. One of the central functions of the capitalist state, starting with the expropriation of colonial resources and their enclosure by Western capital, has been to guarantee a supply of cheap raw materials. This has continued with the forced pursuit of export-oriented development based on the provision of raw materials to the West under colonialism, the subsequent imposition of export-oriented economic models on the Global South through multilateral institutions like the World Bank and IMF, and the role of the US and its subordinate allies in fighting wars for oil and overthrowing governments that depart from the neoliberal fold. Likewise, domestically, the state facilitates extensive growth based on artificially cheap subsidized inputs, as James O’Connor noted long ago in The Fiscal Crisis of the State. Besides its wars for oil, and the primary role of the Navy in keeping sea lanes open for oil tankers at general taxpayer expense, the federal government created the civil aviation system almost entirely at public expense and took the lead in funding the Interstate Highway System. Without this — without a major portion of distribution costs being externalized on taxpayers — the extended supply chains of modern capitalism would have been impossible. The state also actively facilitates the full utilization of excess industrial capacity through waste production, by such means as the military-industrial economy, massive subsidies to car culture and sprawl, and the ways in which the patent system facilitates planned obsolescence. Contrary to Crider’s framing, the fastest way to achieve rapid degrowth in waste production and resource consumption would be to simply remove the subsidies to it. And ultimately, eliminating perverse incentives through predistribution — i.e., building them into the basic institutional structure and definition of property rights, and then letting market-clearing prices sort themselves out under the new property rules — would be far more efficient than central planning. I argued for a Hayekian market socialist system, based on predistribution through the design of property rules, in pp. 14-24 of my study <a href="https://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Hayek_s-Fatal-Conceit.pdf">Hayek’s Fatal Conceit (C4SS, 2020)</a>. I raised both of these points with Crider, much more briefly (it all fit into a 300 character post) on Bluesky on April 4, which resulted in an <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com/post/3kpd7of56aa2c">interesting exchange</a> (the link only works if you have a Bluesky account). Crider replied that “degrowthers do talk about imposing limits. They talk about eliminating ‘overconsumption’ and ‘superfluous industries.’ The devil’s in the details there, and in who gets to decide.” First, as I pointed out to Crider, “anticapitalists in general have a tendency to take capitalist framing at face value when they speak of things like ‘unfettered capitalism,’ and ignore the extent to which its profit model depends on enclosed commons, artificial scarcities, and other fetters or subsidies.” But more importantly, the two phrases he put in quotes do not in any way, as such, imply a requirement for imposing outside restraints to eliminate overconsumption or superfluous industry. His inference that it could be done only through central planning is based entirely on his own unstated assumptions about the nature of existing capitalism. As we have already seen, it is the capitalist state which actively promotes waste and irrationality through its positive interventions, and the problem could arguably be solved by removing those interventions. Crider, finally, charges that “degrowth involves an economics of suspicion — any new economic activity, from acquisition to invention, requires justification. I provide textual evidence for this economics of suspicion in the essay.” Yes, we’ve examined the quality of his “textual evidence” at some length above. The only direct textual evidence he cites is a reference or two to critiquing “industrialism” and “leftist productivist positions” in the brief passage he quoted from The Future is Degrowth. Further, as we already saw, the use of such language by the authors of the book themselves to characterize degrowthers turned out to be almost entirely their own interpretation and unsubstantiated by the responses to the actual questions in their survey. As for the assertion in The Future is Degrowth that “economic decisions must be seen as political problems,” that is a statement reflecting the views of the authors, with no indication provided that it reflects the general views of a movement. Further, characterizing economic decisions as “political problems” does not necessarily imply vesting control in the state; the decision as to whether to vest control in the state, and how much, is political. The requirement itself could be simply met through ex ante means like vesting enterprise ownership automatically in their and putting them under self-management, and putting natural resources under local commons management bodies of the sort Elinor Ostrom advocated, rather than by central planning. If anything, these would be far more rational allocations of property rights, with less perverse incentives, than prevail under the present system, and would be entirely compatible with the formation of market clearing-prices and the market allocation of goods. Beyond these things, there is no textual evidence at all — just Crider’s dark surmises, based on his own assumptions about what means the end goals of degrowth would require. As I argued in my C4SS paper, degrowthers and ecomodernist anti-degrowthers are both culpable in the travesty that passes for a debate over growth. Both are guilty of conceptual sloppiness, using the terms “growth” and “degrowth” in ambivalent senses, and nowhere clearly defining their terms or consistently adhering to any one definition. But it is possible to infer at least something in the way of a coherent definition that is implicit in the predominant rhetoric of the respective camps. For degrowthers, the implicit definition of degrowth — despite the aforesaid sloppiness and inconsistency — is a reduction in total resource consumption and of GDP insofar as it is an aggregate measure of the value of resource inputs consumed, without regard to standard of living. For anti-degrowthers, “degrowth” is economic and technological stagnation, austerity — in Crider’s colorful phrase, “stopping the economic motor and shifting into reverse.” For there to be any progress in this debate, the degrowthers need to become clear in their own minds as to what the logic of their own position entails, and then to set out that logic coherently. And the anti-degrowthers, in turn, need to address this actual position rather than strawmen. The goal, for both sides, should be to arrive at common ground on ways to decouple our standard of living from GDP and resource consumption, and to eliminate waste and irrationality from the production of our wants and needs. ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Another Stupid Right-Wing Talking Point That Won’t Die</title> <link>https://c4ss.org/content/60145</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kevin Carson]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:00:25 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[America]]></category> <category><![CDATA[civil war]]></category> <category><![CDATA[crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[economics]]></category> <category><![CDATA[john stossel]]></category> <category><![CDATA[racism]]></category> <category><![CDATA[welfare]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://c4ss.org/?p=60145</guid> <description><![CDATA[The right-wing talking point that Black poverty is the result, not of historic injustice, but of “Black culture” — and particularly the effect of Great Society welfare programs on Black culture — dates almost as far back as the Great Society itself. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among other things a major early figure of neoconservatism, in...]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[The right-wing talking point that Black poverty is the result, not of historic injustice, but of “Black culture” — and particularly the effect of Great Society welfare programs on Black culture — dates almost as far back as the Great Society itself. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among other things a major early figure of neoconservatism, in the 1965 Moynihan Report (The Negro Family) blamed Black poverty on a “ghetto culture” of fatherless families and unemployment going back to slavery. Marvin Olasky took the argument a step further in his 1992 book The Tragedy of American Compassion, arguing that, while the problem indeed rooted in Black culture and family disintegration, it didn’t go back to Jim Crow or slavery; rather, it was created mostly by the welfare state’s “culture of dependency” — an argument popularized, in turn, by neoconservative politicians like Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp. The talking point has been repeatedly stressed over the years by people like columnist Thomas Sowell, who wrote in a 2015 column: <blockquote>The “legacy of slavery” argument is not just an excuse for inexcusable behavior in the ghettos. In a larger sense, it is an evasion of responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the prevailing social vision of our times, and the political policies based on that vision, over the past half century.</blockquote> More recently John Stossel (“<a href="https://reason.com/2024/08/07/was-slavery-in-the-u-s-worse-than-the-rest-of-the-world/">Slavery Was a Global Phenomenon</a>,” Reason, August 7) approvingly — and predictably — cited a comment by Wilfred Reilly, author of Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: <blockquote>“Most problems in the modern black community don’t have anything to do with historical ethnic conflict 160 years ago.” Reilly says today’s problems began when government welfare began. “Crime in the black community,” he says, “increased about 800 percent between [around] 1963 and 1993. Racism didn’t increase between 1960 and the modern era. You’re looking at the impacts of the Great Society, the welfare programs.”</blockquote> In fact, as Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward showed in their radical history of the welfare state, <a href="https://library.lol/main/5F84BF1482066D59C5B608F8F69DB903">Regulating the Poor</a>, while the rise in urban Black crime and poverty in the postwar period was associated with family disintegration, the causality was entirely different from what Sowell and Stossel imply. The rise in fatherless households was ultimately an outgrowth of powerlessness and economic exploitation. The primary driver of family disintegration and unemployment was actually Black sharecroppers mass-migrating to northern cities after they were tractored off their land by white landowners. The large-scale migration overwhelmed job markets in northern cities; unlike the Okies of a previous generation who at least found agricultural work in California, former sharecroppers in New York and Chicago were essentially unemployable. Family breakdown was an inevitable result of economically superfluous fathers. You’d think even the likes of Sowell and Stossel would be able to grasp that all of this was possible only because the Black population of the rural South were dependent for their survival on sharecropping other people’s land in the first place. That was a state of affairs resulting directly from the fact that slave-owners’ plantations were not expropriated and given to former slaves as reparations. Instead, the planter aristocracy retained its property and survived as an economic ruling class in the postwar period, and the propertyless freed slaves were left with no means of survival but continuing to work the land of their former masters. Based on the very limited attempts local experiments with land reform that actually took place after the Civil War, we can see that a full-blown nationwide redistribution of plantation land to freed slaves would have fundamentally altered the balance of economic power. This was the finding of a <a href="https://sci-hub.ru/10.1257/aer.101.3.371">paper</a> by Melinda Miller, an economist specializing in racial inequality: <blockquote>After joining the Confederacy in 1861, the Cherokee Nation was forced during post-war negotiations to allow its former slaves to claim and improve any unused land in the Nation’s public domain . . . I find the racial gap in land ownership, farm size, and investment in long-term capital projects is smaller in the Cherokee Nation than in the southern United States. The advantages Cherokee freedmen experience in these areas translate into smaller racial wealth and income gaps in the Cherokee Nation than in the South. Additionally, the Cherokee freedmen had higher absolute levels of wealth and higher levels of income than southern freedmen. These results together suggest that access to free land had a considerable and positive benefit on former slaves.</blockquote> The project of right-wing economists to minimize the role of slavery and racial injustice in present-day racial inequality, and to promote a counter-hypothesis of “those people brought it on themselves,” has become a full-blown industry. This has become especially so thanks to <a href="https://reason.com/tag/1619-project/">reaction against the 1619 Project</a>. But simply put, Black poverty today is largely the result, whether directly or indirectly, of the fact that the dominant economic classes of the South were not only allowed to keep all the gains from injustice even after Emancipation, but to maintain a social order based on disfranchisement, petty apartheid, and naked terror for a century afterward. Since the raison d’etre of right-libertarianism and its funders is to defend the economic ruling class and the economic system that supports it, the prevalence of the “culture of poverty” trope is understandable. ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss>