Capitalism’s need for endless consumption is imperiling humanity’s long-term survival. It should not be controversial to call for degrowth in Canada.
The corporate consumption juggernaut is destroying our ability to survive on this planet. From agroindustry razing animal habitat, to plastic manufacturers killing sea life, to the auto industrial complex’s greenhouse gases, the examples of corporations wreaking ecological havoc are everywhere.
The push for endless consumption and profit maximization inherent to capitalism is driving humanity towards the ecological abyss. Extractivist, productivist and consumerist ideologies are exhausting what the planet can generate without being irreparably compromised. Every year since 1969 humanity’s resource consumption has exceeded earth’scapacity to regenerate those resources by an ever-greater volume. According to the Global Footprint Network, humanity is currently using nature 1.8 times faster than Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate.
July 24 marked “Overshoot Day” this year. But if all countries behaved like Canada “Overshoot Day” would have occurred March 26. Three months into the year Canadians have overshot their use of forest, fish, arable land, carbon footprint, etc.
Amidst a climate crisis, mass species extinction, soil depletion, ozone layer thinning, loss of arable land, freshwater depletion, etc. we shouldn’t fear the label “degrowth”. We should embrace it. In fact, we’d be better placed today if progressives had begun promoting degrowth a half century ago when it became clear humanity was surpassing earth’s carrying capacity and that civilization was likely to collapse this century. We must decouple our understanding of growth/GDP from wellness/social utility.
Evidence suggests degrowth actually makes cities more sustainable, healthy and pleasant, which I detail in my book Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay. The more transport is structured to utilize shoes, bikes and rail, the fewer the resources expended getting around. At a national level the hyper auto centric US spends about twice the share of its GDP on transport as Japan. Inter-city comparisons are also helpful. People in car-oriented Houston, Dallas and Tampa spend far more than those in New York, Boston or Portland on transport. In more walking and bike-oriented cities such as Copenhagen, Fez or Amsterdam transport expenditures are a fraction of even the least car dependent North American cities.
Looking at the issue on an individual level is also illuminating. Someone like me who lives in central Montréal can spend a few hundred dollars a year on transport and have easy access to shops, schools, day care, parks, community centres, libraries, etc. while many suburban Montréalers expend 100 times more getting around in cars. They generally spend far more time commuting as well.
In other words, auto centric transport/living systems can be massively degrowthed while improving livability and public health.
Moving away from the private automobile can also marry ecological with social justice. One example I’ve written about is turning public land devoted to noisy, dangerous and polluting vehicles into social/co-op/rental housing. Turning publicly owned streets like Montreal’s René-Lévesque or the Viaduct in downtown Vancouver into social/co-op/rental housing could dent runaway climate change while improving housing affordability and urbanity.
As part of taking public land away from polluting cars the city could devote some of the land to indigenous run/focused co-op or social housing. It would be a small (urban) contribution to the “land back” movement.
There are many ways to degrow with broad social benefits. If Canada cut its military spending to the rate in Mexico (0.7% of GDP) there would be significant social and ecological benefits. Ecologically monstrous sectors such as the tar sands, coal and mining need to be drastically reduced or completely phased out. So should advertising, crypto currencies, gambling and other socially regressive domains. Conversely, there are pockets of the economy that should grow quickly such as childcare, education, arts and certain health services.
Reducing hours of work while increasing leisure activities would help achieve degrowth and improve our quality of life. Of course the minority who currently rule us and profit from our labour wouldn’t like that. Neither would they like other aspects of what must be done to slash consumption in a fair way. Steep luxury taxes on yachts and private planes, for instance, would be a way to reduce the most useless, wasteful consumption. More generally, degrowth requires collapsing wealth inequalities and smashing the power of those who claim to own our economy.
Capitalism requires endless consumption. Our planet and a healthy environment require degrowth.
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