The Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan | Hacker News Reader

The Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan

theguardian.com

19 pointsjasonhansel28 comments

I don’t like the idea of reducing production, emphasizing degrowth and not continuously making technological progress. The right thing to do is continue doing those things while finding solutions for climate change which I think we’re already on a path to doing albeit it may not get there before things start going wrong. But we’ll make it and we have to keep going till we reach a point of technological advancement where we can truly eliminate all our problems— and I mean down to how we feel which will surely be modifiable using genetic engineering in the not too distant future.

> emphasizing degrowth and not continuously making technological progress

False dichotomy. A lot of the manufacturing economy is literal garbage (funkopops, plastic rabbit with Easter colors, etc.) or things that can't be repaired, things that won't last as long as they use to because of corners cut, or because of planned obsolescence.

Continued technological progress is a prerequisite for this to work.

Serious question: How do you think continually rising production, consumption and growth is even possible on one finite planet?

Finite planet, infinite universe.

But it would probably be wise at some point to stop growing, lest the alien overseers take out the invasive species.

Was Marx against mass production? I don't think so and a quick Google suggests he wasn't:

> important ‘progressive’ features of manufacturing that can be found in Marx's writings and which are discussed here include: division of labour; socialisation of labour; mechanisation; increasing returns to scale; learning-by-doing; technological advancement; and overall, superior potential for cumulative productivity increases

All this degrowth stuff seems to come from the surge in fossil fuel propaganda that linked carbon with quality of life.

Once you believe that you either say, sod the planet or you try to save the planet/civilization by degrowth.

But since it was never true in the first place, both those reactions are wrong. Just stop doing polluting things.

Yes and no. Marx saw the Luddism movement, which sought a retreat into artisanal and cottage industries through industrial sabotage, as fundamentally misdirected. But the uncompromising need for constant growth is absolutely implicated in the destructive character of capitalism for Marx.

For Marx's own writing on the relationship between capitalism and ecological destruction, look up the phrase 'metabolic rift'.

The most famous Marxist ecosocialist I can think of is John Bellamy Foster. Some of his articles and book reviews for Monthly Review might be a good place to start for a look at ecology in contemporary Marxism: https://monthlyreview.org/author/johnbellamyfoster/

In social ecology and the broader (post-)Marxist ecosocialist movement, Murray Bookchin is a huge deal. He argued for reorganizing cities, agriculture, and industry in specific ways for ecological reasons. You can read a lot of his books and articles for free here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/murray-bookc...

Any of these sources can give you a sense of why Marxists don't think the necessary changes for stopping pollution will ever come from enlightening capitalists who then change their behavior as business owners in light of their ecological education.

Thanks for the links. Some interesting stuff.

I think that 'degrowth' might be one of those 'defund the police' type things, where a good idea is summed up with a short phrase that becomes popular partly because the idea's opponents see it as absurd. I'd never really dug into it as it mostly seemed to be something that reactionaries talked about to rile each other up.

I guess it's like saying GDP isn't a good thing to aim for in society. Some people think that's stupid, because they think GDP measures quality of life, while other people think it's sensible because they think GDP doesn't measure quality of life. Which leads to some confusing conversations. And if 'growth' is implied to be 'growth of GDP regardless of sustainability etc.' then it's the same conversation.

No, Marx wasn't against mass production. He was against a small number of people owning the mass production.

Klaus Schwab strikes again. This is not the professor's idea. This is astroturf. Beware the great reset propaganda.

I had to look it up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Reset

What's wrong with the ideas there? I had a cursory look and don't see any red flags.

That user most likely was only referring to definitions of _The Great Reset_ used by conspiracy theorists, which usually involves top down, calously enforced mass death/poverty to solve climate change or some other issue.

The article is about a different concept: Degrowth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

The idea behind Degrowth is about putting sustainability and human welfare above paperclip-maximizing profits and GDP.

Degrowth is about omnicide, you dolt.

It sounds like you are so unfamiliar with the term that you should take a gander at the linked wikipedia article to give yourself an introductory understanding of the topic.

It's almost like you can't connect an energy crisis, food crisis, monetary crisis, and war crisis with the agenda set forth. It's almost as if you have no memory or ability to strategically connect trend dots on a function.

What you could not make to work for the past 100 years will surely work now.

We've been trying to make exploitative capitalism work for the past 100 years now too, and all we've gotten is mass suffering and rapidly approaching extinction.

Maybe it's time to accept we won't be able to make capitalism work?

