Towards a Society of Degrowth

Onofrio Romano

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351005920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

This book explores the concept of degrowth, beginning from a basic assumption, not of resource depletion, as is common in most literature in the field, but rather from a state of abundance, arguing that there is a vast amount of energy on the planet waiting to be utilized by all its inhabitants.

Adopting a sociological approach, Onofrio Romano argues that the growth momentum is not simply a broadly shared "value, " but the physiological outcome of a specific institutional frame. The problem is that in its mainstream formulation the degrowth alternative shares with the growth-led regime some basic anthropological, political, and institutional pillars. In order to build a real alternative, Romano suggests reviewing degrowth in the light of the dépense notion by Georges Bataille. According to Bataille, our societies have no problem with acknowledging scarcity, but with dealing with the surplus energy that calls us to act for a qualified life. So, in order to erase the growth obsession, we have to ward off the "servile" dimension, i.e., the utilitarian activities needed for the mere reproduction of life, to regain sovereignty, as reflected in the de-thinking subject.

Innovative and provocative, Towards a Society of Degrowth will be of great interest to students and scholars of degrowth, sociology, social anthropology, political ecology, and ecological economics.

1 The sociology of growth

Homo crescens: the anthropology of growth

Why is growth so central? Where does devotion to economic growth originate from in modern society and how is it justified? Which structure, which pattern of social life does it hide? And why is growth a deleterious logic that requires an exit strategy?

As we have already noted, growth is not, in our opinion, a “value” in the present regime. It does not represent in itself an object of pursuit on a social level. This remark is important, since framing growth in the sphere of “values” of a given social consortium is often a consolatory move that generates a strategic fault in contrasting the present regime. If growth is a value, then the battle completely shifts into the ideological field: it will be sufficient to engage in the promotion of alternative values to that of economic growth. A merely “cultural” battle. A “superstructural” struggle, I would say, if I were Marxist. It’s a consolatory move, because I believe, as I will try to show here, that growth is something tougher than a simple value. It is a logic that springs from structural mechanisms, completely impermeable to values. In other words, growth is a device that cuts across the changing value structures of society in space and time. It is possible, in short, to counteract the value of growth and, hypothetically, to defeat it, without affecting the underlying “growth logic,” without producing an exit from the growth regime.

To understand this mechanism, it is necessary to try for a moment to take the liberal narrative seriously. It is literally an “ideological” narrative, in the sense assigned by Marx to this adjective (Marx, 1963). The liberal narrative tends to design a specific image of society, a specific functioning regime, not as the “artificial” fruit of human choices, always changeable and revocable, but as something inscribed in “nature,” something innate. This alleged naturalness, as it is known, acts as a mechanism for legitimizing a particular frame of social relations, from which the dominant classes gain privileges, consolidating their dominion over the other classes. For the liberals, the tension towards limitless self-promotion is inscribed in “nature.” The subject is naturally inclined to pursue his interest without limits, in order to satisfy his needs more and more and better. Growth would therefore be a natural connotation that pertains to the anthropological constitution of the subject and that precedes any constellation of values.

To understand the foreignness of growth to the sphere of values, it is worthwhile looking at the rearticulation of the liberal discourse operated by utilitarianists, in particular by Bentham (1839). In fact, utilitarianism does not simply correspond to the limitless satisfaction of the “material” needs of the subject, assuming their primacy over all kinds of need. Bentham recognizes the multiplicity of human values and goals, affirming that the best of all possible worlds is the one that allows everyone to better pursue the goals and values autonomously selected and processed. The tension towards growth is therefore a mechanism that precedes the choice and the pursuit of values. It is a natural tendency.

This approach must be taken seriously, even if we do not share it. We do not agree, in particular, with the naturalness claim included in the narrative, i.e., the idea that the subject is a serial accumulator of utilities and that this tension is limitless and persistent in the subject. Nevertheless, we share the belief that the growth device precedes the sphere of values. It is not rooted in nature, but it is rather the outcome of a specific socio-institutional structure. If it were rooted in nature, we would have to conclude that it is not changeable and therefore we should surrender to growth. We believe instead that it stems from a particular socio-institutional structure that, of course, precedes cultural values, goals, and options, but which nevertheless has nothing that’s natural or neutral, something that can be changed or undermined (and, in our opinion, has to be undermined because it is extremely harmful to humanity, rather than to the planet).

