Surprisingly this short book had its origins in a meeting between the author and Pope Francis in 2022 where Olivier De Schutter was challenged to "identify certain levels that could be used to eradicate" global poverty. His solutions, that make up this book, place the book firmly in the second type of book about growth - its an attempt to square the circle.
This becomes clear from the preface. de Schutter writes:
Poverty and inequalities should not be seen as an inevitable consequence of the progress of capitalism that we should tolerate before trying to remedy their impacts: they should be seen, instead, as a symptom of an economy that has become ill-suited to the aim of a shared and sustainable prosperity. We must now move from an extractive and predatory economy to a non-violent economy, from an economy that responds to the demand expressed by the superior purchasting power of the rich to one that caters to the basic needds of the poor... etc
The idea that there was a period when capitalism was not ill-suited to providing a shared and sustainable society is laughable. Exploitation and oppression are inbuilt into a system where growth, based on the accumulation of capital, is not an adjunct to modern neoliberal economics, but a central part of how the system functions.
Central to de Schutter's analysis and critique here is not a systematic exploration of the capitalism's exploitation, nor the centrality of accumulation, rather its a vision of capitalism as a system of supply and demand. It makes for a weak analysis both of systemic problems and solutions. Take this annoying sentence: "We all know of people around us who travel by air to exotic holiday destrinations because they drive a hybrid car during the year."
We no, we don't ALL know such people, and even if we did, this tells us nothing about how the system functions. Its a surface level reflection of the way production is geared under capitalism.
The best parts of this book are those that expose the inequality and exploitation, and sheer destructiveness of the modern economy. It is also interesting that de Schutter begins by saying that it is the "world of work" where we need to start shifting this. He paints a charming liberal picture of a world with less work, equal pay, more rest time and workplace democracy. But there's no real attempt to discuss how we, as workers, could win that world. How do we challenge the right and the far-right? How do we take on the capitalist state which exists to perpetuate the status quo and the interests of the system? Is it enough to vote for more progressive parties? And what do you do when those parties go back on their plans and expand the fossil fuel economy in the interest of capitalism. De Schutter has not strategy and no agency of change. Which is why it is so sad that writers like him ignore the work of Karl Marx - not for pedantic ideological reasons, but because Marx's analysis of accumulation led him to identify the working class as the gravediggers of the system.
Tragically this makes this particular work of growth and poverty indisinguishable from a dozen other similar books, and fails to build on the more radical work of the best degrowthers such as Jason Hickel. I'd look elsewhere. My own article here offers some thoughts.
Related Reviews
Kallis, Paulson, D'Alisa & Demaria - The Case for Degrowth
Hickel - Less is More: How Degrowth will save the World
Saito - Slow Down: How degrowth Communism can save the Earth
Pilling - The Growth Delusion
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