> all we've gotten is mass suffering

Do you really think there was less suffering 100 years ago? By what metric specifically?

Over the last 100 years poverty rate has been steadily decreasing, hunger rate has been steadily decreasing, life expectancy has been steadily increasing. All over the world.

Capitalism uplifts both rich and poor.

Capitalist exploitation of our natural resources is causing disasters and untold suffering all over the planet.

Hundreds of millions have been displaced by floods in Bangladesh this year alone. Forests everywhere are on fire. We have "draughts of the century" every year now. Hurricanes are more destructive than ever.

Meanwhile, sweat shop workers building the cheap junk we've gotten addicted to are committing suicide because they can't bear their conditions, a problem so out of hand factories are putting up nets to catch window jumpers.

We're rapidly racing towards the edge of the cliff. If we don't change something drastically, we're all doomed. That's not a system that's working out by any reasonable metric.

For reference the single biggest decline in emissions in history coincides with the fall of the USSR. Perhaps it is best not resurrect such evil

> Capitalist exploitation of our natural resources is causing disasters and untold suffering all over the planet.

And socialist/communist exploitation somehow has doesn't lead to the same consequences?

Isn't China exploiting the same way? Wasn't USSR exploiting the same way? Just don't tell me those aren't true Scotsman.

> sweat shop workers building the cheap junk we've gotten addicted to are committing suicide because they can't bear their conditions

I asked for a metric, not for emotions. Same people were living beyond poverty and dying of hunger 100 years ago. Now a small fraction of those are committing suicide.

Is it perfect? Of course not.

Did it get drastically better in the last 100 years? Absolutely.

Unlike socialism, capitalism doesn't pretend to be a utopia.

Honestly pathos and emotions can guide us in my eye just as much as logos can.

You cannot put a value on a singular human due to the unique ability to grow everlasting on a mental health level.

To ignore the emotional component in this argument and asking for raw numerals in this case, does this really show cause for an argument of growth because the pathos argument is ignored in it of itself?

That doesn't make any sense in my eye. Why use logos to defend mass slavery overseas for production of goods? Isn't that inherent to the actual problems with the capitalistic system? Aren't we as a race beyond Social Darwinism yet?

Your logic I feel is showing cause for the emotional problems we have with capitalism and quite frankly I could care less about any singular country's GDP to begin with in this argument because every country has to help get our earth to net zero carbon by 2050 and quite frankly the world's nations are doing a piss poor job in this. Especially the United States.

I find our current system of capitalism to be no better personally than an unbalanced video game that hasn't been patched in years and is needing serious re-balancing. But what do I know? I'm just another "emotional" human. Meanwhile every nation is equally responsible for the consequences on this on a scale that to me far exceeds "economics."

> Honestly pathos and emotions can guide us in my eye just as much as logos can.

Emotions allow your biases to manifest, letting you focus on thousand suicides and turn a blind eye to famine for millions. And even feel virtuous while doing that. Utterly disgusting.

You are turning a blind eye to hundreds of millions Bangladeshis with this very statement.

Pot, meet kettle.

> Isn't China exploiting the same way? Wasn't USSR exploiting the same way?

Neither of those are green, degrowth systems like the one described in the article. Sure, you can say no true Scotsman, but it's a fundamentally different framework.

>I asked for a metric, not for emotions. Same people were living beyond poverty and dying of hunger 100 years ago. Now a small fraction of those are committing suicide.

Do you have a metric for that? Because it's true that a lot of people were lifted out of poverty in the past 100 years.

However, three quarters of that happened in China, which is explicitly not Capitalist. [0] To call this a triumph of Capitalism is cynical propaganda.

> Did it get drastically better in the last 100 years? Absolutely.

It did. But not because of Capitalism, despite it. The one country that made a difference self-defines as Socialist.

[0] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l...

> But not because of Capitalism, despite it. The one country that made a difference self-defines as Socialist.

You do realize that reforms that led to poverty reduction in China were deeply capitalistic?

Allowing privatization, reducing state control over trade and pricing, reducing state ownership and central planning, opening up markets, allowing foreign investments, etc.

How on earth those reforms were "despite capitalism"?

Exploitation is at the heart of Capitalism, so I'd rather say Capitalism has worked exactly ad intended for the past 100 years

I am reminded of this ancient joke:

Is there a difference between capitalism and communism?

Yes, in principle. With capitalism, man exploits man. But with communism, it is precisely the opposite.

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