The naturalness pretense framing growth was first counteracted by sociologists. Max Weber is the author who best questioned the issue. For him, growth is certainly one of the main distinctive features (if not the main one) of “modern Western capitalism” (1947, 1992). More precisely, the tendency to a continuous and almost limitless enlargement of the productive base of the capitalist enterprise emerges as its proper character. The business profit is largely set aside (deducted from consumption) to be reinvested in the limitless increase of the original capital. This is for Weber an unheard-of mechanism in human history. One of the capitalist regime’s basic features is something really new, along with the employment of a formally free workforce, with the rational organization of the productive cycle and with the centrality of market exchange. An astonishing and inexplicable feature, in many ways. Neither “rational” nor “natural,” contrary to what liberal economists claimed. Before the advent of Western modern capitalism, societies produced enough to satisfy the main needs of their members. Neither more nor less. The surplus – as we will broadly see in the next chapters, talking about dépense – was eventually consumed in festive moments, with the prevailing aim of strengthening community ties, or was even destroyed to avoid the growth of inequalities in the distribution of resources within the community. It is only with the advent of modern Western capitalism that this paradoxical tendency to produce much more than is necessary for social reproduction in order to continuously increase the productive base manifests itself. Weber tries to comprehend this curious model of action, considering completely insufficient the “naturalistic” explanation provided by liberalism and utilitarianism. The Weberian interpretation, as it is known, could be found in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1992).

Here, Weber reveals the “transcendent engine” of capitalism. It is assumed that capitalist modernity is based on immanence, on the free expression of men, on adherence to individual needs and will. Any transcendent dimension that exceeds eating and dressing is quashed. From the analytical point of view, Weber challenges this idea: “something more than mere garnishing for purely egocentric motives is involved” (1992, p. 18).

The main determinant of capitalism, its development spring, is not in the subject and his needs, but in a transcendent dimension: a faith dimension. As we know, this is a sui generis faith. In Protestantism, especially in its Calvinist version, the communitarian element is absent. The churchgoer establishes a form of direct communication with God. Everybody is an interpreter of scripture and needs neither intermediaries (priests), nor ecclesial communities. Weber’s strong assumption is that the vocation for growth and accumulation, typical of capitalism, relies on the “predestination doctrine” of Calvinism. Of course, there is not a causal link, but rather a “structural homology” (Boudon, 1969): the form of capitalism is contiguous to Protestant doctrine. Predestination means that a man’s state of grace or damnation is already established at his birth, regardless of his behavior in life. This idea generates a state of uncertainty with respect to his postmortem condition. The inability to influence one’s own destiny by earthly conduct, condemns the believer to an inextinguishable anxiety. For this reason, he desperately tries to recognize in his life some “signs” witnessing his final state in the realm of eternity. Something that attests to his salvation. Thus, success in professional life becomes a privileged sign of the state of grace. In order to self-fulfill this prophecy, Calvinists devote themselves to their professions with extreme severity. Germans call it Beruf, a word that means at the same time “profession” and “vocation.” This is the first effect of the predestination doctrine. The believer does everything to achieve professional success, which has a tangible manifestation (a sign, in fact) in the growth of his assets. Saving and reinvesting as much as possible requires an effective and methodical conduct, always modulated on temperance. While a dissolute conduct, devoted to consumption and waste, immediately appears as a sign of damnation.

The earning of money within the modern economic order, so long as it is done legally, is the result and the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling…. It is an obligation which the individual is supposed to feel and does feel towards the content of his professional activity.

(Weber, 1992, p. 19)

Hence, growth is the outcome of a transcendent hidden factor. More precisely, a sort of “worldly asceticism”: the tension towards divinity is expressed (and this is the originality of Protestantism compared to all other religions) by a stubborn care of worldly affairs. The focus on self-interest, evoked by classical economists and liberalists, is a mere optical illusion. The tendency towards limitless growth and self-promotion has nothing to do with an alleged natural, internal, and immanent attitude of the individual, but it obeys to a specific transcendent injunction. The capitalistic society does not emanate from individuals, from their economic interests and from a general rule of free acting. “In this case the causal relation is certainly the reverse of that suggested from the materialistic standpoint” (Weber, 1992, p. 20).

Correspondingly, also admitting a generic and universal attitude to enrichment that has been manifested in previous ages, this one doesn’t explain the specific features of modern Western capitalism:

This is not wholly because the instinct of acquisition was in those times unknown or underdeveloped, as has often been said. Nor was it because the greed for gold was then, or is now, less powerful outside bourgeois capitalism than within its peculiar sphere, as the illusions of modern romanticists would lead us to believe. The difference between the capitalistic and pre-capitalistic spirit is not to be found at this point…. Absolute and conscious ruthlessness in acquisition has often stood in the closest connection with the strictest conformity to tradition

(Weber, 1992, pp. 21–22)

The origin of capitalism is in a specific mentality connected with the way of life of a specific group of individuals, and this “conception of money-making as an end in itself to which people were bound, as a calling, was contrary to the ethical feelings of whole epochs” (Weber, 1992, p. 34).

