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The Biggest Shift from North to South: 'Time to De-Grow'
Q&A: Claudia Ciobanu interviews economist Serge Latouche
BUCHAREST - Serge Latouche, professor emeritus of economic science at the University of Paris-Sud, is one of the main proponents of "the society of de-growth".
Serge Latouche. He calls for "abandoning the objective of growth for growth's sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment." The need for a 'de-growth' society stems from the certainty, he says, that the earth's resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth which is the essence of capitalism and modernity. (IPS File) He calls for "abandoning the objective of growth for growth's sake, an insane
objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment." The need for a
'de-growth' society stems from the certainty, he says, that the earth's
resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth which is the
essence of capitalism and modernity.
In place of the current dominant system, Latouche argues for "a society of assumed sobriety; to work less in order to live better lives, to consume less products but of better quality, to produce less waste and recycle more."
The new society would mean "recuperating a sense of measure and a sustainable ecological footprint," Latouche says, "and finding happiness in living together with others rather than in the frantic accumulation of gadgets."
Author of many books and articles on Western rationality, the myth of progress, colonialism and post-development, Serge Latouche describes the main principles of the de-growth society in his books 'Le Pari de la Décroissance'(The Bet of De-Growth) and 'Petit Traité de la Décroissance Sereine" (Small Treaty of Peaceful De-Growth) published in 2006 and 2007.
Serge Latouche spoke to IPS correspondent Claudia Ciobanu about de-growth society.
IPS: What are the features of the society of de-growth, and are any practices in the world today compatible with this vision?
Serge Latouche: De-growth does not mean negative growth. Negative growth is a self-contradictory expression, which just proves the domination of the collective imagination by the idea of growth.
On the other hand, de-growth is not the alternative to growth, but rather, a matrix of alternatives which would open up the space for human creativity again, once the cast of economic totalitarianism is removed. The de-growth society would not be the same in Texas and in the Chiapas, in Senegal and in Portugal. De-growth would open up anew the human adventure to the plurality of its possible destinies.
Principles of de-growth can already be found in theoretical thought and in practical efforts in both the global North and the South. For example, the attempt to create an autonomous region by the neo-Zapatistas in Chiapas; and many South American experiences, indigenous or others, such as in Ecuador, which has just introduced in its constitution the objective of Sumak Kausai (harmonious life).
All sorts of initiatives promoting de-growth and solidarity are starting to spread in the global North too: AMAP (The Associations for the Preservation of Peasant Agriculture in France, that promote direct links between producers and consumers, and organic agriculture), self-production according to the example of PADES (the Programme for Self-Production and Social Development, developed in France to help individuals and communities produce goods for themselves and others, eliminating monetary interchanges).
The movement of Transition Towns started in Ireland and spreading in England could be a form of production from below which closest resembles a society of de-growth. These towns are seeking firstly energy self-sufficiency in the face of depleting resources and, more generally, promote the principle of community resilience.
IPS: What would be the role of markets in the de-growth society?
SL: The capitalist system is a market economy, but markets are not an institution which belongs exclusively to capitalism. It is important to distinguish between the Market and markets. The latter do not obey the law of perfect competition, and that is for the best. They always incorporate elements of the culture of the gift, which the de-growth society is trying to rediscover. They involve living in communion with the others, developing a human relationship between the buyer and the seller.
IPS: What strategies could the global South pursue in order to eliminate poverty in a different way than the North has, at the expense of the environment and producing poverty in the South?
SL: For African countries, decreasing the ecological footprint and the GDP are neither necessary nor desirable. But from this we must not conclude that a society of growth must be built there.
Firstly, it is clear that de-growth in the North is a precondition for opening up of alternatives for the South. As long as Ethiopia and Somalia are forced, during the worst food shortage, to export feed for our domestic animals, as long as we fatten our cattle with soya obtained after destroying the Amazonian forest, we are asphyxiating any attempt at real autonomy in the South.
To dare de-growth in the South means to launch a virtuous cycle made up of breaking economic and cultural dependency on the North; reconnecting with a historical line interrupted by colonisation; reintroducing specific products which have been abandoned or forgotten as well as "anti-economic" values linked to the past of those countries; recuperating traditional techniques and knowhow.
These are to be combined with other principles, valid worldwide: re- conceptualising what we understand by poverty, scarcity and development for instance; restructuring society and the economy; restoring non-industrial practices, especially in agriculture; redistributing; re-localising; reusing; recycling.
IPS: The de-growth society involves a radical change in human consciousness. How is this radical change going to come about? Can it happen in time?
