UKC

I have just finished reading Less is More, https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441772/less-is-more-by-jason-hickel/9781786... and found it makes a compelling case. It was particularly interesting read with the current backdrop of Labours desire for growth, which tbh seem to be a different way of saying, Drill baby drill.

Anyone read it, what did you think, have I been gulled by some Eco loonie, or does the book have a point.

It's great. Hickel is probably the world leader in the Degrowth movement. Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth is also well worth a read. 

Given the ever increasing threat of climate change, but also the rising threat of far right/fascism, then a politics that critiques the power of capital is sorely needed at present. As you point out, that is nowhere to be seen in the Labour government. The green party incorporate ideas of broadly the same sentiment as expressed by Raworth for instance. 

There is a growing 'post-growth' movement, but it's still tiny compared where it needs to be though. And no, you've not been taken in be an eco loon, you can't stave off the climate and ecological disaster, rising fascism, not any other injustice through exploitative growth led capitalism.

Living in the north it feels increasingly like Labour are going for de-growth here, putting all their eggs in the golden triangle.

… but the right kind of growth can make a difference - growth in science and technology for cleaner energy, reduced resource usage, etc etc.  No clear signals that’s a priority, far from it with the enthusiasm for Heathrow’s third runway and some token greenwashing over future magic electric jetliners.

If I understood the book correctly he is arguing against this, at least in the global north. I think he is saying that us having more stuff is unsustainable, but that some growth in the less developed countries would be good. 

Broadly you're right there Godwin, that is Hickel's take. There is space for 'growth' in some areas in the big economies (clean energy etc) but even that growth wouldn't be a 'GDP' measured growth. Lowering energy demand in developed countries is a key part of his argument. 

I think I will reread the book, at least the later parts, as it represents a paradigm shift in thinking.

As he points out at the start, most leaders cannot even imagine a non capitalist world, that most people think capitalism is a natural state, I did.

Yeah capitalism really has what academics would call a 'hegemonic' grip on the way that we think that the world needs to be. Honestly, I'd also have a look at Doughnut Economics, it's fairly easy to get into, and Raworth is a great writer. She explains quite well just how we've ended up in this place. As ever, the politics of getting degrowth or post growth etc into the broader public debate is largely unknown at present. 

Hickel has also done lots of podcasts which are really informative too. 

Thank you, I have reserved Doughnut Economics at the Library and shall have a search for podcasts. It will also be interesting to hear what the Freakonomics team make of degrowth https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-economic-growth-the-wrong-goal-ep-429/

Sure, but you have to ask why it’s unsustainable.  The primary reason is that energy is so harmful and so expensive (requiring off-the-books costs to be carried particularly hard by those with less than us).

We should aspire to have ultra-low-harm energy that is an order of magnitude of more less expensive than it is at present.  I’d far rather see my tax money go to that lofty goal than towards a faster rail link between Cambridge and Oxford…

Capitalism, communism, any other model, they are all bound over by our energy poverty and our reliance on harmful energy.  

Possibly you need to ask yourself the question why. Hickel suggests that energy use is just a part of the problem, and that growth leads too us using up the planets resources and impacting all the other species sharing the planet. Tell you what that Descarte was a nasty piece of work. Try reading the book or a podcast.

But we only use up the resources because we are energy poor.  There’s much talk of a “circular economy”, no such thing is possible because of entropy.  Energy has to be input and dissipated as heat to make it go around. With sufficiently clean and cheap and low harm energy, resources usage ceases to be an issue as we use that energy to recycle it all.  A techno dream for now, but one I’d rather see us perusing than many other avenues of “growth”.

I have read many books.  I find podcasts a medium used to sway people with gishgallop and personality, not a serious way to convey ideas for genuine examination.

There are no new ideas under the sun on the political side of this, just an endless series of people who can speak compellingly to the current generations.  The ultimate answer is as obvious now as it was 75 years ago. 

Genuine, ultra low cost ultra low harm energy.   This should be our Manhattan project.

Surely energy requirements are only one of many blockers to infinite reuse of resources?

Sure, but there is no shortage of technological ways to do it.  

The problem we have is that it’s financially cheaper to mine it elsewhere and ignore the non-local environmental costs.  Key drivers of this include the energetic costs and the legislative environment.

For example (by no means exhaustive in technology terms) there are ways to pyrolise waste to a set of standard atmospheric gasses and to recover metals from the mix.  Energy intensive.  There was ways to recover carbon from atmospheric CO2 and synthesis fuels and chemical feedstocks.  Energy intensive.  The barrier to large scale commercial plant design and deployment is the energy costs (and some Ill informed nimbyism) such that it’s cheaper to mine/burn fossil fuels and offshore the non-financial costs.