The transcendental inspiration feeds earthly life, boosting growth. In the Middle Ages, on the contrary, a form of “transcendental transcendence” prevailed: religious inspiration never touched earth. God’s devotees lost all contacts with worldly affairs. Or, on the contrary, the immanent communitarian dimension, typical of Catholic tradition, became overbearing, trapping the ascetic tension and diluting it in current affairs. Protestants almost unintentionally created a regime of “immanent transcendence,” giving a big push to social dynamics.

The old leisurely and comfortable attitude towards life gave way to a hard frugality in which some participated and came to the top, because they do not wish to consume but to earn, while others who wished to keep on with the old ways were forced to curtail their consumption.

(Weber, 1992, p. 30)

Weber deconstructs the faith in self-interest: if it were true, probably capitalism would have never known its extraordinary growth.

It would seem that with Weber the explanation of the centrality of growth shifts from the “natural” attitude of men to the dimension of their values. The tension towards growth is explained by Protestant doctrine. Then, only afterwards, this specific cultural input is generalized (and it evaporates) thanks to the almost automatic functioning of capitalism that always seeks new ways of exploitation, colonizing new spaces, even those untouched by Calvinist prophecy. But, looking closely, Weber refers to an “ontological” dimension of humankind, that has a psychological manifestation: the desire for existential reassurance, i.e., the conquest of salvation. This motive resonates with a particular structure of the Calvinist doctrine, and it then generates a particular state of anguish from which the tension for growth springs. This is only the original momentum: after which, as mentioned above, capitalism develops almost mechanically.

In short, to explain growth, according to Weber, the natural impulse to self-promotion, to the limitless pursuit of the satisfaction of one’s own needs and to the realization of one’s own interests is not enough. There is a deeper impulse to explain growth, i.e., the search for the eternal salvation as a remedy for the unbearable mortality. The fact that, in the capitalist age, this universal feeling of anxiety for salvation translates in a growth tension (a functional substitute for the old religious consolations) is due, according to Weber, to a specific religious narrative. So, the basic drive for growth is no longer a natural (and universal) attitude but the specific values constellation established in Northern Europe at the dawning of the modern age.

This conclusion is, in our opinion, unsatisfactory. Weber’s hypothesis certainly explains the “exceptional” devotion to growth shown by Protestant societies at the origins of capitalism, but it is not sufficient to explain the “general” growth tension that frames modern society as a whole, at any latitude and throughout its historical development, beyond the specific Calvinist momentum.

In our opinion, the growth attitude is neither natural, nor responds to a pattern of values. Instead, it springs from a specific institutional order. It is the outcome of a particular social structure, or better relational order between institutions, individuals, and nature. Namely, it is the effect of “individualization.”

This leads us to the heart of our argument. The anguish generated by uncertainty about our otherworldly destiny is not channeled towards growth because of the contents and of the structure of Protestant ethics: this unheard-of solution basically derives from a new institutional background, coeval to the spread of Protestantism. Nevertheless, it is true that Protestantism has provided a fundamental contribution to the emergence of the new institutional conditions.

As Merton (1963, 1996) points out, Protestantism was born as a challenge to the Church: by attempting to the ecclesial authority it promotes the erasing of all mediation between the believer and God. This big thrust towards individualization is at the origins, as it is well known, of the scientific attitude. Therefore, regardless of the content of the Protestant doctrine, its most disruptive social consequences derived from the historical circumstances in which it was forged. The stimulus towards individualization generated the growth attitude. From the “horizontalized” structure of society (also due to the anti-institutional genesis of Protestantism) the tension to limitless growth springs out, bouncing off the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. It is not a purely cultural issue, but an institutional trait.

So growth, in our opinion, is not a value among others that miraculously gains hegemony in our societies after an ideological–cultural struggle, but it is the effect of the fundamental structural connotation of modernity, that is the break of the communitarian cohesion and the progressive emancipation of the single particles making up the whole. The tension towards growth is the basic result of individualization. Any attempt to escape from the growth regime that does not touch the individualized structure of modern society is doomed to failure, even when armed with the best intentions, even when it is endowed with a cultural envelope (values, conscience, etc.) that harshly opposes the limitless growth trajectory.

On this point, some of Bataille’s lines, to which we will often return, appear to be particularly enlightening, helping to immediately frame the first effect (in terms of tension on limitless growth) of the gaze “particularization” generated by modernity:

as a rule, particular existence always risks succumbing for lack of resources. It contrasts with general existence whose resources are in excess and for which death has no meaning. From the particular point of view, the problems are posed in the first instance by a deficiency of resources. They are posed in the first instance by an excess of resources if one starts from the general point of view.

(1988, p. 39)

The individualized being is bound by the precarious nature of his existence and therefore obsessed with the problem of his survival. When isolated, he embraces a fundamentally serv...