Opinion of the degrowth movement

[traininthedistance]

Obviously this is the sort of movement that most people will react with visceral horror to– growth has been the engine of civilization since basically forever, and asking people to voluntarily give that up will be read as nihilistic.  As such, I'm obviously not going to vote for something that has no hope of taking power and making a positive difference anywhere.  And, well, I'm not immune to the horror reaction myself.  Best to hope and act like the sustainable development paradigm can actually work instead, whether it actually does or not.

But, if I'm putting on my impractical philosopher cap here... they get a bad rap, and we as a species would do well to look past that visceral horror and see what they have to say that might be perceptive and helpful.  I think their rejection of the rat race paradigm- valuing free time rather than moar stuffs– is something that we can afford to do in the developed world, and would probably be happier if we took to heart.  And, well, they take the implications of Jevon's Paradox seriously, and even if you don't want to endorse their conclusions (even I blanch at them), it's an argument that's we do seriously need to grapple with.

As far as the standard economic assumption of eternal growth... ultimately these guys are too pessimistic, as technological advances can probably stretch our resources for quite some time.  But, in the long enough run, we will hit some sort of wall, even if it's not energy per se but some sort of other resource (peak copper? peak phosphorous anyone?).  Naive cornucopianism is really not any better than these folks.

[traininthedistance]

Obviously this is the sort of movement that most people will react with visceral horror to– growth has been the engine of civilization since basically forever about three centuries ago, and asking people to voluntarily give that up will be read as nihilistic.

Just a correction; some economic historians like to talk about "Hockey Stick Growth," in which per-capital national product growth only rocketed in Europe with the Industrial Revolution.

That's fair; though of course the Industrial Revolution brought us (at least those of us comfortable enough to spend time on the Internet ) such a disproportionate amount of our creature comforts that the distinction is somewhat academic.  People will still recoil at the thought of halting that gravy train, and such recoiling is still a perfectly sensible reaction.

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I don't know much about Jevons's Paradox - it seems one of those economic trends people tend to dismiss, especially as energy sources are developed totally different in nature from fossil fuels.

Well, Jevon's Paradox as originally formulated had to do with the consumption of coal, where your point is indeed correct.  But it can be generalized to the idea that "an increase in efficiency of energy use will lead to greater total energy use", where the shifting from one fuel source to another becomes less relevant.  And, yes, less relevant even w/r/t renewables, which still require inputs like space, rare earth metals, damming up a limited supply of rivers, etc.  It's pretty much just a denial of science to disbelieve that one of those inputs will, eventually, become a limiting factor.  Like I said– peak copper, peak phosphorous...

I will say that the policies these activists impose are rather ambiguous and staid - "localization," limiting the finance sector and so forth.

Agreed 100 percent on "localization", which has always seemed more of a sentimental argument than an economic one. (Not that we should necessarily try to stamp sentiment out of public policy in favor of just cold hard numbers, to be fair...)  As for limiting the financial sector, the details matter A LOT but I was under the impression that definancializing the economy somewhat was just straightforward good sense that doesn't require one to accept the degrowth paradigm, or anything similarly radical, to support.

It all seems to me like an ideology from people trying to maintain their assets and social position, hoping to insure it from growth and recession, as well as telling others poorer to learn to love living in relative scarcity. I find that regressive in a less discussed manner.

That strikes me as a maximally uncharitable misinterpretation, but whatever.  Also worth noting that I was careful to say "developed world" and if Wiki is to be believed even many within the movement still support regular growth and development for the Global South.

(God, I hope I don't sound like AggregateDemand there)

At least you're aware of it.  (No, really you don't sound like ArrogantDemand- at least not beyond internalizing the "oh noes caring about sustainability makes you an elitist" canard, which, well, you're in sadly widespread and distinguished company there.)  

Again, while I clearly have more sympathy for them than your average Atlasian I'm not actually a degrowth proponent or anything.  Just trying to play devil's advocate/salvage what good points they do actually have.

[traininthedistance]

Although it's naive and sometimes rather regressive, I don't see why it's inherently hilarious to imagine a vision of society not driven by profit and gigantic institutions. Of the "concrete proposals" only one (the elimination of fiat money) strikes me as potentially disastrous, and I'll admit that's mainly because I'm rather small c conservative on monetary policy, and do not wish to fix what doesn't seem to be broken.

Other than that things like the reduction of waste or the reuse of empty houses or the elimination of car culture seem to be rather logical (and indeed necessary) proposals.

Yeah, the elimination of fiat money is a capital-B Bad Idea and quite probably the single largest reason I wouldn't actually sign on to their program even if it was politically feasible.

[traininthedistance]

The lesson that these people should learn is that there are non-economic human needs, love, friendship, community, narrative, a sense of purpose.

I think you're misreading these folks, because uh it looks to me like that's exactly the lesson they're trying to teach?

[traininthedistance]

The lesson that these people should learn is that there are non-economic human needs, love, friendship, community, narrative, a sense of purpose.

I think you're misreading these folks, because uh it looks to me like that's exactly the lesson they're trying to teach?

No, because their approach is an alternative to economics,  those things are an supplement to economics.  They have the right general diagnosis, but the wrong cure.  It's like reducing a fever by bloodletting.   And, that's the impression I get.  Instead of addressing the non-economic issues in society, they want to implement a litany of terrible economic ideas.

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Those are all fundamentally economic, based on the Marxist idea that people are mostly economic beings.  It's all just begging the question, right?

Those ideas are neither uniformly "fundamentally economic", nor are they entirely terrible.  Sure, some are indeed both- eliminating fiat money is just The Worst, yes.  But I'd argue that something like "participative approaches to decision-making" is orthogonal to a dollars-and-cents economic view, and even something like "Minimize the waste production with education and legal instruments" has to do a lot more with promoting those sorts of healthy values you cite than it does with Homo economicus.

And come on, I've seen you promote many of these things yourself. Don't try and pretend that "transitioning from a car-based system", something that to your credit you've advocated, is now loony Marxism just because these guys like it too.

[traininthedistance]

I'm making a subtle distinction here.  I'm sure there could be some element of these people that actually see things my way.

But,t there are issues where anti-globalization, anti-capitalist people are right, but for the wrong reasons.  When you begin with these sorts of premises about how capitalism is flawed, you just lose me right there.  The market and private property are the two basic principles that have a spectacular track record of improving the lot of human beings.  The way I see the world is that you don't refute the implications of the capitalist economic in society, you just add the implications of sociology, psychology, etc. 

So, because they tend to be anti-capitalism, that poisons all of their suggestions, even if those suggestions would otherwise be right or not actually have anything to do with the workings of capitalism?  That doesn't strike me as the right attitude to take, if we actually want to fix the problems we have.  I think it's a virtue to be willing to listen to all sorts of viewpoints and make common cause with people who have different priors, on issues where that is possible and productive.