To borrow a phrase from Iain M Banks, “money implies poverty”.

It feels like you're probably handwaving away a lot of technological complexity there by distilling it down to energy being the only blocker, but I don't doubt that you're more informed on the science than I am.

Are you saying "we could build it tomorrow, if energy was clean and cheap"? Or, "we can do it pretty well in the lab so with concerted research it could be possible at scale in x years"?

Continuous growth is not sustainable. I was so disappointed when Starmer came out with those same old tropes about growing the economy. Same old same old. It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. 

The thing is that capital, or Kapital, has it's own life. It runs human civilisation and we're just along for the ride. If it gains sentience (might have already) then we're truly foukd.

The problem isn't capitalism, we need to dig deeper than that. Surely the catalyst for this reliance on growth is nationalism. Blocks of countries that don't trust each other, so they have to be the first to exploit species threatening technology; from plundering fossil fuels to AI managed nuclear weapons, growth at all costs. In the words of John Lennon "Imagine all the people Sharing all the world You may say I'm a dreamer"

Very much the later.  Almost all of the clever stuff I’ve read about is proof of concept, not designs for industrial scale plants.  But there are no hard impossibles.  However nobody is going to even consider designing those plants when energy is so expensive and we can just tear up the Congo etc wherever sod most of the consequences.  (Well, except for air > hydrocarbon fuel plants where some businesses are having a case of the enlightened self interests…)

I think landfill mining is likely to start taking off within the decade; some sources refer to it as part of the “circular economy” but excavating, sifting and sorting is energy intensive; there’s no escape from the second law of thermodynamics.    Well, the first modern pass of landfill mining, not the last.  

Not just energy, a couple of times now I’ve said that legislation is an issue too.  It’s currently expensive and there’s no real incentive.

This is the problem, the book explains it better then ever I can, but Capitalism and endless compounded growth, particularly when biased to the global north, in a finite world can only end in disaster. Oddly today I read this article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/03/we-are-in-danger-of-f... which eludes to the same issue,. It is about so much more than energy use.

You are you really speaking of the Realist or Hegemonic system v the Rules Based approach, which is another though linked issue. 
In the context of this thread, capitalism is the problem.

You are correct, it has, and we are

Because the companies who produce and supply it charge the absolute max they can, to please their shareholders and make the outrageous record breaking profits they declare every quarter.

Disagree.  The problem is we’ve been long experiencing global population growth and global possessive wealth growth fuelled by harmful energy.  Global population growth is slowing down and in full reverse in some developed economies.  Remove the high costs and harms from energy, and stabilise population levels, and we can eventually recycle far more than we do, meaning the finite nature of the planet is not a disaster-in-waiting.   Problem is, disaster is looming far before then and the key driver of that is the harmful energy we’ve used since the Industrial Revolution.  

For sure, *but* all growth builds on expensive and harmful energy and has done for generations.  If you look at the growth of the global population and of wealth over the past few centuries, it’s a story of the growth in the energy a person can access.   Problem is it’s been awfully destructively sourced energy.  Changing that should be our highest priority as a nation and as a species.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/BP/bp/gross-profit

Meanwhile your granny is freezing to death coz she can't afford heating.

It is a waste of time discussing a book with a person who has not read it and claims they have "I have read many books.” and seems to think they need to read no more, or are “learnt up"

However we are discussing the ideas within a book?  I’d hope you could compare the ideas of others to those of the book, otherwise what’s the point?  

As you have read the book, perhaps you can illuminate me as to how he proposes to get several billion people to adopt “degrowth”?  It’s all well and good to say “x will save the world” but what is the pathway to x?  

FWIW, I suspect the top 50% of the world by GDP (or whatever) could halve their consumption tomorrow and we’d still be facing gigantic upheaval of ecosystems over the next 50 years due to locked in climate effects.  Throwing that in to reverse needs a bit more…

BTW, I don’t have much time for this bit of your take:

People are people everywhere.  People everywhere are just as capable of destroying things once they become technological society.

I am now half way through “Doughnut Economics”, very interesting. It is so different to our current general way of thinking. I have been thinking for a number of years that the system we have is not working, but have not been sure what would be better, “Doughnut Economics” possibly offers another path. 
I shall report back when I have finished it, which could be awhile, I am a slow reader, but thanks for the suggestion.

You're welcome....and yep, it's literally just a different way of thinking about 'economics'.