[P2P-F] Fwd: [Commoning] fwd: degrowth - altergrowth - common growth + swecw-list

Wed Mar 30 03:08:16 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dr.woooo <dr.woooo at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 5:44 AM
Subject: [Commoning] fwd: degrowth - altergrowth - common growth +
swecw-list
To: commoning at lists.wissensallmende.de

 Audun Myhra Bergwitz

Hi, thought this might interest
There is some discussion on commons in the thread
https://groups.google.com/group/socialwar-energy-climatewar/browse_thread/thread/c3a8ae576e970b2e?hl=en
and I have a little tag on some writings about commoning here
http://www.delicious.com/dr.woooo/commons
v

FWD:

(hi to the list, I'm Audun, from Oslo, Norway.) This might mostly be
semantics, but I was thinking a bit about degrowth and what it implies. This
might have been discussed to death other places, or on this list before I
joined it, but I'll post it anyway. This isn't a deep analysis, it's just
some random thougths I got after reading this list and related things. While
it seems rather clear that it is impossible to do anything about climate
change or resource depletion without a degrowth strategy, degrowth doesn't
sound like the recipe you'd expect in the face of an economic crisis. Saying
"you need to consume less" to someone who just lost their job... that's not
how you win their hearts and minds, but that's what degrowth sounds like.
Wouldn't it be better to talk about a positive counterstrategy. We're taugth
to think that "growth is good", arguing against that is difficult. People
want "growth", because growth is what puts food one the table (as we do grow
food). Also degrowth says a lot about what we're against, but not so much
about what we want. It is kind of similar to the semantic discussion about
the "anti-globalisation" movement. A global movement against globalisation
was kind of counter-intuitive, so we started to talk about
"alter-globalisation" instead. So one could change from the anti-growth
"degrowth" to the more positive "alter-growth"? Altergrowth implies that the
current growth regime isn't working, but that it is possible to develop
alternatives. Of course, to some degrowth'ers it might be bad to talk about
growth as anything good at all (?), but I think it is difficult to challenge
capitalism if we don't plan to transcend it. We can't create any
post-capitalist world without changing our whole system of production. A
post-capitalist world must be something more than a return to "simpler ways
of living" which is what we get with a post-apocalyptic world. Struggles
against capitalism must aim for more than destroying the institutions of
capitalism, it must create new institutions that are better. If the new
institutions aren't better, why replace the ones we have. Communism and
socialism was popular in the 20th century because it promised something
better than capitalism, capitalism (the West) won against the communists
(the East) because it delivered something better. An anti-capitalist
strategy must go beyond capitalism on the level of production, not only
oppose it with idealism and promises of utopias. New institutions need to
grow economically/socially/politically/ecologically if they are to replace
capitalism, (i.e. "seeds need to grow") hence altergrowth. While
degrowth/altergrowth may imply alot of things, I think that one important
aspect of an anti-capitalist strategy is commonism (
http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-1/commonism/). The commons as an
alternative to both markets and state opens the way for actual new
institutions of production that go beyond capitalism, in other words
altergrowth is common growth. I think talking about common growth opens up
some spaces strategically and tactically. At least it allows us to say
"we'll manage if we stick together; come on lets build something new" to
someone who just lost their job. All slogans and semantics so far, but do
anyone have any thoughts about this? Is this reinventing the wheel, or does
a semantic change allow for better tactics and strategies? best, Audun
  More options Mar 21, 8:21 am

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