SL: It is difficult to break out of this addiction to growth especially because it is in the interest of the "dealers" - the multinational corporations and the political powers serving them - to keep us enslaved.
Alternative experiences and dissident groups - such as cooperatives, syndicates, the associations for the preservation of peasant agriculture, certain NGOs, local exchange systems, networks for knowledge exchange - represent pedagogical laboratories for the creation of "the new human being" demanded by the new society. They represent popular universities which can foster resistance and help decolonise the imaginary.
Certainly, we do not have much time, but the turn of events can help accelerate the transformation. The ecological crisis together with the financial and economic crisis we are experiencing can constitute a salutary shock.
IPS: Can conventional political actors play a role in this transformation?
SL: All governments are, whether they want it or not, functionaries of capitalism. In the best of cases, the governments can at most slow down or smoothen processes over which they do not have control any more.
We consider the process of self-transformation of society and of citizens more important than electoral politics. Even so, the recent relative electoral success of French and Belgian ecologists, who have adopted some of the de- growth agenda, seems like a positive sign.
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49 Comments so far
Show AllLets hope Professor Serge Latouche isn't gioing to hold his breath tikll his dream comes true.
Its about time to start talking about things in terms of political and social reality rather than Professorial lounge chatter.
Henry8 August 3rd, 2009 10:32 am.................Personally, I applaud the idealist and the creative mind...it's where things are born...antithetical to stagnation, acceptance and even revisionism.
"...start talking about things in terms of political and social reality... "
Henry, I think this comment might come from the warped view that is dominant in the US. Not all societies focus on the accumulation of goods and wealth. Europe, generally, is more progressive regarding social welfare as opposed to individual enrichment.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.
"There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains
is more and more precise measurement" - Lord Kelvin.
"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant,
if not utterly impossible." - Simon Newcomb, 1902.
"Space travel is bunk" -Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of
Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of Sputnik
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre
Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." - Sir John Eric Ericksen,
British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria
1873.
"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being
unworthy of science and mischievious to to its true progress" - Sir
William Siemens, 1880, on Edison's announcement of a sucessful light bulb.
"Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody
will use it, ever." - Thomas Edison, 1889
"It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two
or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying
machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
- Thomas Edison, 1895
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be
obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at
will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular
Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a
fad that won't last out the year." - The editor in charge of business
books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
"There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be
used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio
service inside the United States." -T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961.
"But what... is it good for?" - Engineer at the Advanced Computing
Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken
Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981.
"People can never live together in Harmony. So grab all you can while you can and make sure you invest your wealth in killing others before they can kill you" Henry The Tenth.
"If we keep pushing the envelope, we'll fall out of it and die." - Another non-believer in Modern magic
The big lie is that we are pushing the envelope. In reality we have been pushing the trash can.
The last is the killer.
Great list! It would be nice to add quotes on how slavery will never be abolished, how child labor is God's will and how women will never get the vote.
Don't blame God for humanity's ills. All the great masters have had the same message, namely, to live a spiritual life.
Exactly.
Our current economic system rewards those who have the strongest pathological greed and sense of self-importance: the most selfish and callous.
Thanks to mythology, virtually every wealthy person thinks these values are what define "the strong" that are supposed to survive. And these attributes do lead to the most successful bullies - who always claim to be keeping everyone safe from "the real bullies."
This is a thought provoking article. Without knowing it, and contrary to many of my other beliefs, I had absorbed the idea that economic GROWTH is a sign of economic health. "Oh the GDP is up - good news. Exports are up - good news".
This is not always true, especially in developed countries where growth can be unhealthy bloat. Even in countries suffering from lack of resources, growth can either benefit the people and environment or devastate them. In either place, the wrong kind of growth can concentrate wealth and undermine democracy.
Perhaps we need to give other quality of life indices more importance in our everyday reactions: The Gini, measures of sustainability, health status of the populace. Quality, balance and long term health are goals, rather than any unqualified increase in size.
Joe
I learned about this in one of my college classes a year and a half ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Genuine_progress_indicator
And I was taught this many years ago by a very wise man--my father.
My father was a jackass. The only thing I learned from him was how not to be a father :-)
Thanks - that was great. I sent the link to others I know. (And I had the same kind of father! think Frank McCourt.)
Joe
Professor Latouche had better be damned careful, or he's going to find himself wearing an orange suit in a neo-Nazi concentration camp.
His notions about "abandoning the objective of growth for growth's sake" are diametrically opposed to the very foundations of capitalist economics, not to mention its globalization agenda. And that kind of perverse opposition to USA Incorporated's version of "freedom and democracy", as we all know, constitutes terrorism in and of itself.
