"Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries." -- Prosperity without Growth, p. 102.
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php I was pondering using the title, "Kooks, cranks, quacks, and charlatans" for a piece analyzing the intellectual immune system that protects folks from ever having to think about ideas that fundamentally challenge the status quo. This goes for self-styled "progressives" too who somehow sense just where to draw the line between heresy and Heresy. Socialism is heresy. Questioning growth is Heresy. The Sustainable Development Commission is an 'independent' advisory body to the UK government. It has produced a report, Prosperity without Growth, that makes the Communist Manifesto look like an invitation to the royal palace for high tea. No, seriously folks, if one takes the 1821 pamphlet, the Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, as the prime inspiration for Marx's analysis of surplus value in Das Kapital (as I do) and if one takes the Fragment on Machines in the Grundrisse as the surpassing of Marx by Marx (as I do) then the analysis and prescription in Prosperity without Growth could be described as surpassing Marx without Marx. So, in a practical sense, the instinct of a "classical economic liberal" blogger is keen: the author and publisher of the report are, in his view, "twits", "twats" and "loons". They need to be denounced, not argued with. Ridiculed. Caricatured. Stereotyped. I expect the liberal Keynesians to be both more restrained and more effective in their response. They'll Ignore it. You can ignore the situation but the situation isn't going to ignore you. "A world in which things simply go on as usual is already inconceivable... " "This may seem an inopportune time to question growth. It is not. On the contrary, this crisis offers the potential to engage in serious reflection. It is a unique opportunity to address financial and ecological sustainability together. And as this report argues, the two things are intimately related." Of course, growth is a one syllable word for accumulation and whoever question growth questions accumulation. To put it crudely, traditional Marxists have dreamed that the festering pork chops of accumulation can be rendered kosher by signing over the deed to its rightful owner, the Proletariat (or its designated guardian, the Intelligentsia, to put it even more crudely). "Expropriate the expropriators!" But to question growth is to question the process of accumulation, not merely to repatriate its spoils. Lunatics! Idealists! Revolutionaries! Luddites! Kooks! Cranks! Twits!... A cynical reading of Prosperity without Growth could easily conclude that it is Not Radical Enough. Or that it is Too Radical. Or that it contains Flaws, Contradictions, Naive Assumptions, Leaps of Faith. Perhaps. So what? So do you. The fact remains that it is an extraordinary document produced by a government advisory organization. Read the report, damn it. Please DO NOT reply to this message without first reading the report. -- Sandwichman
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