A historical critique of the degrowth from Las Indias (3): the five argumentative fallacies of the movement

The degrowth arguments form a unique fabric of classic, yet socially widespread, fallacies. Together, they form an argumentative fabric as false as it is seductive, which is able to generate the illusion of rationality, propped up on our own vices and intellectual laziness. However, it’s worth making the effort and coming back around to the perspective of abundance: while capitalism is driving us towards a cliff, degrowth leads us to think like lemmings.

Excerpted from David de Ugarte:

“Even worse are the five conceptual fallacies on which degrowth bases its arguments again and again. It’s really about many fallacies whose origins are varied: erroneous economic arguments from assorted theories that remain in popular memory as common, but false, beliefs… and which are now collected by natural scientists who are getting into making social proclamations without the necessary critical background.

* “Desire is infinte, so there’s no limit to consumption.” (utilitarian fallacy)

* “Population will grow until it bumps up against resource scarcity.” (Malthusian fallacy)

* “More productivity and growth necessarily produce more stress on resources.” (ecological fallacy)

* “Since the world is finite, resources will run out shortly.” (catastrophist fallacy)

* “The development of abundance using the P2P mode of production will face the same environmental problems as capitalism.” (centralist fallacy)

Let’s go step by step.

“Desire is infinte, so there’s no limit to consumption.” (utilitarian fallacy) False: the desire for consumption is limited both by cultural values and by time. Even though the Christian monastic tradition has left our culture the idea that consuming less is “renouncing,” and that therefore, consuming more would be the spontaneous result of our “natural” desires, the truth is that studies on the behavior of lottery winners show that a sudden increase in wealth doesn’t produce a conspicuous change in the quantity of consumption or a general in consumption patterns. Curiously, lottery winners wind up contributing a significant part of their winnings to charitable institutions.
“Population will grow until it bumps up against resource scarcity.” (Malthusian fallacy) False: Reproductive behavior is another cultural variable. What statistics from developed countries show us series is that when a society approaches the end of poverty, its population growth stops.
“More productivity and growth necessarily produce more stress on resources.” (ecological fallacy) Two falsehoods in a single sentence: First, even though the productivity that’s usually showna in statistics is the labor factor (how much value is produced per hour worked on average), productivity also includes resources. Growth in productivity can be oriented towards (and, in fact, manifested as a move towards) greater energy efficiency. Second, the growth of the value of what’s produced doesn’t need to consume more resources: with each free software program, the available social wealth grows (along with consumption, at zero price), but natural resources are not significantly affected; when an empty field in La Mancha is planted with garlic and grapes, for example, more natural resources are used, but it can’t be said that the land suffers stress when cultivation is naturally sustainable.
“Since the world is finite, resources will run out shortly.” (catastrophist fallacy) False: This is surely the most obvious fallacy, but it “works” because it’s based on the difficulties our brains have evalutating probabilities beyond certain scales. Just because resources are finite doesn’t mean that their use is going to lead to their depletion in the short term, but if we add in “bad science” in the form of the Ricardian fallacy (see above), we have a long tradition of alarms that vanished.
“The development of abundance using the P2P mode of production will face the same environmental problems as capitalism.” (centralist fallacy) False: As we have already argued, each mode of production has its own way of relating to its surroundings and resources because:
They provide an incentive for an energy structure, logistics chains, and different productive processes. In contrast to industrial capitalism, in the P2P mode of production average logistics chains are drastically reduced, energy production takes a distributed form that prioritizes renewable self-production and resources. Technologies are developed in a different way, subject to the internal logic of the system: we will move from priotitizing technologies that encourage the recentralization that financial capital needs to maintain its accumulation to distribution and a tendency towards self-sufficiency that needs the P2P mode of production, both in energy and in the choice of raw materials.
Different forms of socialization (ultimately determined by the socially dominant forms of grouping for production) promote different cultural values that modify people’s aspirations and consumption behavior. Social demands will also point in other directions.
In any case, asking the very young P2P mode of production, which is still under the hegemony of the old productive system, how it will develop when it takes off as a widespread social practice, would be like asking Leonardo da Vinci or Erasmus to describe the technology or the political system of the Industrial Revolution. This absurdity only appears to make sense if you incorporate the urgency of an immediate catastrophe into the argument.
The degrowth arguments form a unique fabric of classic, yet socially widespread, fallacies. Together, they form an argumentative fabric as false as it is seductive, which is able to generate the illusion of rationality, propped up on our own vices and intellectual laziness. However, it’s worth making the effort and coming back around to the perspective of abundance: while capitalism is driving us towards a cliff, degrowth leads us to think like lemmings.”

1 Comment A historical critique of the degrowth from Las Indias (3): the five argumentative fallacies of the movement

  1. AvatarErik Assadourian

    “False: the desire for consumption is limited both by cultural values and by time.”

    I agree with that. That’s why degrowth is an attempted response to consumer culture and capitalism. It’s trying to shift cultural norms so that desire to consume is once again bounded. In consumer cultures today, for most people, consumption is essentially boundless–or at least so far beyond the bounds of sustainability to warrant the use of this term. The amount of flying, driving, meat-eating, pet-owning, large home use, unsustainable gadget, and electricity use we continue is so far beyond what the planet can sustain that degrowth of overdeveloped economies like the U.S. is essential.

    And while population could also be reined in by cultural forces, it will take intentional effort to do that–something governments and cultural elites are not leading. Hence the U.N’s projection of a population of 9.5 billion people by 2050. Combine that number with a growing global consumer class and climate change and other ecological devastation will drive us toward a massive contraction–as people fight over remaining arable land and retreat from submerging cities. The point of degrowth is to voluntarily contract (in a controlled manner) before climate change pushes us down the nasty path of uncontrolled and unplanned contraction. You could read more about transforming cultures in State of the World 2010, degrowth in chapter 2 of State of the World 2012, or on how to manage the transition in the third section of State of the World 2013. These may be better sources to lean on than the current one you quote.

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.