From the oligarchs perspective you may be correct; but , from people's perspective it is increasingly becoming a necessity. Remember that wages were decoupled from productivity increases under Reagan. The Government books were cooked on cost of living increases artificially lowering adjustments. Nafta exported millions of good paying jobs and replacement jobs paid roughly ten thousand dollars less on average. Globalism was sold to the American People by the claim that goods would be cheaper. That cynical promise proved to be false as stores kept their prices high and pocketed the difference. The result is that people can no longer afford to live in the traditional consumerist ways. People have been forced to change by financial necessity and are choosing to live more simply and sustainably. It is the oligarchs and the Washington politicians who have engineered the decline of wages thereby forcing the changes in peoples lives. If there is any terrorist in this equation it is the oligarch and the politicians they own.
And what is the financial virus that drives growth to extremes?
The quantification of debt wrongfully applies the algebraic concept of exponential growth - compounding interest - upon money. The distinction between usury and interest is an arbitrary legal determination with no basis in mathematics. Nothing can grow forever at an ever-increasing rate. As time moves on, the emphasis of ever-increasing growth becomes omnipresent, is quantified and institutionalized in the societal structure, encouraging over consumption, over development, and excessive expectations, pushing economic stress to its upper limit of expansion, eventually inciting conflict and spawning War to insure growth.
Economic systems of capitalism, communism, socialism, imperialism, colonialism, totalitarianism, fascism, nazism, monarchism, corporatism, and all other centralist monetary-isms maintain the monopolized control of money, and hence the control of society itself, through their own brand of Legal Tender that embraces compounding interest and excludes other forms of money from the Market.
http://theformofmoney.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/9/18/1236759.html
It's been a long time coming. Kudos to Serge. But he forgot to mention the most important kinds of growth, population growth and wealth and power centralization.
CORPORATIONS.
It may be too hard or exhausting to try to change them or take them over, or arrest them. Especially considering their close ties with government.
Let's start by ignoring them... by-passing them... withdrawing financial support, withdrawing our attention from them and their mouthpiece, the Major Media.
They put a lot of energy into convincing us that they are the only show in town, the only thing that is happening, the only range of choices.
Screw them. Make this a Peoples' Planet!
There a plenty of things individuals can do:
Eat low on the food chain
Repair stuff rather than throwing it out
Buy 2nd hand
Use the library
Walk, bike or take public transit
Shop local, like farmer's markets
Buy hand-made and locally-made, not corporate
The next step is to organize into cooperatives and communes to share resources.
One people. One planet.
>The next step is to organize into cooperatives and communes to share resources.
Here's a good role model to learn from:
http://www.livablestreets.com/streetswiki/vauban-freiburg-germany
http://www.vauban.de/info/abstract.html
Here's a website dedicated to this type of cooperative model of economics.
www.prout.org
"Prout is the acronym for Progressive Utilisation Theory. It is a social and economic theory developed in 1959 by Indian scholar-author and activist Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. Mr. Sarkar sought a practical alternative to the theories and increasingly apparent failures of Marxism (communism) and Capitalism. Prout is based on universal values recognizing and protecting the rights of all to the fulfillment of their basic needs; the protection of the environment, plants and animals; and a dynamic, incentive-based multi-tiered economy"
An unexpectedly inspiring article and set of comments set off by Henry8's usual crystal clear reactionary manifesto:
"Its about time to start talking about things in terms of political and social reality rather than Professorial lounge chatter." (If Henry8 and a few others didn't exist, would we lounge chatterers have to invent them?)
De-growth, sustainable growth, call it what you will: it's time it is a-comin', as there must be some form of the Newtonian laws that says that what goes up and up must come down. In Florida, we're getting a good test of this. As "the times" in this state call for curbing of growth that has produced the rampant over-development associated with its housing and employment busts, the state legislature in its "wisdom," has decided to exempt developers from already-existing local powers to use the permitting process to curb their excesses (removing for example, local requirements that housing developers be held liable for the infrastructure costs like schools and roads associated with their developments.) On the table for referendum voting next year is a Hometown Democracy amendment that would return some "power to the people" in being able to veto local developments that local people don't want. No, no-growth won't be built in a way, as the Rome of over-development was destroyed over decades, but there are some "political and social realities" within our reach if we but choose to grasp them.
