Hans,
Thanks for this response. You say Paech enumerates drastic institutional
changes: “ ... shutting down 50%
of industry which is unnecessary, cutting wage labor to 20 hours per
week, abolishing the fractional reserve system and introducing local
currencies with negative interest rates, minimum and maximum incomes.” It
isn’t clear if this is to be voted into law somehow or through voluntary
behavior.
My criticism of this approach, i.e. describing a new economic system which is
to be adopted democratically somehow, is that it goes against all the dreams
people have in hoping for “a better life for my kids.”
Peter Victor’s Managing Without Growth is very good == in Chapter 7,”Scale,
Composition and Technology” makes the case that technology won’t save us, that
only conservation will do the job. I infer from what you’ve said that Paech’s
view is similar. I’m convinced on that part.
But Victor goes on, as I gather from you that Paech does, to lay out all the
things that will have to change to save us from endless growth. He talks about
limiting throughput, controlling population growth, and follows Herman Daly in
beginning with deciding on the scale of the economy we want and figuring out
how to get there. And Victor remarks that even talking about these things can
make a politician unelectable. Here is the most recent list I’ve noticed:
>From Nick Davenport in "New Politics”:
“Here are some other possible elements of an ecosocialist program:
• A shift away from fossil-fuel and nuclear electricity
production; a free basic energy allowance for all individuals
• Free, improved and expanded public transit in all major cities
• Retrofit housing with passive and active solar heating; provide
good-quality housing for all through rehabbing abandoned buildings and
sustainable new construction
• To produce the above-mentioned goods, retool shuttered
factories, providing safe and well-paying jobs; retrain workers who lose jobs
in polluting industries
• A 30-hour workweek with no loss in pay
• A moratorium on all new fossil-fuel extraction; clean up
polluted communities and areas
• Dismantle the global US military; use the money saved for
reparations for sustainable development to countries which have been subject to
US imperialism
• Greater investment in parks, education, and other public goods”
What’s not to like in that list? But only one of them — cutting hours with no
loss of pay — is a vector to making the others politically feasible.
Something similar to Paech’ voluntary action to choose happiness has been
written over and over in recent years, as you have observed earlier. From
Herman Daly and Peter Victor to Juliet Schor in Plentitude to Bill McKibben and
also Gus Speth in two recent books.
These writers hope that people see the light, that sacrificing income and
consumption will make them happier and better off. But people see instead they
would be taking a huge risk, making personal sacrifices that could pay off only
if everyone else did the same.
Designing a whole new economy, on paper, with the end of fractional reserve
banking, new local currencies, etc. and then, after it is explained to the
public, expecting its adoption is not believable.
All of the names I’ve mentioned, including Paech, mention cutting working time
== but within a laundry list of things that must be done. But cutting working
time WITH NO CUT IN PAY should stand alone, because it is the single item
mentioned that brings an easily explainable benefit to working people. It can
be adopted because it has been adopted, all over the world and repeatedly in
the USA.
We don’t need lists, we need a focused demand for a four day week. Cutting
hours is a way to change the aspirations of the society -- and changing the
aspirations of the rich is key to dealing with climate change.
One final remark: It is the rich -- the top 20% in the US -- who are doing the
destructive consumption. Conflating them into a "we" is an error.
Gene
On Mar 2, 2014, at 10:15 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> Gene asks: what is Paech's strategy how to get to this post growth
> economy in which we can no longer take vacation flights to Italy but
> joyfully plant radishes instead.
>
> Paech says, basically, we do not have to try to get there but we will
> get there whether we want it or not -- because economic growth will
> no longer be possible and break down within the next decade or so. It
> is not a matter of wanting to plant food gardens or repair bicycles,
> but this will be a necessity. Those who know this already now have
> the obligation to tell the truth to those who cannot imagine life
> fulfillment other than being consumers, or who do not think someone
> with a University degree should be required to do manual labor to
> produce the things they need. Paech is critical of the modern
> consumer and he thinks their ideas of happiness are socially
> constructed, they are the chains tying them to the capitalist system.
> Now is the best time to practice being happy without being able to fly
> to Italy or New York, and it is very much possible, there is nothing
> in our human nature which makes it necessary to fly to Italy or New
> York.
>
> I think Paech also means: if we are willing to liberate ourselves of the
> consumerist fetish we are able to take the appropriately drastic
> measures to slow carbon emissions quickly enough to prevent the worst
> climate catastrophe. He does not stress this because he does not
> think the masses can be motivated by the threat of future catastrophe.
> Perhaps a minority will change their lifestyles because of this, and
> then they will discover how happy they can be in this simplicity, and
> then this will catch on widely. Paech can point to many examples
> where people do this already, voluntarry simplicity, transition towns,
> slow food etc.
>
> Paech enumerates drastic institutional changes, shutting down 50%
> of industry which is unnecessary, cutting wage labor to 20 hours per
> week, abolishing the fractional reserve system and introducing local
> currencies with negative interest rates, minimum and maximum incomes.
> These changes allow people to break through their isolation and
> rat race, live in communities and trade informally, home grown
> tomatoes against energy from your solar panel etc.
>
> This assumes the masses win against capitalist interests using
> democracy, maybe helped by class betrayal by many capitalists although
> Paech does not use this language. There are indeed countries in which
> climate protection is not a partisan issue but almost everybody in
> parliament supports it. Denmark has the most ambitious energy policy
> of the world which is supported by 99 out of 100 representatives in
> parliament, and Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world
> despite high energy prices. Also in Germany the Energiewende is very
> popular. Paech thinks the Energiewende can be derailed by the
> illusion that growth is necessary and sustainable growth is possible.
> If the masses understand that this is an illusion they will
> pragmatically adjust to the lower levels of consumption because they
> understand how important this is. They will discover that this
> necessity gives them more fulfilled lives than consuming more and more
> stuff and on top of this buying antidepressants because the
> consumption of stuff does not give them what they need. Paech is
> critical of the masses because he thinks the masses can learn from
> this criticism and the masses have agency, democracy is not a sham
> but it is capable of radical changes.
>
> I hope I represent Paech correctly while trying to fill in the concept
> of class which Paech leaves out. It seems, judging fromm the applause
> to his most radical pronouncemennts that he represents the views of a
> good part of student movement in Germany and Austria. To someone
> living in the USA his ideas how to get these drastic changess may
> sound like a phantasy, because here in Utah where I live the
> capitalists have clearly won the class struggle and control the media
> and kept the masses uneducated, and it is not obvious how tenuous
> their position really is. In Europe, Latin America, China the
> situation is not as clear cut. A successful democratic climate
> protection culture and politics is possible, even if the chances are
> not very high. The role of us in the US is to prevent our government
> from subverting and bombing them when they try to go this route.
>
> Hans G Ehrbar
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