World beyond full#They conceptualize economic growth as a collective myth which was created, in part, to depoliticize the economy, showing how the growth paradigm is a relatively recent policy objective and is conspicuously absent from notions of full employment and stability in the postwar reconstruction period until 1949. make a convincing argument that economic growth, driven by the capitalist accumulation process, is the driving force behind the climate crisis. While more work needs to be done to provide “a guide to a world beyond capitalism,” as the subtitle suggests, Schmelzer et al. Through critique and the holistic vision presented in its last chapter, the book also gives us a preliminary vision of degrowth politics. define degrowth as simultaneously a “critique, a proposal, and a politics.” 2The book as a whole places particular emphasis on the first point-degrowth as critique-while cycling through the history of the idea of economic growth, as well as degrowth’s ecological, social, cultural, economic, feminist, and decolonial critiques of the growth paradigm. The Future is Degrowth sometimes reads like a manifesto, sometimes like a glossary of terms. The Future is Degrowth: A Guide To a World Beyond Capitalism successfully introduces the reader to the world of degrowth, chronicling the history and development of the concept and pointing toward possible paths for its future, all while making a convincing argument that degrowth is the most equitable and realistic solution to the climate crisis. While it is clear that degrowth needs to reach a wider audience, this review argues that Huber’s audience should integrate degrowth principles into any real struggle for the “ecological proletariat.” DEGROWTH BEYOND CAPITALISM World beyond how to#This review places the two works in conversation, drawing out their differences and highlighting their contributions to a growing body of literature concerned with how to transition out of fossil fuel capitalism on a rapidly warming planet. focus on Marx’s analysis of capitalism as “an immense accumulation of commodities” that also pushes against metabolic limits, 1 while Huber argues for transforming the materials of production but maintaining the expansion of the economy. While The Future is Degrowth argues for abolishing the capitalist growth imperative, Climate Change is Class War argues against degrowth and advocates for a decommodified Green New Deal. Both take as foundational premises that we must move beyond capitalism to solve the climate crisis, yet they critique political economy in fundamentally different ways. The Future is Degrowth: A Guide To a World Beyond Capitalism by Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan (Verso 2022) and Climate Change is Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet (Verso 2022) are Verso’s two most recent “guides” to combating the climate crisis.
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