Its time to begin to embrace the post-growth economy

Capitalism has brought about a double crunch; a crunch which is both environmental and economic. The cause is capitalism's drive for endless growth which has depleted the key natural resources, oil and gas, that it needs to continue its relentless material accumulation. One of the waste products of growth, carbon dioxide, is threatening to make our planet uninhabitable through climate change, natural resources are becoming exhausted and the biodiversity upon which we ultimately depend is threatened with destruction. Now that economic growth has stalled due to the economic crisis brought about by financial capitalism, politicians and economists are struggling to overcome the problem of massive debt from the banking crisis and get economies back 'on course' by re-starting growth. But what if they can't? And even if they could, would that option be desirable?

Growth, in conventional neoliberal terms, is not the answer. Continued privatisation and deregulation will not bring about growth, nor will it increase prosperity for the many. It will simply increase poverty and inequality. Neoliberalism is an ideology that has failed the people. Its time is over. The problem is that politicians and the ruling capitalist class are unable and unwilling to see an alternative to what has been rightly described as 'business as usual'. It will take political change to bring about economic change and to implement the solutions we need to deal with the unemployment, falling pensions, poverty, homelessness and inequality brought about by 30 years of neoliberalism.

The Green Party and others have proposed means to get us out of the current economic crisis by means of a national investment bank and a Green New Deal which will stimulate the economy and create much needed employment whilst helping to combat climate change. Amory Lovins and others in Natural Capitalism have proposed ways in which we can stave off the problems of growth and resource depletion by means of a vastly increased resource efficiency. All these measures will help us to overcome our present economic and environmental difficulties, but in themselves, are not long term solutions because they still create growth.

In the longer term we will need to adjust to an economy which can create prosperity without growth, because growth will no longer be possible. We simply won't have the energy resources to grow our economies in the way we have in the past 200 years. The Transition movement offers us a compelling model of how we can adjust to a low energy society, and there is no doubt that we can have prosperity without growth just as our forbears did before the advent of capitalism. What we will need to do is adjust our ideas about what prosperity means, and this means weaning ourselves off consumerism. This isn't going to be easy but, in the end, it is going to give us healthier and happier lifestyles. We have much to learn from indigenous communities who have lived in harmony with the land as to how we can develop a more successful management of the commons.

There will be those who argue that all this talk is a kind of madness and by ending growth that we are taking ourselves back to the stone age. They believe that we can continue business as usual by building hundreds of nuclear power stations and finding technological fixes for climate change as Daniel Ben-Ami does here. This is really akin to a science fiction fantasy. It is an example of the denial which affects many people, the sort of stuff that is reflected in Comment is Free when environmentalists who post on prosperity without growth are denounced by commenters as eco-fascists. The reality is that if the arguments of the fantasists prevail we are likely to end up living in caves rather than if we have an orderly and planned transition to a new kind of economy.

Prosperity without growth can be achieved and it does not mean poverty. It means a slower pace of life. It may mean less gadgets, but not no gadgets. It means things that last longer. It means more localism and more community. It means more labour and more labour intensive industries and it means more jobs, more community, more time with family, and much more social justice. But best of all it means the end of divisive, destructive capitalism.

So, have we screwed up Planet Earth?

The simple answer is no, the Earth will be around for a long time after we have perished, but it is beginning to look like we may have screwed up the planet as far as humans are concerned. The latest data from the International Energy Authority paints a disturbing picture. It seems that we are in danger of passing the point where we can prevent a global temperature rise of 2oC and damaging climate change, because we are continuing to build fossil fuel power stations, and that we have only five years left to do something about it.

We are always being told that capitalism can do great things and that the market can solve all our problems. But it is clear that the market is responsible for this particular problem. Its not just the demand for energy that is at the root of climate change but the fact that the energy companies are completely wedded to fossil fuel extraction. We could have gone down the renewable energy route years ago, putting ourselves in a much better position now. But what was the energy companies response to a shortage of easy to extract fossil fuels? Go for the harder and much more environmentally damaging fossil fuels like tar sands oil and shale gas from fracking. With capitalism the desire for profit obviously outweighs the desire to prevent irreversible climate change - here is a quote from Oil and Energy Investor:

Shale is no longer "the future" of natural gas... It's now... And fracking is paying-off in high profits for those who know how to take advantage of it. The reason is simple: Old natural gas wells around the globe are running dry, replaced by new shale wells. 

So now we know. It should come as no surprise, because capitalists put profit before people and the environment. But the energy companies are not just behind our addiction to fossil fuels, they are just as keen to discredit alternatives to fossil fuels, and the very idea of climate change itself. In the UK, Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the front man for something called the Global Warming Policy Foundation, an energy company funded organisation which is dedicated to casting doubt on man made climate change, activities which were exposed in this article in the Independent. Lawson often speaks out about climate change and was apparently responsible for changing the policy of the Daily Mail against climate change.

On my desk I have a copy of a book called 'Natural Capitalism', which was published in 1996. In this book the authors, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L Hunter Lovins, show how, using resource efficiency, we can create more goods using less materials, and much less energy, and recycle the outputs on closed loops that mimic how nature works. The authors have provided us with a solution to climate change and resource depletion. Any company which uses these methods is bound to be much more efficient and competitive than its rivals. But this hasn't happened, certainly not on any kind of scale that will help the planet. The reason why is that capitalism, far from being dynamic and innovative, is inherently conservative. People stick with what they know works, and what they know is profitable, and they also often have large amounts of capital tied up in plant and machinery which is simply out-of-date. I've posted about this problem before here.

Natural Capitalism in action

So what is the answer? Its simple. Governments bailed out the banks. Now they must make changes happen to prevent climate change. The move to renewables  must go ahead and the energy companies must be made to make that change. If they won't do it they must be nationalised. The solar energy Feed in Tariff (FIT) must be maintained at a reasonable level instead of being cut in half as this government is doing. We also have to make companies use resource efficient methods, both through incentives and regulation. We need a Green New Deal to insulate all our homes and create thousands of jobs. The market has failed us, and will continue to fail us. Its time that democratically elected governments  remembered what they are their for - to represent the interests of the people and the common good - not to bow down to the market.