Florida Hometown Democracy is gaining support. It's an extremely important step to let the people decide what to do with their commons instead of developers. Direct democracy will spread to energy use, pollution, traffic, food and further as corporate and population pressures on our environment become unsustainable. Thanks for the post Jerry D Rose.
ezeflyer: thanks for the FHD plug. I profess to some reticence about popular referendums which (see California) often turn out to be more regressive than those of legislatures. But given the EXTREMELY regressive nature of the Florida legislature,how could popular legislation be any worse than what the guys and gals in Tallahassee do?
California's referendums have been regressive and along with political pork have bankrupted the state, while Swiss referendums have been progressive and given the Swiss one of the highest per-capita incomes in the world.
The difference is that California's referendums have been fraudulent while Switzerland's have been lawful. In California (and Florida), rich conservatives pay signature gatherers and run expensive ads, while in Switzerland this is illegal.
Here is more information:
http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/
ezeflyer: and that's much of my qualms about "direct democracy" when the "will of the people" is so conditioned on the ability of powerful interests to spend money to gain signatures and run ads. Without campaign finance reform, which apparently they have in Switzerland, how do people ever regain their government from the hands of those who have bought and paid for it? You may have in mind Florida's Amendment 2 fiasco of last year in which so much money was poured by anti-gay rights scare advertising and voters approved (by over 60% as newly required by the state constitution) to put into the constitution that a "marriage is between a man and woman." I expect to campaign hard next year for Hometown Democracy (as we did successfully against an anti-gay measure this year in Gainesvlle,} but I know the long odds against its passing and, maybe even more, the odds that people in a particular locality will vote down a development that is pitched as "creating jobs" and that the developer/construction/banking lobby can buy off one locality at a time. This no-growth stuff is REALLY difficult.
That's right. And thanks for your activism. Here is a way forward: http://ni4d.us/
Re Jerry D Rose August 3rd, 2009 2:28 pm, who muses that
"...there must be some form of the Newtonian laws that says that what goes up and up must come down."
There is. It's called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. For an exhaustive (but not exhausting) treatment of the subject and its implications, read "Entropy" by Jeremy Rifkin. Mrs. T and I gave copies as Xmas gifts to the family the year it was published.
My view is that this marvelous revolution of slow down and live, kind of sums up all the wonderful intellectual analysis, and is already happening.
It is all a given.
Jim, I understand, admire and share (on my good days) your optimism. In your case I wonder if it's born of your experience as a folk singer and composer (am I letting some cat out of the bag?). For all the things we think about "needing" in our communal life today, maybe we need to think about a need for another Woodie Guthrie or Pete Seeger or Bob Dylan. Don't know, but the answer my friend is blowin' in the wind.
You can trace back every, EVERY, ill that threatens this country, the World, and the planet to OVERPOPULATION. EVERY!
Competition for $, for jobs, for food, for land, and on and on. This should be the PRIMARY focus of EVERYONE and not just a few outspoken seers like Serge Latouche or Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
no it isn't. overpopulation people are trying to blame the wretched excesses of euro-american greed and hyper consumption on poor people in the South- these are the ones you want to stop reproducing right?-
whereas, actually you are chewing up 50, 60,70 times as much of the planet as they are. look at the size of u.s. vehicles cluttering up the streets and then try to go tell a poor struggling woman in Uganda or India to stop having babies.
what the world needs is for the u.s. to stop eating it.
and what he world needs is for the u.s. to stop bombing it.
and terrorizing it.
let the women of the South have their babies.
My comment was not about "selective" areas. My comment was about EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. For every new person born comes a DEMAND. A demand for food, water, money, a place to live, a job and on and on. It's time for a moratorium on birthing, PERIOD! Let me just rephrase an old saying: "ADOPTION NOT BIRTHING"!!!
That's right. And wrong. We can't interfere with women's rights, but we do need to let them have access to Planned Parenthood and education so they can choose to be more than become sex slaves and baby birthing machines at the cost of their bodies and economic well being, not to mention for ecological sanity.
SERGE LATOUCHE PHOTO CAPTION [IPS File]
Professor Emeritus Serge Latouche met with IPS reporters to discuss how his resemblance to Sean Connery has hindered his discussions of "la societe de de-developpement." An audience listened attentively to his economic philosophy after he agreed to put on a black sweater and say, "Bond, James Bond," following his remarks.
allinish: I share your view on this, although I'm a full supporter of Kucinich as is apparently Kucinich 2012 (I like the sound of that). I don't think over-population today is as much a problem as mal-distribution of the resources we have and, as this thread is developing, the outrageously high demand that people, especially those in the "developed" countries, are putting on those resources. Not saying that K 12 is doing this, but too often the cry of over-population is a cry for birth control among those dark people of the world as an alternative to helping them address their problems. (Which I think has to involve developing and nourishing sustainable local economies in contrast to the "global" one). Maybe it's just there's too much of the odor of "eugenics" with the complaint that the darker are out-breeding the lighter folks. If we can get away from that mentality, I'm willing to grant that the slowing of population growth EVERYWHERE is a good idea if not THE ONE idea as K 12 expresses it.
Nice try, but it's not gonna be enough. Go find Derrick Jensen's endgame. no wait i can help
http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htm
Abuelo,
I couldn't agree more w/ya!
henry's a plant here . henry here's a news flash for ya
where do you think these idea's that have improved the world
came from? two guys riding the back of a garbage truck?
well anyhoo the banks and corps would bug out when this
system starts to catch on here and will go into some
sen. or congress persons office and type themselves a law
banning this type of thing. i was a banker at one time and
the feds would come in and give seminars about other countries
small villages banking systems and how criminal they were
and blah blah blah. guess what. they were beautiful and
could get a entire village here if the seed money was wisely invested. but the banks and uncle tom er i mean uncle sam hated
it. they were cut out of the action. no interest payments
and community investment is bad if their cut out of the cycle.
if they can't oppress you one way they will look for another!
f--k fascism!
Serge developed his de-growth ideas in the comfort of a Paris professorship.
Societies that decry or abort growth have failed - Soviet Collectiveism (read coop's)- and are bailed out by societies that do grow/progress.
Serge's pension from Paris-Sud leaves him the comfort to condemn that whichsustains him.
His opinions are typical of those that know responsible other's will always come along to pull him out of the 'rock-an-a-hard-place' he would assign the rest of us to.
"Serge developed his de-growth ideas in the comfort of a Paris professorship."
SO WHAT?
"Societies that decry or abort growth have failed - Soviet Collectiveism (read coop's)- and are bailed out by societies that do grow/progress."
OTHERS HAVE SUCCEDED, take agricultural, housing and savings, cooperatives, etc...
"Serge's pension from Paris-Sud leaves him the comfort to condemn that whichsustains him."
Pensions are deferred incomes, how is he condemning anything?
"His opinions are typical of those that know responsible other's will always come along to pull him out of the 'rock-an-a-hard-place' he would assign the rest of us to."
Thank you for YOUR opinion but it does not address the hard place you are already in, in finite terms. Your opinion is one of those that suggests that anybody who threatens the incomes of the capitalist leaches is expecting to be saved by you and the rest of society. Quite frankly you are a product of the brain-washed masses who believe you have a right to and can clime over the rest of the world to survive.
Listen you little egotistical effluent, you have no more right to survive than the worker in China that made your tee-shirt, but you have an obligation to treat him with respect as a human. Further more if you could learn to show cooperation, and compassion for your fellows and work together to get up the hill, perhaps you can not only survive but be a happier human, rather than the ignorant self serving cow patch you seem to be.
Let's see the french are not reproducing at even a stay even level (2.1 children per woman). But the Muslim French are well above the 2.1 level. So if we wait a few decades the traditional French will be few and the new French Muslims will be many. Go ahead professor unilaterally disarm (have zero, or one child) it makes more room for the New France.
Go away and join your neo Nazi friend Le Pen, where you will feel right at home with your bigotry.
What some commentators do not understand is that what Prof. Latouche is posing is not so much an alternative as a necessity. Put another way, our present system which demands growth, as a result of debt and usury on a planet of expanding population and limited resources is unsustainable; therefore a change in direction is the only way to avoid the brick wall at the end of the line. (by the way the population expansion is a phenomenon of insecurity. Secure societies have balanced population growth, just for those who would welcome wiping out 2/3 of the world, other than themselves of course, to ensure their own wellbeing)
The riots in Bangladesh by apparel workers or the ethnic conflicts in China are underpinned by the economic cancerous disequilibrium of capitalist usury and are leading us all to a new global self destruction.
What Latouche is talking about is "the new human being" Vs “the New World Order” The fights and the fires might start with desperation in the cities of Xinjiang or Burma, or fisherman becoming pirates in Somalia but the same rebellion against oppression and slavery of people to debt, artificial scarcity and taxes will burn until Milwaukie, Manheim or Manchester. We are all connected when we ask others to do what we won’t, or to live in a way we cannot, like manufacturing toys or cloths in conditions we will not tolerate. To those that see it, even that fire of anger and furry that provokes death and destruction is just another opportunity for a market in weapons, and mercenaries.
Nobody will change your world for you. How bad does it have to be, how close to the solid wall and at what speed must you be travelling to certain misery and death before the “alternative” becomes the only option?